Cleanup will start with removal of barrels from the north to the south end to a different location followed by hazard categorization and bulking of like materials, Rule said. Some of the removed soils will be replaced and a new container cell will be built.
The 8.5-acre Tremont City Barrel Fill site in German Twp. — at 3108 Snyder Domer Rd. — is a closed industrial waste landfill. During operations from 1976 to 1979, it’s estimated about 51,500 drums and 300,000 gallons of industrial liquid waste were disposed of at the site, which threatens the aquifer.
The site contains an estimated 1.5 million gallons of hazardous waste buried in the ground.
Residents have fought for decades to clean up the site.
The disposal stopped in 1980, and soil was later placed on top of the waste cells. Seventeen years later, the U.S. EPA began an investigation into the barrel fill and found some leaks from waste cells. An investigation by the potentially responsible parties in 2005 found most of the waste cells were intact, but showed high levels of contaminants at the barrel fill site.
Contaminants include elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, such as xylenes, ethylbenzene, toluene and methylene chloride. Metals such as chromium and arsenic were also detected in the liquid and solid waste.
In October 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio approved a cleanup plan after it granted the motion to approve a consent decree signed in April 2022 by all parties to begin the process of cleaning up the landfill.
The RESA II is made up of companies ordered responsible for the dumping — Chemical Waste Management Inc., Franklin International Inc., International Paper Co., The Procter & Gamble Co., PPG Industries Inc., Strebor Inc. and Worthington Cylinder Corporation.
In the court order, all responsible companies said they acknowledged they have waste in the landfill and are responsible for the chemicals. They entered into the federal agreement — a Superfund Alternative Approach Agreement — and signed the decree that they will clean it up and shoulder the financial burden to do so.
The planned solution: building a new, double-lined cell that is the most protective the EPA can offer and reburying some of the waste while monitoring it forever and shipping some waste off site for proper disposal.
“You do this one barrel at a time, so we take a barrel out and then you have to determine what’s in that barrel because there will be situations where some of the contents should not be mixed with contents from another barrel,” Vice Mayor Dave Estrop said.
RESA II hopes to remove about 100 drums per day in a slow and detailed process, Rule said. There are more than 50,000 drums at the site.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
There will be a leak detection system and other factors to prevent leaks from leaving the immediate area.
The secure cell will meet and exceed many state regulations, Rule said.
Air monitoring of the perimeter will take place during the construction phase to ensure no harmful chemicals leave the area. Construction will be during daylight hours.
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