National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan; National Priorities List

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 300

[FRL-6411-7]

National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan;

National Priorities List

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of intent to delete the 62nd Street Superfund site from

the National Priorities List: request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region

4 announces its intent to delete the 62nd Street Superfund Site from

the National Priorities List (NPL) and requests public comment on this

proposed action. The NPL constitutes Appendix B of 40 CFR part 300

which is the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution

Contingency Plan (NCP), which EPA promulgated pursuant to section 105

of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and

Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, as amended. EPA and the Florida

Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) have determined that the

site poses no significant threat to public health or the environment

and therefore, further response measures pursuant to CERCLA are not

appropriate.

DATES: Comments concerning the proposed deletion of this site from the

NPL may be submitted on or before September 3, 1999.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be mailed to: Richard D. Green, Director, Waste

Management Division, United States Environmental Protection Agency,

Region 4, 61 Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8909, (404) 562-

8651.

Comprehensive information on this site is available through the EPA

Region 4 public docket, which is available for viewing at the

information repositories at two locations. Locations, contacts, phone

numbers and viewing hours are: Record Center, U.S. EPA Region 4, 61

Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-8909, (404) 562-9530, hours: 8

a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday by appointment only; Tampa/

Hillsborough County Public Library/Special Collections, 900 North

Ashley, Tampa, Florida 33602, (813) 273-3652, hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday through Saturday.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Randa Chichakli, U.S. EPA Region 4,

Waste Management Division, 61 Forsyth Street, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-

8909, (404) 562-8928.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Table of Contents:

I. Introduction

II. NPL Deletion Criteria

III. Deletion Procedures

IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion

I. Introduction

EPA Region 4 announces its intent to delete the 62nd Street

Superfund Site, Hillsborough County, Tampa, Florida, from the NPL,

which constitutes Appendix B of the NCP, 40 CFR part 300, and requests

comments on this deletion. The EPA identifies sites on the NPL that

appear to present a significant risk to public health, welfare, or the

environment. Sites on the NPL may be the subject of remedial actions

financed by the Hazardous Substance Superfund Trust Fund. Pursuant to

Sec. 300.425(e)(3) of the NCP, any site deleted from the NPL remains

eligible for Fund-financed remedial actions if conditions at the site

warrant such action.

EPA will accept comments on the proposal to delete this site from

the NPL for thirty calendar days after publication of this document in

the Federal Register.

Section II of this document explains the criteria for deleting

sites from the NPL. Section III discusses procedures that EPA is using

for this action. Section IV discusses how this site meets the deletion

criteria.

II. NPL Deletion Criteria

The NCP establishes the criteria that the Agency uses to delete

sites from the NPL. In accordance with 40 CFR 300.425(e), sites maybe

deleted from or re-categorized on the NPL where no further response is

appropriate. In making this determination, EPA shall consider, in

consultation with the state, whether any of the following criteria have

been met:

1. Responsible parties or other persons have implemented all

appropriate response actions required;

2. All appropriate Fund-financed response under CERCLA has been

implemented, and no further response action by responsible parties is

appropriate; or

3. The remedial investigation has shown that the release poses no

significant threat to public health or the environment and, therefore,

taking of remedial measures is not appropriate.

If a site is deleted from the NPL where hazardous substances,

pollutants, or contaminants remain at the site above levels that allow

for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure, EPA's policy is that a

subsequent review of the site will be conducted at least every five

years after the initiation of the remedial action at the site to ensure

that the site remains protective of public health and the environment.

If new information becomes available which indicates a need for further

action, EPA may initiate remedial actions. Whenever there is a

significant release from a site deleted from the NPL, the site may be

restored to the NPL without the application of the Hazardous Ranking

System.

