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SFUND RECORDS CTR
0222-00760
SFUND RECORDS CTR
88015309
HASSAYAMPA LANDFILL SUPERFUND SITE
Public Meeting Thursday, June 11, 1992
Buckeye Community Center 201 East Centre
Buckeye, Arizona
REPORTED BY JoANN KLEMM
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INDEPENDENT COURT REPORTERS 3030 North Central Avenue
Suite 707 Phoenix, Arizona 85012
(602) 234-0912
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A G E N D A
3.
Opening Remarks Introduction
Site History Site Contamination Proposed Plan for
Cleanup
Questions and Answers Comments on Proposed Plan
VICKI ROSEN Community Relations Coordinator, EPA
TOM DUNKELMAN Remedial Project Manager, EPA
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PUBLIC MEETING ON THE
HASSAYAMPA LANDFILL SUPERFUND SITE
was taken on June 11, 1992, commencing at
7:46 p.m., at the Buckeye Community Center,
201 East Centre, Buckeye, Arizona, before JoANN
KLEMM, a Notary Public in and for the County of
Maricopa, State of Arizona.
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Buckeye, Arizona June 11, 1992 7:46 p.m.
MS. VICKI ROSEN: My name is Vicki
Rosen, and I am the community relations coordinator
for the Hassayampa Landfill Superfund Site out of
EPA region 9 in San Francisco.
With me is the remedial project
manager for the site, Tom Dunkelman, and Nate Lau,
who is the chief of the enforcement section of EPA.
We have a number of State people here as well, and
I will introduce them, and you can talk to them
afterwards if you care to.
Jeffrey Bruneau, he's a hydrologist,
and Michele Kennard, also a hydrologist. Jeff
Kreton, he's the State remedial project manager.
Chuck Graf, he's the manager of the ground water
hydrology section. And Linda Pollock, she's from
the Arizona Attorney General's Office. And Al
Brown, he is the manager of the remedial sites.
Our purpose here tonight is to tell
you what we know about the Hassayampa site and what
we propose about cleaning it up. In addition, we
will open the floor to your questions and your
comments on both the EPA proposed remedy and any of
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the alternatives that we examined in coming up with
our proposal
Your comments will be for the record.
And we have a court reporter here who is making
sure that your formal comments are accurately put
down.
You do not have to give your comments
verbally here tonight. You can mail them in to Tom
by June 30, and that's fine. Or you can write them
out here and leave them with us here tonight. Any
way you like to do it, if you care to make a
comment, that will be fine.
Your comments will be responded to in
what is called a responsiveness summary, which
becomes part of what is known of the record of
decision for site remedy.
If you're going to give a formal
comment as opposed to just a question on the site
and you would like it to be a formal comment for
the record, please indicate such when you get up to
speak, and clearly state your name so JoAnn here
can get it down and make sure that your comment
is actually known to be a formal comment on the
plan.
The agenda tonight will consist of
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Tom giving a brief presentation on-site history,
the site contamination as we know it, and EPA's
preferred remedy for cleanup. After that we will
open the floor up to your questions and comments.
That's about it. Thank you very
much, and now Tom will give a brief presentation.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I think we have a
small enough crowd here tonight, as I am going
along if you have a question or I didn't explain
something clearly, raise your hand, and I will try
to explain it a little better.
My talk tonight I want to touch on a
few subjects. First, I'll talk a little bit about
the history of the site, and then I want to tell
you about the contamination at the site, and
finally I want to describe EPA's proposed plan for
cleaning up the site.
Before I get into those I want to
emphasize one thing and that is that we do have
soil and ground water contamination at the site,
but currently the contamination at the site does
not pose a threat to the health of the residents
living near the site.
I suppose the first thing I do is
make sure everyone knows where the Hassayampa
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Landfill is. It's shown here, down in the lower
corner of this figure. For your reference we also
have Arlington, Hassayampa, and of course right now
we are in Buckeye.
The Hassayampa River, which is right
here, flows about three-quarters of a mile east of
the site. It's a temporal river, which means it
only flows during certain portions of the year.
Let me tell you a little bit about
the history of the site. Hassayampa Landfill is a
municipal landfill. It's still operating as a
municipal landfill. It's been active since 1961.
For a brief period of time that
lasted about 18 months the volume of hazardous
waste at the landfill greatly increased. This came
about because of the City of Phoenix landfills were
closed to hazardous wastes. On an emergency basis
the hazardous wastes were brought out to the
Hassayampa Landfill.
