Excerpt from the Brunswick Beacon, August 14, 2018. Read full article here.
NAVASSA — The first phase of development of the Kerr-McGee Superfund site in Navassa is still 18 to 24 months away, cleanup officials said at the quarterly update meeting Aug. 9 at Navassa Community Center.
But it’s the first notice residents received that the project is ready to move beyond samples and testing into clean up for the northern section of the site.
Environmental Protection Agency project manager Erik Spalvin told residents who attended Thursday’s meeting the EPA, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the Multistate Environmental Response Trust (Multistate Trust), the three groups leading the cleanup process, were completing the feasibility study to determine cleanup options for the site.
Work could begin in the upper northwest section in the next few months as there is much less creosote contamination, he said.
[…]
In 2015, a $5.15 billion settlement with Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the largest environmental settlement in U.S. history, was reached that provided $92 million for the cleanup of the plant site and $23 million for restoration of the surrounding land and waterway. More than 500 soil, ground water, well and sediment samples have been taken since the project began in August 2015.
Richard Elliott, project manager for Multistate Trust, said most creosote measured in the samples was found along the western edge of the property and the southwest corner where the wood treatment plant processing and storage areas, evaporation and wastewater ponds, and two drainage swales that ran from the plant toward the Brunswick River were located.