Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached another settlement with some former clients of the Casmalia Resources Superfund Site, a now defunct toxic waste dump that collected more than 5.6 billion pounds of waste in the 1970s and ’80s.
Since the mid 1990s, the EPA has been seeking monetary settlements to help pay for the cleanup from more than 10,000 entities that sent waste to the Casmalia site during its operation.
The most recent agreement with 49 minor parties brought in $1.2 million. Overall, the EPA has collected roughly $110 million—less than half of the estimated $284 million needed to complete the massive cleansing.
The Casmalia site and its imminent health risks have been on the public’s radar for several decades. There have been numerous reports of monetary settlements and advancements in the cleanup effort. But still the question remains: Exactly how close is the site to being officially “clean”’
Casmalia: Then and now
Located approximately 10 miles southwest of Santa Maria, the Casmalia site stopped accepting waste in 1989 after its owners and operators—Casmalia Resources, Hunter Resources, and Kenneth H. Hunter, Jr.—were slapped with multiple regulatory infractions.
“The cost to properly close and clean the site was so much in excess of what they had set aside according to the law to pay for such a process,” said Karen Goldberg, assistant regional counsel for the EPA’s Region 9.
So the EPA was tasked with shuttering the site and ridding it of its various accumulated sludges, pesticides, acids, metals, cyanide, and other poisons.
In the mid 1990s, the EPA entered an agreement with the site’s 54 top waste contributors—dubbed the Casmalia Steering Committee—to determine specifics of the cleanup process and the inherent costs.
The EPA, in conjunction with the steering committee, stabilized and capped four landfills. The agency also installed systems for collecting, treating, and disposing of contaminated subsurface liquids, and controlling storm water flows.
“A lot of the work has been done in that the site has been stabilized and there aren’t any off-site health risks,” EPA site manager Russell Mechem said. “The water contamination is limited to onsite water sources, which means there aren’t any off-site plumes affecting the groundwater.”
The EPA recently approved a final remedial investigation report, which included results from EPA-monitored sampling of the site’s soil, water, and other components.
The sampling revealed the majority of areas studied have some level of soil contamination attributable to past site operations. However, the samplings indicated there are no impacts of significance in soils directly adjoining the site.
On-site soil samples contained some compounds considered harmful to humans and the environment, such as industrial cleaning chemicals and solvents. Surface water in on-site ponds also contained unhealthy levels of arsenic.
Nonetheless, Mechem said the sources of these health risks have been stabilized.
“People can walk around on the site,” he said, adding that there’s some specialized equipment and protective gear for cleanup crewmembers.
The pollution, however, reportedly poses no risk to residents, even those living closest to the site a mile and a half away in the town of Casmalia.
The EPA is currently focusing on long-term mitigation of human and ecological health risks, some of which include high levels of toxic chemicals and metals, such as lead and copper. Invertivorous birds were deemed the most susceptible to adverse effects from the chemicals present, and invertivorous mammals were deemed most susceptible to effects from the metals. (Invertivorous animals eat creatures without spines, such as snails and slugs.) Risks to aquatic life and plants were also recorded.
The EPA and steering committee are currently developing a feasibility report, which is essentially a compilation of long-term cleanup goals and various alternative cleanup technologies.
“The goal is to prevent exposure pathways … and to prevent health risks to plants and animals,” Mechem said.
These goals could include a plethora of technology, such as capping, excavation,
and continued monitoring of groundwater and soil.
“There are many people involved in the process, and everyone has their own perspective on how to do the work,” Mechem said. “We’re trying to have a conservative and protective stance, but we are moving forward.”
He expects the feasibility report could take as long as two years to complete, after which the EPA will hold a public hearing before making an official decision on how to proceed.
For more information about the Casmalia Resources Superfund Site, including copies of the remedial investigation report and other documents, visit epa.gov/region9/casmalia.
Contact Managing Editor Amy Asman at aasman@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 12-19, 2011.