The wastes were placed in unlined
trenches in the northeast corner of the landfill.
So there was a deliberate attempt to keep the
hazardous wastes separate and away from the rest of
the landfill. The hazardous waste portion of the
landfill occupies about a 10-acre portion of
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the landfill in the northeast corner of the
landfill.
The State kept accurate manifests of
the type of wastes that came into the landfill.
And as a result we have a pretty good idea .of the
types of wastes that are in the landfill.
This figure is a map of the hazardous
waste portion itself. There is a fence around the
hazardous waste area. The wastes themselves, as I
mentioned, were placed in pits, some of which are
shown here.
And as I started to say the State
kept manifests of the type of wastes that went in.
You can see generally the type of wastes that came
into the landfill.
I think the important thing to see on
this slide is that there was a significant volume
of waste that came in, more than 3 million gallons
of liquid hazardous waste, and more than
3,000 gallons of solid hazardous wastes were placed
in the landfill.
In 1981 the State installed three
monitoring wells at the landfill. One of these
came up contaminated. In the next several years
preliminary investigations were conducted at the
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site. And in 1987 EPA placed the site on its NPL,
which stands for National Priority List, which
is a list of the nation's most hazardous waste
sites.
In late 1988 EPA reached an agreement >
with several of the companies who wastes were
placed in the landfill. There were actually nine
parties who signed this agreement. Eight of them
were companies whose waste went in the landfill and
the ninth was Maricopa County. In addition there
were about 70 companies in toto that contributed
funds to the study that was to be conducted at the
site .
I think it's important to keep in
mind that the study that's been conducted to date
was financed by and performed by these companies.
Throughout this period the two State agencies DEQ,
Department of Environmental Quality and DWR,
Department of Water Resources, and EPA directed and
oversaw the investigations that were being
conducted.
As I mentioned, there is
contamination at the site. We have soil, soil gas
and ground water contamination. By soil gas I mean
that within the soil column there are void spaces
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or open area where vapors can accumulate. We are
seeing this soil gas contamination. Ground water,
meaning subsurface water.
Before I talk specifically about the
types of contamination, I want to spend a couple of
minutes talking about the geology of the site.
This is a geologic cross-section, which means it's
a cut-away view of the geology beneath the site.
The top 60 feet or so beneath the
site consists of loosely consolidated sediments.
We refer to these as the upper alluvial deposits.
Below that is the basaltic lava flow,
which is related to the Arlington Mesa, which is a
low lying hill out at the site. The salt unit is
about 15 to 20 feet thick.
Below that a relatively thick pile of
sediments, this area right here. These sediments
are water-bearing, which means they are an aquifer.
We have divided this aquifer into two units. Unit A
and Unit B. It's sort of an artificial division.
There is nothing separating these units. The
difference is that Unit A, which is the shallower
unit, is finer grain than Unit B. As a result, the
water in Unit A tends to flow differently than
Unit B.
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Underlying those sediments is the
Palo Verde clay, which is a relatively thick clay
unit which separates the overlying sediments from
those below it.
Why don't I describe the pits that we
have out there. Currently the pits are flush with
the ground surface and have been filled. We did
drill soil borings through these pits and found
that the pits generally appear to be about 10 feet
deep,
And several of these pits we noticed
sort of a colored stained area. This was typically
present in the depth of around seven or eight or
nine feet. We have taken soil samples in the pits
and compared these soil samples to health base
guidance levels that are proposed by the State of
Arizona.
There was only one pit that we found
contamination which exceeded these guidelines
proposed by the State of Arizona and that was Pit
Number 1.
This table presents a comparison of
the contaminations within Pit Number 1, below Pit
Number 1 to the Arizona guidelines. So this column
shows the chemicals. This column shows the
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concentration within the pit. And this column
shows the concentration in soil beneath the pit,
and this column shows the State guideline.
You can see there are several
chemicals which exceed these guidelines. In fact,
we see higher levels of contamination in the soil
beneath the pit.
As I mentioned we also have soil gas
contamination. Soil gas, again, are the vapors
that accumulate in the open spaces between soil.
We see several areas of soil gas contamination.
The most notable is right around Pit
1, which is right here. We also see an area of
soil gas contamination to the north of Pit 1, and
we see a couple of other areas of soil gas
contamination.
We also have ground water
contamination. Let me explain this figure to you.
We have several wells that have detected ground
water contamination. These wells are screened in
Unit A, which was the shallower of the two units.
We are not seeing ground water contamination in
Unit B.
