The federal Environmental Protection Agency is seeking comments on developing plans to clean up a site at Walpole, Massachusetts which has been the site of industrial activity and contamination for nearly three hundred years.

The contaminated site is the Blackburn & Union Privileges Superfund Site. Superfund sites are those which are contaminated and abandoned, and have been placed on an EPA National Priorities List.

The site, which was occupied by industry between the 1600s and the mid 1980s, may receive a $13 million facelift, which will involve treating the site’s groundwater, and removing and disposing of contaminated soil and sediment.

The site has a long and messy history. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the site of a long list of various industrial and commercial companies, after which it was already contaminated with heavy metals and other toxic substances, including chromium, mercury, and arsenic.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the site was taken over by asbestos manufacturing company Multibestos, and between 1920 and 1937 was the site of the company’s asbestos brake lining manufacturing plant.

The next chapter in the site’s history involved the Kendall Company, which used the site for fabric production from the 1930s until 1985, and discharged considerable amounts of wastewater and toxins into the surrounding environment.

The plan can be viewed at www.epa.gov/region1/superfund/sites/blackburn, and the comment period closes on July 18. On July 14, the EPA will hold a public meeting at which Walpole residents can find out more about the plan for cleaning up the area.

Following the close of the comment period, the EPA plans to publish a Record of Decision which will describe its final plan for the clean up of the contaminated site.

Next, the EPA, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and other interested and responsible parties will meet to negotiate funding for the clean up of the contaminated site.

Only after this process is completed can the actual clean up begin. According to EPA Remedial Project Manager Dave Lederer, the plan may be implemented within two years of being finalized, with the Record of Decision being a key in getting the clean up process going.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Asbestos Abatement, Asbestos Exposure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.