III. Deletion Procedures

EPA will accept and evaluate public comments before making a final

decision on deletion from the NPL. Comments from the local community

may be the most pertinent to deletion decisions. The following

procedures were used for the intended deletion of the Site:

1. EPA has recommended deletion and has prepared the relevant

documents;

[[Page 42329]]

2. FDEP has concurred with the deletion decision;

3. Concurrently with this Notice of Intent to Delete, notices have

been published in local newspapers and have been distributed to

appropriate federal, state and local officials and other interested

parties announcing a 30-day public comment period on the proposed

deletion from the NPL;

4. EPA has made all relevant documents available at the information

repositories; and

5. EPA will respond to significant comments, if any, submitted

during the public comment period.

Deletion of the site from the NPL does not itself create, alter, or

revoke any individual rights or obligations. The NPL is designed

primarily for informational purposes to assist Agency management. EPA

will prepare a Responsiveness Summary, if necessary, which will address

the comments received during the public comment period.

A deletion occurs when the Regional Administrator places a Notice

of Deletion in the Federal Register. Any deletions from the NPL will be

reflected in the next NPL update. Public notices and copies of the

Responsiveness Summary, if necessary, will be made available to local

residents by the Regional office.

IV. Basis for Intended Site Deletion

The following site summary provides the Agency's rationale for the

intention to delete this Site from the National Priorities List.

The 62nd Street Superfund Site is located in Hillsborough County,

north of Columbus Drive and just west of 62nd Street on the east side

of the city of Tampa. The five and one-half acre site was formerly used

for the disposal of industrial waste and is located in an area with

mixed residential and light industrial land use. The site is bounded on

the west by a series of what were small, shallow fish breeding ponds.

To the east and south of the site are residential areas interspersed

with light commercial and industrial operations. To the north of the

site is undeveloped land.

In the late 1960's the 62nd Street Site was operated as a borrow

pit where sand was removed for use as fill material. When the borrow

operations ceased, the owner of the site allowed several companies in

the Tampa area to use the excavated pits for disposal of various waste

materials, including construction and demolition debris, cement kiln

dust, battery wastes, waste materials from an automobile shredder and

other wastes. In 1976, the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection

Commission (HCEPC) issued a notice to cease all disposal activities at

the site due to fish kills which occurred in the fish breeding ponds

located west of the 62nd Street Site. However, unauthorized disposal of

household garbage and construction debris continued after that date.

Between 1979 and 1980, the site was investigated by many

contractors on behalf of Peninsular Fisheries, Inc. These studies

concluded that the 62nd Street Site had a hydraulic connection to the

fish breeding ponds and was adversely impacting the water quality in

these ponds. Environmental sampling was conducted periodically by HCEPC

and the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation (FDER) at

private wells, fish breeding ponds, a shallow sand point well installed

by FDER and various other areas surrounding the site. An analysis of a

sample from the shallow sand point well showed levels of chromium which

exceeded the FDER groundwater standard. In December 1982, the site was

proposed for inclusion on the National Priority List (NPL) which became

final in September 1983.

In March 1984, the FDER and EPA entered into a Cooperative

Agreement for FDER to conduct a Remedial Investigation/Feasibility

Study (RI/FS) at the site. For study purposes, the wastes present at

the site were divided into two groups: cement waste and non-cement

waste. The waste consisting of cement, cement kiln dust, and cement

slag was designated as cement waste and the wastes from the automobile

shredder, battery wastes, and other wastes were designated as non-

cement wastes.

The RI was conducted between February 1986 and September 1987. The

major RI activities at the site consisted of the excavation of 12 test

pits and installation of 14 groundwater monitoring wells which were

designed to screen within the surficial aquifer and the underlying

artesian Floridan aquifer. Chemical analyses were performed on soil,

sediment, surface water and groundwater samples recovered from the site

as well as from surrounding areas as part of the RI.

The soil and groundwater investigations at the 62nd Street site

revealed that the non-cement waste containing antimony, arsenic,

cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and polychlorinated biphenyls

(PCBs) could be a potential risk to human health, but the cement waste

presented little threat through direct contact or leaching into the

groundwater. During the RI/FS, unfiltered groundwater samples from the

surficial aquifer at, and downgradient of the site were found to

contain cadmium, chromium and lead at levels exceeding the Maximum

Concentration Levels (MCLs) of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

Chromium was the most common contaminant that exceeded the MCLs and the

second most common was lead.