The shaded area represents the area
within which the ground water wells have found
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contamination. So this is an approximation of the
area that we would attempt to clean the ground
water.
There is no scale bar on this figure,
but it's roughly about 500 feet across.
The nearest residential well is about
half a mile to the south from here. Ground water
flow direction is to the south. So there is
currently no threat to that well. If ground water
were allowed to continue to migrate over a long
period of time, it's conceivable that there could
be a potential threat to downgrading wells.
This table shows the chemicals
detected in the ground water at levels above EPA's
cleanup standards. These chemicals generally fit
in the classification as volatile organic compounds
VOCs. We have several chemicals that exceed the
ground water guidelines. These are all in Unit A,
which is the shallower unit.
That's really all I wanted to say
about the contamination at the site. I want to
take a minute to explain to you EPA's proposed plan
for cleaning up the site.
And again, we have this figure which
is a cross-sectional view, so it's showing you the
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subsurface at the site.
First of all, we have a ground water
component of our remedy, and we will clean
contaminated ground water in Unit A by using a
series of extraction wells. Extraction well is
shown here, and basically it will pump the
contaminated water from Unit A.
Right now we are estimating that on
the order of four or five extractions wells will be
necessary. But that figure will be determined
during remedial sign.
Treated water is pumped out of Unit A
and up into a treatment unit, on-site treatment
unit, in this case an air stripping tower.
Let me explain how that works.
Basically the contaminated water is allowed to
filter down through the tower. At the same time
air is blown up through the tower, and in the
process the contamination is transferred from the
water to the air. The air then leaves the top of
the tower.
In this case Maricopa County has very
strict guidelines about the levels of air
contamination that can be released. We don't
anticipate that we will exceed these levels coming
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off the top of the air stripper. But in the event
we would we would add treatment to the air that is
being emitted.
The treated water would come out of
the air stripping tower and be reinjected on site
to the deeper unit. Unit B. At this time we
anticipate that probably one reinjection will be
sufficient, but again, that's an issue that we will
decide upon in the design phase.
We also have several monitoring wells
in the ground to make sure that the ground water
remedy is effective and that cleanup is occurring.
So that's the ground water component
or remedy.
Another component of our remedy
involves a cap. And that's illustrated right
across the top here. The purpose of the cap is to
prevent people from coming in contact with
contaminated soil. The purpose of the cap is also
to prevent infiltration of rainwater and rainwater
moving down through the contaminated sediments.
The cap will have to meet federal
requirements for maintenance and for design
criteria. Our remedy also includes soil vapor
extraction. The purpose of the soil vapor
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extraction is to move the soil gas contamination
that I talked about.
Basically the soil vapor extraction
includes several vents. These vents are
essentially slotted pipe that's placed in the
ground and a vacuum pump is hooked up to the pipes
and basically sucks up the contaminated gas from
the ground. The gases would then be treated on
site.
Our remedy also includes access and
deed restrictions, which restricts future uses of
the property. That's more or less the remedy as we
have it now.
One additional requirement that we
have in the remedy is that additional investigation
will be performed during the design stage in order
to help us fine-tune the design of our cleanup
systems.
So I think that's about all I wanted
to say on EPA's proposed plan for cleaning up the
site .
The last thing I want to do is talk
about our schedule for the coming months and years.
As Vicki mentioned, we have a public comment period
which ends June 30th. After that time we will
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collect the comments, and EPA will respond to the
comments it receives.
As Vicki said, we will respond to
this in a document known as responsiveness summary.
The responsiveness summary is attached to the
record of decision. The record of decision is the
official document in which EPA selects the remedy
for the site, and we hope to complete this document
in July
After that we will enter into a
period of negotiations with the companies whose
wastes were placed in the site. The purpose of
these negotiations is hopefully to have these
companies agree to perform and pay for the remedy
that EPA selected. We hope to complete these
negotiations in the fall.
After that we move into a design
phase where contractors will design the cleanup
systems that I have explained.
And then finally we would move into a
construction phase. We would hope to begin
construction within about a year from now.
I think I skipped over the fact that
we are estimating that our cleanup remedy would
cost about $6 million.
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Let me finish by saying a few words
on how long we expect the cleanup to take. Once we
begin construction, which we hope to do in about a
year, we would expect that it will take about six
months to construct the cap. Soil vapor extraction
system, we hope to begin construction on in about a
year. We probably need to run for about three
years.
And then finally the ground water
cleanup remedy, which we hope to begin construction
on within about a year, would take probably up to
20 to 30 years to clean the ground water.
