United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance
(2201 A)
EPA 520-F-97-001 *
Spring 1997
x>EPA Superfund At Work
Hazardous Waste Cleanup Efforts Nationwide
Dutchtown Oil
Treatment Plant
Site Profile
Site Description: An abandoned oil
reclamation facility
Site Size: 21.5 acres; fenced area
Is 5 acres
Primary Contaminants: Benzene,
volatile organic compounds, heavy
metals
Potential Range of Health Risks:
Central nervous system disorders
and increased risk of cancer
Ecological Concerns: Contamina-
tion of shallow ground water zone
Year Listed on the NPL: 1987
EWHigloW: ~6~"
State: Louisiana
Congressional District: 3
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Regioi
77 W<
Ankle-deep in rain and muck, workers skim oil using a vacuum truck.
Success in Brief
Companies Remove Oily Wastes
Leaking tanks and unlined waste pits are common at many
Superfund sites, and the Dutchtown Oil Treatment Plant had some
of both. Built to process petrochemical wastes from barge, ship-
building, and oil companies operating in the Mississippi River
delta, the treatment plant was in business for over 12 years. The
facility operators' usual way of processing materials was to pour
everything together, heat the mix, extract the solids and water, and
sell the results for low quality fuel. There was some seepage from
the pits, and spills, overflows, and intentional drainage of the pits
may have occurred.
The State of Louisiana closed the plant down and took immedi-
ate steps to prevent further environmental degradation, but the
shallow ground water was already contaminated. Heeding the
requests of local citizens, EPA formed a partnership with the
Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) to de-
velop a plan for removing the wastes and excavating contami-
nated soil, thereby protecting the drinking water supply.
Using Superfund authority, EPA enlisted the cooperation of 22
companies which generated the waste to perform a seven million
dollar removal action.
Workers labored through
torrential spring rains and
the worst flooding in the
state in almost two decades.
In less than a year, the sur-
face was completely clear
and extensive ground water
testing was underway:
another Superfund site
cleaned up to the
community's satisfaction.
The Site Today
A grass covered, 24-inch-
thick clay cap now covers
the old waste pits and tank
areas. Regular monitoring
of the ground water ensures
that the long term remedial
program is working as
expected.
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Superfund At Work • Dutchtown Oil Treatment Plant, Ascension Parish, LA • Spring 1997
The former oil reclamation
facility was at the intersec-
tion of Interstate 10 and
Highway 74 in Ascension
Parish, Louisiana. The
Dutchtown Oil Treatment
Plant site is included in the
Mississippi River floodplain
and is drained by ditches
that eventually flow into
Grand Goudine Bayou. An
elementary school, a trailer
park, and other residential
areas are located near the
21.5-acre site with the closest
household about 165 feet
from the former location of
one of the small waste oil
pits. At least 1,800 people
obtain drinking water from
wells within three miles of
the site.
A Site Snapshot
During the course of about compounds (VOCs); the
Dutchtown Oil Site
Ascension Parish, LA
12 years, the treatment plant
operators
filled several
unlined
waste pits
and 10 above-
ground stor-
age tanks
with waste oil
and oily sludge. One on-site
pit was loaded with trash and
contained hundreds of thou-
sands of gallons of waste oil.
Periodic flooding of the area
may have caused the pits to
overflow onto one neighbor's
property and into the Inter-
state-10 ditch.
A shallow zone saturated
with ground water is contami-
nated with volatile organic
deeper water-bearing zone, at
a depth of 30 feet, sampled
free of site pollutants. The
VOCs included
benzene, styrene, and
ethyl benzene. Al-
though workers re-
ported no adverse
health effects while
employed at the
site, prolonged exposure and
direct contact with high con-
centrations of VOCs may
cause dizziness, nausea, and
central nervous system disor-
ders; exposure to reduced
levels causes an increased risk
of cancer. Many constituents
of waste oil are slow to biode-
grade and can remain in the
environment for years.
Dutchtown Oil
Treatment Plant
Timeline
Expedited Response Action selected /
vjaplvalyes*
• EPAcdrttaro
. Site added to NPT
Superfund reauthorized
.j^tiw:
EPA samples tanks and pits
Site abandoned
LDEQ builds containment levees
LDEQ closes facility m
Superfund /
enacted \
OH refining and waste reclamation
J!
1967 1969 1974 1980
1983
1984
— 2
1985
1986
1987
1988
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Superfund At Work • Dutchtown Oil Treatment Plant, Ascension Parish, LA • Spring 1997
State Steps in After Owners
Abandon Site
Various companies with
operations in the Mississippi
River delta recycled waste oil,
solvents, and petrochemical
waste at the Dutchtown facility
from 1967 to 1969 and again
from 1974 to 1983. During this
period, Congress passed the
Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980. Thou-
sands of improperly controlled
or abandoned hazardous waste
sites littered every state in the
nation. This new law empow-
ered EPA to identify and begin
cleaning up these sites using a
"Superfund" derived from
22 parties sign two agreements
Ground water study begins
exise taxes on chemical feed-
stocks and crude oil. The states
each named four sites within
their borders that needed
remediation first; that roster
became the National Priorities
List (NPL). Many more have
since been added on the basis of
assessment and scoring.
The states each named
four sites that needed
remediation first
In August 1983, after the
facility owners failed to apply
for proper state permits, LDEQ
ordered them to cease opera-
tions and begin cleaning up the
site. In January 1984, the own-
ers abandoned the site follow-
ing the state's closure.