On June 27, 1990, consistent with the remedy proposed in the RI/FS,

the EPA Region 4 Administrator approved a Record of Decision (ROD). The

chosen remedy specified in the ROD called for:

(1) Solidification/stabilization (S/S) of the battery wastes,

shredded auto parts, and contaminated soils,

(2) No treatment of the on-site cement wastes, since they presented

little threat through either direct contact or leaching to groundwater,

(3) Capping of the entire site with a two-foot vegetative soil

cover underlain by an impermeable membrane,

(4) Extraction and treatment of the groundwater from the surficial

aquifer both on-site and off-site, and

(5) Institutional controls or other land use restrictions to ensure

the integrity of the cap and preclude exposure to the treated soils.

The selected remedy established clean-up levels for contaminants in

the groundwater based on the MCLs for cadmium and chromium. The clean-

up levels for lead were based on the EPA recommended clean-up level for

lead in groundwater. The clean-up criteria for contaminated soils were

based on consideration of health effects and leaching to groundwater.

The EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order in April 1991 to

several Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) including David J.

Joseph Company and Lafarge Corporation. This order directed the PRPs to

develop a Remedial Design for the remedy as described in the ROD and

then to implement that remedy by performing a Remedial Action. A

Consent Decree for the Remedial Design/Remedial Action was signed by

the PRPs in August 1991. The Remedial Design began in November 1991, by

the PRPs' contractor Ardaman & Associates, Inc. The Remedial Design

considered all design elements required by the directives of the ROD

plus a soil-bentonite cut-off wall around the perimeter of the site to

facilitate dewatering during remediation and to reduce long term

migration of groundwater through the solidified materials beneath the

site after remediation.

In September 1991 an Explanation of Significant Difference (ESD)

was issued which revised the lead clean-up criteria

[[Page 42330]]

and provided for the disposal of non-contaminated construction-type

debris.

On June 29, 1995, the ROD was amended to eliminate the requirement

to extract and treat groundwater from the surficial aquifer on-site and

off-site, since monitoring of the groundwater in monitor wells located

hydraulically downgradient of the site revealed the concentrations of

cadmium, chromium, and lead were below the established clean-up levels.

A Pre-Final Inspection was conducted on May 24, 1994, when the S/S

activities were near completion. A Final Inspection was conducted at

the site on June 13, 1995, upon completion of the top cover. As a

result of this Final Inspection, it was determined that all outstanding

remedial tasks noted in the Pre-Final Inspection Report had been

resolved and all outstanding construction activities had been

completed.

As a result of the activities, all objectives of ROD have been met

with the exception of the requirement to extract and treat groundwater

which was eliminated in a ROD amendment on June 29, 1995.

No specific operational tasks are required for the 62nd Street

Site. However, periodic maintenance activities are anticipated to

control vegetation and to repair any erosional damage to exposed areas

of the top cover and ditches. Routine maintenance of the top cover and

drainage ditches will incorporate mowing, weed control and erosion

damage repair. Also, once annually during the month of December,

groundwater sampling and analysis will be performed to confirm that the

cadmium, chromium, and lead concentrations in both filtered and

unfiltered groundwater remain below the respective clean-up levels for

these parameters.

EPA conducted a five-year review on June 18, 1999 and concluded

that the Remedial Action Objectives have been achieved, the remedy is

effective and functioning as designed, and continues to remain

protective of human health and the environment. EPA has determined that

all completion requirements and appropriate actions at the 62nd Street

Superfund Site have been completed, and that no further remedial action

is necessary. Therefore, EPA is proposing deletion of the site from the

NPL.

Dated: July 12, 1999.

A. Stanley Meiburg,

Acting Regional Administrator, Region 4.

[FR Doc. 99-19906 Filed 8-3-99; 8:45 am]

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