That's about what I have to say
tonight. Vicki is whispering to me. I can't hear.
During the design and construction
periods that I talked about, we will continue to do
community relations. That will probably be in the
form of fact sheets that will be mailed out to the
public. If your name isn't on our mailing list,
you might want to talk to Vicki and get your name
on it, and we can mail these facts sheets to you in
the future to keep you informed about what was
going on
MS. VICKI ROSEN: I would like to add
in community relations we have an 800 number, and
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you can call us at any time and leave a message for
me and you don't have to call long distance and
I'll get right back to you.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: Will we get a
copy of this proceeding tonight?
MS. VICKI ROSEN: No. You will get a
copy of the minutes, not precisely a transcript.
This is just a transcript for our use
to be able to address the comments.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: It's nice to have
what he said,
MS. VICKI ROSEN: If you call me and
want a copy of the transcript, I'll send it to you.
Anybody who wants it, they can call me, and I will
give you a copy. But normally we don't.
A VOICE: It's easier to get
everything he said word for word.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Vicki wrote me a
note, and reminded me that I skipped over something
here. And that is I forgot to tell you about the
other alternatives that are being considered for
the site.
Alternative Number 1 is a no action
scenario and that's where we would basically take
no action on the site. We are required to evaluate
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this alternative by law. We don't think in this
case that this is a satisfactory alternative.
The ground water contamination could
still pose a threat to people. People could also
come on the site and be potentially exposed to
contamination at the site. That's why we
eliminated that first alternative.
Alternative 2 is similar to the
alternative that we are proposing, which is access
and deed restrictions, includes a cap and also
includes the ground water pump treatment and
reinjection
Alternative 2 does not include soil
vapor extraction that we talked about. We feel
this is an important component of our remedy
because it prevents the soil vapor contamination
from continuing to contaminate the ground water.
Alternative 3 is the alternative that
we described a few moments ago. It's EPA's
proposed remedy which includes access and deed
restriction, cap, soil vapor extraction and the
ground water pump and treatment.
Alternative 4, again, is very similar
to our proposed alternative. Includes access and
deed restrictions, cap, soil vapor extraction and
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the ground water treatment. The thing that this
alternative also includes is excavation and
treatment of the soils from Pit 1, which was the
one pit where we had soil contamination exceeding
the State standards.
We don't feel that this extra step is
necessary. The alternatives that we proposing
provides protection with respect to these soil
contamination through the use of a cap. By placing
the cap there people can't physically come in
contact the soil.
The soil vapor extraction would
prevent the soil gas contamination from continuing
to contaminate the ground water. We really don't
think that extra step is necessary. That's
basically the rationale why we are proposing
Alternative 3. With that I will quit.
MS. VICKI ROSEN: Will you explain
that ARARS means up there?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Vicki is
pointing to ARARS means Applicable or Relevant and
Appropriate Requirements. These are basically the
existing laws that EPA -- that the remedy has to
comply with. There are federal laws. There are
State laws. There are also local county
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requirements.
And the purpose of that column is to
show that basically Alternative 3 and Alternative 4
meet all of the existing requirements. Actually.
I think this table is probably incorrect. I think
Alternative Number 2 would also meet these
requirements. Alternative Number 1 clearly would
not.
There are also two columns here which
you may be wondering about. We considered two
ground water treatment options. One was the air
stripping, which I explained, and that is shown by
these costs.
And the second was ultraviolet
oxidization, which is a different ground water
treatment technology. It's more expensive, and
both the ground water treatment technologies obtain
about the same level of cleanup. We really didn't
think the extra expense was needed here.
Thanks for the reminders. Let's try
the questions if you have them.
MR. DICK GLEASON: Put your previous
slide on where you showed the two levels of water.
I am Dick Gleason, and I live one
mile north of this Hassayampa site.
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If I understood you correctly, you
are going -- you think you would have to pump water
from Unit A and treat it in Unit B for 30 years; is
that correct?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: The modeling that
we have done to date shows that it could take up
to 20 to 30 years to fully clean up the ground
water.
MR. DICK GLEASON: To me I would
think that 30 years the probability of a lot of
this contaminated water escaping to the south --
wouldn't it be wiser to pump a larger volume in a
shorter number of years to try to grab as much as
you can?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I asked that same
question. The problem here is that Unit A consists
of fairly fine grain sediments. So there is only a
certain amount of water you can pump before your
wells dry up.
The question is why not add two or
three times as many wells and in theory hopefully
quicken the time that it takes to clean up the
ground water. In fact, that's one of the issues
that we will be investigating during design, you
know, can we add more wells, can we pump at a
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higher rate and shorten that period?
