EPA may file waiver for Plymouth site

PLYMOUTH – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has scheduled a meeting next week with Plymouth residents to make the final determination that groundwater under a Superfund site off Route 7 never can be remedied.

Because Superfund law requires that water standards be improved to usable quality, EPA needs to file a waiver regarding the site, EPA Project Manager Terry Connelly said Friday.

The meeting has been set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 31, at the Plymouth Grange Hall in downtown Plymouth.

Connelly explained that the 17-acre Superfund site contains 2 acres where landowner George West Jr. of Wells operated a waste oil storage and treatment facility from 1965 to 1980. Hundreds of gallons of the used oil was dumped on the ground, either accidentally or on purpose, Connelly said.

“Because there is only about 3 feet of soil in the area, the oil seeped down directly into bedrock where it spread out through fractures,” Connelly explained.

In affiliation with Portland-Bangor Waste Oil Co., West collected and stored waste oil from dozens of auto dealerships, utility companies, transportation companies, municipalities and school districts.

After routine testing of a homeowner’s well in 1987, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection identified the site, referred to as the Howe Corner site, as a source of polychlorinated biphenyl that contaminated more than a dozen wells in the area. By 1998, more than 300 potentially responsible parties (PRPs) were connected to the site, although the number has been narrowed to 105 over the years.

The EPA installed a public water system in the 1990s for homeowners whose wells might be contaminated. More than $6 million has been spent removing contaminated soil and installing the water system that now serves more than three dozen homes, all of that paid by the businesses and towns that sent oil to the site.

The affected 36 homes never will be able to use the groundwater, Connelly said. The final remedy that EPA is proposing is to continue to install restrictive covenants on the affected properties’ deeds, enforce town ordinances regarding the use of groundwater, and provide easements.

Connelly said a pumping station is in the design stage and could be installed by next summer. He said this system would pump water out of the affected area, treat it with chemicals, and then put the clean water back in the ground. The water will continue to be tested on a regular basis.

Connelly said a procedure where chemicals are injected into the groundwater was tried in 2001 and was determined to be ineffective because the bedrock is so fractured.

“This is what led us to seek the waiver,” he said.