EPA proposes new cleanup plan for Le Roy Superfund site

Feb 28, 2024

CALEDONIA - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a new plan to cleanup the site of the 1970 Lehigh Valley Railroad Derailment Superfund site in Le Roy six years after an earlier plan was discontinued.

A public meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Aug. 29 at Caledonia-Mumford High School, 99 North St., Caledonia, to gather input on the proposed new plan. The plan addresses cleanup of groundwater, bedrock, soil, soil vapor and surface water and would modify some components of a 1997 New York State cleanup plan.

The derailment left a 4-mile long plume of trichloroethylene, or TCE, an organic compound that poses significant health risks to humans. Remediation work that had begun at the Gulf Road site during the summer of 2015 was stopped in July 2017 after that effort was deemed ineffective.

“We have been using the time since 2017 to create the proposed plan that we drafted and are currently in a 30-day public comment period,” Mike Basile, public affairs officer for EPA Region 2, said in an email to The Daily News.

The EPA, in a community update on the site earlier this month, said it had determined that “no existing treatment methods can clean up the groundwater to meet standards in a reasonable time. Therefore, EPA proposed to monitor the groundwater and use institutional controls to limit its use and protect people’s health over the long term.”

The proposed plan - estimated to cost about $14.1 million - includes digging up and disposing of contaminated soil off-site, monitoring the groundwater, surface water, soil vapor and indoor air; monitoring and maintaining the current vapor mitigation systems and installing new systems when required, plus connecting new homes that may be constructed over the groundwater plume to the municipal water supply system. Contaminated surface water will be addressed through in-situ (in place) treatment with a streambed cover in a section of Mud Creek.

Institutional controls, including easements in the spill area, public notices and publications to limit exposure to contaminated groundwater and soil vapor are also components of the cleanup plan.

EPA is also proposing changes to the 1997 state cleanup plan which includes eliminating bedrock vapor extraction as a source countrol measure, updating the surface water standard for TCE, and addressing soil contamination beneath Gulf Road by implementing institutional controls to restrict access and to require proper soil management if the roadbed is disturbed in the future.

The original cleanup effort employed a soil vapor intrusion design. The system, which was new technology at the time, involved placing a vacuum on the contaminated soil, extracting and containing the TCE into a filter, and then returning the soils safely back to the ground after samples are tested to determine safety and established TCE soil criteria. Remediation was expected to take two years to complete, the EPA said at the time.

The system operated continuously in the spill area for two years until being shut down in July 2017 after analytical data collected during and after the system’s operation showed that the SVE system was not successful in remediating the soils in the spill area down to the cleanup goals, Basile said.

On Dec. 6, 1970, a Lehigh Valley Railroad train derailed near Gulf and Church roads in the northeast section of the town of Le Roy. The accident spilled about 1 ton of cyanide crystals and 35,000 gallons of TCE. The cyanide was recovered shortly after the derailment. The TCE infilatrated into the ground and was not recovered.

Within weeks, nearby water wells began to show evidence of contamination as residents near the site complained of TCE odors. Eventually, residences in the area were connected to safe municipal water systems.

The detailment contaminants’ migration through the soils headed east and southeast, toward the towns of Wheatland and Caledonia.

The site was added to the Superfund list in 1999.

But site cleanup has been a slow process. It wasn’t until 2012 that barrels were removed, after the site spill gained attention when some tried to connect the spill to tics that had developed among a group of girls at Le Roy High School. Investigation showed that the chemicals were not at fault.

The EPA and state Department of Environmental Conservation have overseen Lehigh Valley Railroad’s monitoring and remediation processes as a result of the spill. In 2003, the EPA and DEC funded a waterline extension that connected about 70 homes with wells that were affected by the contamination to municipal water.

In 2006, under a legal agreement with EPA, Lehigh Valley Railroad agreed to perform an investiation and in 2008, the railroad installed mitigration systems in numerous residences affected by vapors associated with the spill.

In 2012, Lehigh Valley Railroad installed additional groundwater monitoring wells east of Spring Creek to determine whether or not the contamination had migrated further east. Monitoring wells were placed on easement areas along the west side of the Caledonia-Mumford Central School property and on privately owned farm land to the east of the school’s athletic complex. The wells east of Spring Creek have not detected TCE in concentrations exceeding laboratory reporting limits, according to EPA’s proposed cleanup plan, which includes a detailed history of the site.

Then, in 2015, EPA issued a legal order to Lehigh Valley Railroad to clean up soil addressed in DEC’s 1997 cleanup plan. The effort lasted two years and removed 284 pounds of volatile organic compounds, but “the post-SVE data indicated that cleanup goals had not been achieved,” according to the proposed cleanup plan.

The EPA determined that continued SVE cleanup would not attain cleanup levels of accomplish the remedial action objectives, the proposed plan said.

EPA is accepting comments on the new proposed plan through Sept. 18. The 30-day comment period opened Aug. 18.

The proposed cleanup plan is available for review at Caledonia Public Library, 3108 Main St., Caledonia, and Woodward Memorial Library, Wolcott Street, Le Roy.

The plan is also available online at https://www.epa.gov/superfund/lehigh-valley-rr .

Written comments regarding the plan must be submitted by Sept. 19 to Maria Jon, Remedial Project Manager, EPA Region 2, 290 Broadway, 19th floor, New York, NY 10007-1866 or via email to [email protected].

Proposed cleanup plan for Le Roy Superfund site by The Livingston County News on Scribd

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