Right now the people who have done
the modeling are saying no. But, you know, that's
one thing we are going to find out.
MR. DICK GLEASON: Let me add one
more thing. I think you also stated that as time
progresses you are finding that the contamination
is getting deeper, correct?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: No, I didn't say
that. We have wells installed in this Unit B and
to date none of the wells installed in that unit
are coming up as contaminated.
MR. DICK GLEASON: These wells in
Unit B, it looks to me like the well in Unit B it's
halfway in the Unit B area. Is that where you are
actually pumping from?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: No. This is --
MR. DICK GLEASON: Where is the
volume of water? How many wells do you have in
Unit B?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Let me take a
step back. Right now we have monitoring wells at
the site. I don't recall exactly how many. I
would say I think 20.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: I think your
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information said 12 -- 9 on the perimeter and 3 on
the internal.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Could be. It
seems there are more than that. I think there are
more around 20 I would say. So these are
monitoring wells. These are not pumping wells. We
don't have any extraction wells.
MR. DICK GLEASON: But you are
monitoring the wells. Are you monitoring from
different depths throughout the Unit B?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Yes, and the
wells are carefully installed so that they are
monitor properly from Unit B to Unit A.
MR. DICK GLEASON: I am trying to
make a point. The individual wells since you have
several of them, 20 or whatever -- the individual
wells are being monitored at different levels, not
just one level.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Correct.
MR. LARRY HEISLER: Could you pump
the aquifer dry there?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I think we could
pump Unit A dry. I should probably rephrase that.
We could certainly pump the wells that are
installed in that unit dry. You know, I am not
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sure if we could completely pump Unit A dry.
Probably if we had enough wells pumping enough
water we could. Eventually if you stop pumping,
the water is going to return.
Does that answer your question.
MR. LARRY HEISLER: Not really.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Try me one more
time
MR. LARRY HEISLER: This aquifer, do
you have a picture of the aquifer, of the periphery
of the aquifer?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Of the lateral
extent? I think it's pretty extensive. I don't
think -- as I mentioned, these are sort of
artificial divisions. There is nothing physically
separating the two units. There isn't a clay layer
there that physically separates the two units.
You could not pump -- you could not
pump the aquifer dry. I think locally you could
pump Unit A so that your wells were empty. I think
locally maybe you could pump Unit A dry, but that
would be in the local vicinity of the wells.
I get the feeling I'm still not
answering your question.
MR. LARRY HEISLER: No, but I'll
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settle for that. I am concerned about the quantity
of water.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Let me say
something about the quantity. You know, as I
mentioned, we are estimating now that we would have
about five extraction wells and our best guess is
that these wells would be pumping at five gallons
I
per minute.
So, you know, you can do some simple
calculations and get a feel of what type of
quantity that is. But 25 gallons per minute is a
ballpark figure of what we are talking about.
MR. DICK GLEASON: Is that 25 gallons
total?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Total.
MR. DICK GLEASON: Of all pumps?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Yes.
MR. DICK GLEASON: 25 gallons a
minute is nothing.
A VOICE: Garden hose.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I think that
gives you some idea of why it takes so long to
clean this particular area of ground water
contamination because the sediments are very fine
grain. It's going to take a while to pump the
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contamination out.
MR. DICK GLEASON: I have put pumps
in this area for years, and I can guaranty
25 gallons a minute you will never run a well dry.
And that's all your wells, right? That's not one
well?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Right.
MR. DICK GLEASON: Boy. I mean this
area down here has a lot of volume of water. We
are not talking about five gallons in a minute in a
well that trying to go down. It's got a lot of
volume in these wells here.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Let me put this
picture back up. We are seeing that -- what we
have seen to date is that the area of ground water
contamination is pretty small. This shaded area is
500 to 600 feet across. You know, so we have
really a pretty small area of ground water
contamination.
Oftentimes at large hazardous waste
sites you will see a ground water area that is on
the order of a mile or two long. That's not the
case here.
What we are seeing to date is that we
have a very localized ground water problem. And
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by pumping several wells at a relatively small
volume, that we feel we can clean this area up.
MR. JIM DEROUIN: When the extraction
wells in Unit A are turned on, will that have a
tendency of preventing ground water in Unit A from
moving off-site.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Yes. It will --
I think you all heard the question. We'll have a
series of extraction wells, and once you turn the
wells on, it will prevent the contamination from
continuing to migrate downgrade in.
