RocketTheme Joomla Templates
Cabot Koppers

Background

Cabot Site --49 acres 

site_area_color_thumb

  • History of pine tar & charcoal production 
  • Pine tar/pine oil production by Cabot since 1945
  • Product isolation in 3 unlined lagoons (1949)
  • Cabot sold site (1967)
  • Developer breechs product lagoons
  • Pine tars and oils discharged to wetlands and creek
  • Remaining lagoon sludges mixed with site soils (1970)
  • Shopping center built on site
  • Stormwater ponds built on top of former lagoons
  • Malodorous leachate appears in Main Street ditch
  • Groundwater collection trench installed along Main Street
  • Northeast lagoon partially excavated
  • Remediation on-going
Koppers Site --90 acres
  • Wood treating since 1916
  • Creosote, Pentachlorophenol, CCA
  • Areas of concern
    • 2 wastewater ponds
    • Former cooling pond /process area
    • Drip Track Area
  • Beazer purchases Koppers (1988)
  • Wood treating ops. sold to Koppers Industries, Inc.
  • Beazer retained environmental liability

The Koppers site, located on NW 23rd Ave in the City of Gainesville, consists of the western half of a designated

Federal Superfund site (known as the Cabot-Koppers Superfund site) due to contamination with wood treating chemicals in site soils and groundwater. The eastern half is the Cabot site which contains groundwater contamination from past pinetar, pine oil and charcoal production. This site is under active remediation. Since 1983, the Florida

Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and subsequently the United States Environmental Protection Agency Region 4 (USEPA) have been responsible for directing investigation activities at the Koppers site that are being performed by Beazer East, Inc., the responsible party for the site contamination.

These investigations have been directed toward developing a final clean-up strategy for the site contamination. In 1990 the USEPA approved a remedial plan for the site which was only partially implemented by Beazer through the installation of a surface water containment and treatment system. Source remediation was not implemented due to the discovery that the extent of contamination in the source areas and the groundwater had not been adequately assessed.

In 2001, USEPA developed an amended remedial plan for the site in a draft Record of Decision (ROD) that assumed that soil contamination at the site would be prevented from leaching into the Floridan Aquifer (a vital groundwater resource located in the limestone formations beneath the site) due to the assumed impenetrable nature of the Hawthorn Group formation located between the soil contamination sources and the deeper Floridan Aquifer underlying the site. However subsequent testing at the site from 2002 - 2005 confirmed that, in fact, 1) significant levels of dissolved contaminants had migrated to the deeper zones of the intermediate Hawthorn Group formation and the Floridan Aquifer.

The Floridan Aquifer, serves as the source of drinking water for over 175,000 people in Alachua County and is the water source for the City of Gainesville Murphree Wellfield located two miles north of the Koppers site.

 

City and County Resolution

In March and April 2004, the Alachua County Commission and the City of Gainesville Commission approved identical resolutions that were delivered to the congressional delegation, state legislative delegation and the Administrators of USEPA and the FDEP requesting expedited action by USEPA on the Koppers site contamination issues.