It will also prevent any
contamination from moving deeper down into Unit B.
It will do that. It will sort of isolate the
contamination.
MR. DICK GLEASON: You are assuming
that all the wells on it will be drawing all the
water in from escaping. I got to say there is so
much volume of water here that once you turn the
wells on, the dynamic level is not going to drop
very much in the well to begin with at five gallons
a minute. So therefore you are not really
affecting the water away from those wells at all.
It's going to spread.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Well, I don't
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think I agree with you. Again, we have a very
small area. By placing the wells correctly, we
feel that we can deal with this small area of
ground water contamination. I think you are
probably --
You know, you say that you have
installed wells. The wells you may have installed
may be down into the deeper units, which are
courser grain, and you have higher ground water
flow rates, which are capable of storing much
greater volume of water.
So, you know, I expect that the wells
you have installed are probably not screened as
this finer grain unit that we are talking about.
MR. STEPHEN QUIGLEY: Were aquifer
tests done to confirm these rates.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Yes. Sounds like
a loaded question. Aquifer tests were done to
confirm these pumping rates. We have done
modeling. We think these predictions are accurate.
Within the next year we will do more ground water
modeling to confirm that the number of wells and
the pumping rates we are talking about are
appropriate
MR. DICK GLEASON: My question is has
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the EPA has ever successfully cleaned up a site?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Yes, we have, as
a matter of fact. Don't ask for a specific name.
MR. DICK GLEASON: You can't name
one?
Nate?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Can you name one.
MR. DICK GLEASON: I know you have
spent billions of dollars.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I'm sure you have
seen that we get beat up in the paper a lot. We
have, you know, X-hundred of Superfund sites in the
country, and I think there are 10 or 12 that have
been cleaned up officially.
But the problem is that once your
contamination gets into the ground water, it's just
a fact of life that it's going to take a long time
to clean it up. And so that's through no fault of
EPA. It's not through ineffective cleanups. It's
just a fact of life, that it's going to take
decades at many of these sites to clean up the
ground water. So that's something that we are
faced with.
MS. VICKI ROSEN: I would like to add
what many people don't hear about in terms of
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Superfund cleanups and which are under the
Superfund law is that we are able to do these
cleanups through the Superfund law. They are
called remedial actions.
In many, many sites we have been able
to go in take away the imminent threat to public
health and get it out of there. But it's not
considered a total cleanup because it's not on the
national priority list so it's not taken off.
All of these actions that happen
nationwide all the time which are totally removing
imminent threats to public health and which are
directly part of the Superfund law.
Even in a long-term remedial action
it's going to take years, decades. The first thing
we do is we make sure that nobody is drinking
contaminated ground water, that nobody's health is
imminently threatened, and we stop the spread of
contamination. And that's doing an awful lot.
There is a lot of happening that the public really
doesn't know about.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: More questions?
MS. DORIS HEISLER: If everybody is
through with questions, I just have a statement
that I would like to read.
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MS. VICKI ROSEN: And Doris you are
also going to give this comment letter to us?
MS. DORIS HEISLER: I thought this
was probably the easiest to way to do it, and I
have some questions in here that maybe you can
answer if you haven't already. I am projects
director for our landowners association out here.
I am referring to the Hassayampa Landfill Superfund
Site located in the Maricopa County Tonopah
comprehensive land use plan area, approximately
40 miles west of Phoenix near Arlington, Arizona.
"Dear Sirs and Mses: As a
landowners' association in formation since 1976 for
the protection and betterment of our valley and
communities, we have reviewed the information sent
to us concerning your risk assessment and remedial
investigation reports. And are pleased that the
Hassayampa Landfill is finally receiving the
attention is deserves for cleanup action.
"It has long been of great concern to
us that hazardous materials had been permitted to
be placed in the landfill without our knowledge
when it was taking place in 1979 and 1980, and that
other materials are still being Iandfilled there
that are felt by many people to be undesirable and
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questionable as to risk and possible development of
future health problems.
"Due to the fact that the ground
water is shallow in that location, being
approximately 70 feet below ground level in some
areas, it could quite easily become contaminated,
and your reports bear out information that it
indeed has already been contaminated in some areas
beneath and downstream from the landfill site.
"We have been working with Maricopa
County for several years to get the Hassayampa
Landfill closed down and to have the site converted
to use as a transfer station whereby we could
continue to take our household waste, tree and lawn
clippings and debris for disposal there for
transferral to the Southwest Regional Landfill
south of Buckeye, Arizona, when it becomes
operational, but where the Hassayampa Landfill
would not accept any more materials, asbestos, dead
animals or liquid waste, et cetera to be Iandfilled
on site.
"It was assumed that the hazardous
waste materials and contaminated soils would be
removed from the Hassayampa site during the
Superfund cleanup, and that the ground water, et
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cetera, would be treated in some manner to remove
the contaminates of the VOCs and SVOCs from it.
"Being unfamiliar with some of the
technological methods now suggested by you, it is
difficult for us to make knowledgeable assessments
of those methods.
"We would like you to explain the
procedures to us, including the addition your
fourth option of Pit 1 Excavation/Soil Washing. We
would like to also know what the cap would consist
of, a protective plastic liner, compacted soil or
both. And would the cap cover the complete
landfill area or just over certain areas containing
hazardous wastes? If so, which ones?
"We do favor the treating of the gas
accumulation now present in the subsoil and also to
deed restrictions being placed on the property to
prevent future use of the landfill property.
"There is a great concern with the
risk factor now present at the Hassayampa Landfill,
and we feel that you should employ whichever
methods would offer the most health and safety
protection to the public, whether or not those are
required by law to meet regulatory standards."
And I thank you for the opportunity
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to comment on this issue.
Anyway, could you answer now what
type of cap you are going to use?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: That sounded like
the most specific question.
The cap that we are recommending
right now would have to meet the requirements of a
federal law which is called RCRA, which stands for
Resource Conservation Recovery Act, and would have
to meet Part 265 of that law, which probably does
not mean a whole lot to many people in the room.
But basically that law sets
requirements on the design and the maintenance
requirements of the cap. The requirements are not
entirely rigid. They don't come out and say you
have to have a cap that consists of this material
and has this permeability, and so it's not that
firm.
But at the minimum we are talking
about soil cap, which is compacted to a certain
compaction and attains a certain level of
impermeableness, if that's a word, basically
prevents water from migrating down.
Potentially the cap could also
include compacted clay layers. Potentially it
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could also include a synthetic or a plastic
membrane, but those exact design criteria will be
decided during the remedial design stage.
But like I said, at a minimum it will
be a compacted soil layer, and potentially it will
include clay or synthetic membrane.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: Where would it be
located.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: The entire
10 acres of the hazardous waste area.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: You were talking
about the way that you processed this through your
water towers when you were going to discharge this
water and have if treated and recharged to the
ground.
And it made comment in your article
that you were going to -- that this passes
apparently through a bedding material, and the air
is apparently shot through the bedding material to
remove the solids that have been dissolved in the
water
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: To remove the
chemicals that are dissolved in the water, yes.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: I just wondered
how this process was set up. I see on this you had
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actual towers that are placed above.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: It's called an
air stripping tower, so it's a tower. In this case
I can't tell you the height of the tower. That's
often a critical design component of these towers.
Basically it's filled with plastic
beads, and as the water drips down through the
tower, it collects on the beads. The purpose of
the beads is to increase the surface area of the
water. The more surface area you have, the more
that the air can come in contact with the water,
and in the process the contamination that's in the
water is transferred to the air.
You know, I mentioned that the air is
then released from the air stripping tower.
Maricopa County has a strict requirement on that,
and that specific requirement is that the emissions
can't exceed three pounds per day of EOCs.
We have done some modeling to date
which is predicting that the emissions won't exceed
that number of three pound per day, but in the we
found that it was exceeding that, we would require
that treatment be added to that air stream. The
most common form of treatment that is added is
carbon absorption.
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MS. DORIS HEISLER: These are going
to be large towers, small? What are you referring
to as towers?
have
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Steve, do you
MR. STEPHEN QUIGLEY: They are about
15 feet tall. One to two feet in diameter.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Steve Quigley
works for the consultant hired by the companies,
and he is one of the design engineers that's been
working on these issues.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: How many of these
towers do you anticipate having?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: One tower, says
Steve. Again, these are things that would be
worked out during the design phase.
You know, you mentioned that many of
the cleanup technologies that I was talking about
were unfamiliar to you, and that's certainly
reasonable. But the technologies that we are
proposing are all very common treatment
technologies that have been, you know, well proven
to be efficient and successful at many sites across
the country. These aren't new exotic technologies
we are proposing. They are very proven.
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MR. DICK GLEASON: What is the
efficiency factor on that tower?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: It depends on the
certain chemical that you are talking about. The
more volatile the chemical, the more efficient it's
going to be remove.
MR. DICK GLEASON: Overall broad
range. 80?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I think much
higher. It's in the higher 90s, isn't it?
MR. STEPHEN QUIGLEY: Yes.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: These are design
questions. If I am recalling correctly, it's 97,
98 percent.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: You were talking
about on Number 4 -- made mention on soil washing.
How does this take place?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Soil washing is
basically what it sounds like. It's a soil washing
process. You dig up the dirt. You put it in a
receptacle, and you agitate the dirt, and you wash
the contamination out. Oftentimes, you know, sort
of a soap is added, maybe something to improve the
washing efficiency.
There are variations you can do upon
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than. You can do a single wash, double wash and
triple wash, and play around with different
additives to improve the efficiency of the washing
system.
That's basically the process. You
add water. You wash the soil. The water from the
process would then have to be treated. It's
usually treated using carbon absorption, which is
basically a big charcoal filter, and then the clean
soils would be returned to the excavation.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: That would be
sufficient to remove not only the things being
removed from the soil but also whatever chemicals
you would add to wash the soil?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Yes. That's
something that you have to consider very carefully.
If you're adding a chemical to improve your
washing, you have to make sure that either you can
get the chemical out or it's not a dangerous
chemical or something you can leave in there.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: We realize you
made comment that the nearest well is mile away
south, and we realize that the water normally is
flowing to the south, southwest but we also have a
large area of people over there two subdivisions
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that is north of it, and we had a concern for a
long time if there is any chance of their water
being contaminated.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: The properties
are to the north.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: Yes.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I think it's
pretty clear that the general ground water flow
direction is to the south. So I would think it
would be a pretty remote possibility that that
ground water could be flowing to the north and
impacting any of those homes.
MS. DORIS HEISLER: No back flushing
or nothing that would cause that do anything other
to the south?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: No. If I am
recalling properly, they are pretty far to the
north
MR. DICK GLEASON: They are one mile
MS. DORIS HEISLER: I think he lives
in one.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I think we can
safely say there is no way those could be impacted
by contamination at the site.
MR. LARRY HEISLER: You are going to
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removing soil there. What is the finished product
going to look like?
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: No, we are not.
With the plan we are recommending right now, we are
not removing soil. We're just saying that we will
put a cap over the soil, and we would use soil
vapor extraction to remove the soil gas
contamination
MS. DORIS HEISLER: Where would you
be getting the soil for the cap? Will you be
bringing in soil? Using soil off-site.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: We are hoping we
can use soil collected locally from the site. As I
mentioned, we have to meet certain design criteria
regarding how permeable the soils are. If we can't
compact those soils enough so they are sufficiently
impermeable, then we would have to import some
soils from off the site.
The finished product is basically
going to be flat, a flat soil cover. And so after
a number of years, let's hope that the natural
vegetation would return, and it's not going to look
different from anything else out there.
MR. TOM THOMPSON: You are going to
use a membrane material?
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MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: I said we could
potentially use a membrane. The exact construction
details of the cap have to be worked out during the
design phase. If we can create a cap that is
sufficiently impermeable using existing soil,
perhaps adding some clay, then it's possible that a
membrane would not be necessary. But again, that
is an issue we figure out during design.
MS. VICKI ROSEN: I would like to say
something about the design phase. We are talking a
lot about what we might be doing on the site, and I
would like to let you know that the public will be
advised about different alternatives that we are
looking into or different ways that we want to
design the treatment and the cover and will be
brought into the process, and we won't be just
going out and designing something without the
public knowing what we are doing. You will be
advised of what we are thinking about.
MR. DICK GLEASON: I don't want to
kick a dead horse, but I want to ask a question to
Unit A and Unit B.
MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: One more kick.
MR. DICK GLEASON: What is the
estimated depth of Unit A?
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MR. TOM DUNKELMAN: Why don't I put
that figure back on? Okay. If we look at this
figure, maybe from 70-some feet down to around 107
You have to realize this may change laterally as
you move off the site. You often see fascia
changes, changes in the geology as you move
laterally. It may be at a different depth. It
could be not there at all at different locations.
or comments?
tonight
MS. VICKI ROSEN: Any more questions
Thank you very much for coming
(8:47 p.m.)
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C E R T I F I C A T E
I, JoANN KLEMM, hereby certify that
the foregoing pages, numbered 1 through 45,
constitute a full, true and accurate transcript of
all proceedings had in the above matter, all done
to the best of my skill and ability.
DATED this 23rd day of June, 1992.
ourt Reporter
INDEPENDENT COURT REPORTERS