LDEQ subsequently took
emergency measures to prevent
unauthorized access and to
prevent migration of contami-
nants, including construction of
secondary earthen levees
around the waste pits to pre-
vent the waste from spreading
whenever rains caused the
waste oil lagoon to overflow. In
July 1985, an EPA team invento-
ried the tanks and sampled the
holding pond and waste oil pits
the following January.
Then in March 1987, EPA
used emergency authority to
contain a diesel fuel spill caused
by vandalized storage tank
Continued on page 4
EPA approves company work plan
r
Removal actions completed
Ground water study completed
Record of Decision signed
r
State and private parties
continue monitoring
1989
1990
1991
1993 1994
3
1995
2000
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Superfund At Work • Dutchtown Oil Treatment Plant, Ascension Parish, LA • Spring 1997
Continued from page 3
valves. Additional sampling of
the ten other tanks was com-
pleted at that time; EPA added
Dutchtown to the NPL in July.
Public Focus on Immediate
Hazards
Once immediate dangers are
past, EPA's first step in the
long-term cleanup process is to
assess the nature and extent of
contamination at the site. On
the basis of this investigation,
EPA identifies a number of
potential cleanup methods,
invites the public to discuss
and comment on various
alternatives, and selects a
remedy. EPA also identifies
the parties who owned and
operated the site or who gener-
ated or transported hazardous
wastes and negotiates with
them to conduct the cleanup.
Because local residents
expressed concern about po-
tential ground water contami-
nation, EPA chose to conduct
an "expedited response action"
to address immediate site
hazards. Site managers held a
30-day public comment period
in February, 1988 and in
March, held a public meeting
at the Dutchtown Primary
School to solicit local opinions
on proposed technical plans.
EPA selected excavation and
incineration of oily sludge
from the storage tanks and
waste pits at an approved, off-
site facility. The remedial
action included treating and
Small
Waste
Tanks
safely discharging
more than 3.4 million
gallons of contami-
nated waste water
from the pits and
placing a new fence
around the site.
Enforcement and
Perseverance Pay Off
Throughout the
summer of 1988, the
U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (USAGE)
drew blueprints for
the cleanup while EPA
pursued companies
legally responsible for
the site remediation.
In the fall of 1989, 22
companies which had
contributed materials
to the site signed two
settlement documents.
Under an adminis-
trative order on con-
sent, the 22 companies began a
comprehensive site study to
determine the extent of con-
tamination and to propose
remedial alternatives. Under
terms of a consent decree, the
same 22 parties agreed to de-
velop a plan and perform the
expedited cleanup. They fur-
ther agreed to reimburse EPA
and the State for past and future
oversight costs. The total value
of this settlement was approxi-
mately $7.5 million. In May
1990, a federal court judge
approved the consent decree
and in June, the parties submit-
ted a draft work plan to EPA.
Holding
Pond
Secondary
Containment
i Railroad Tank Car
(^Horizontal Tanks
3>ProcessingBldgs
Hwy74
Cleanup Crews Battle Heavy
Rains
In November 1990, workers
began setting up equipment
and trailers and in January 1991,
started excavating waste oil,
sludge, and tainted soil from
on-site pits.
That spring, torrential rains
caused serious flooding along
the Amite River as well as the
entire Mississippi River delta.
Almost continuous storm sys-
tems produced the wettest
April on record for the state
since 1973. While the oil and
sludge extraction was under-
way, ground water levels in the
Continued on page 5
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Superfund At Work • Dutchtown Oil Treatment Plant, Ascension Parish, LA • Spring 1997
"
Workers remove styrene tar from the waste pits
shallow zone rose significantly.
Engineers installed a French
drain to recover nearly 76,000
gallons of contaminated ground
water. Cleanup crews were
able to separate the oil and
subsequently stored, treated,
and re-injected the ground
water off site. In total, workers
removed and incinerated al-
most 450,000 gallons of oil and
oily sludge.
Following the initial removal,
4,400 cubic yards of contami-
nated soil remained for dis-
posal, far more than originally
estimated. Rather than inciner-
ate the contaminated soil, EPA
approved an innovative and
more economical technology
known as "soil washing" which
agitated and rinsed the con-
taminants with very hot water
and dried the mud slurry.
Crews then mixed the
"washed" soil with fly ash (kiln
dust) and used this stabilized
soil as backfill for the on-site
pits. The former pit areas were
then covered with a two-foot
layer of clay and planted with
native grasses. Workers also
removed and recycled old
storage tanks and debris and
covered the former tank area
with an 18-inch clay cover.
Throughout the removal
process, 3.4 million gallons of
water were discharged from the
site. This amount included
water from the soil washing
process, treated stormwater,
and from emptied ponds and
pits. At one time, eighteen
tanks were located on-site to
store treated water while it was
tested for discharge require-
ments and deemed safe to
release. The water was treated
with activated carbon, and
more than 2.4 million gallons
were processed and discharged
to surface waters.
Continued on page 6
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Continued from page 6
Superfund At Work • Dutchtown 0,,
,i Plant, Ascension Parish, LA • Spring 1997
Comprehensive Site Study
Completed
Under agreement with EPA,
cooperating parties conducted a
comprehensive study to de-
termine the extent of ground
water contamination in 1989.
Although ground water con-
tamination had been detected
off site in the shallow zone,
residential wells at 200 to 500
feet were sampled by EPA and
found to be unaffected by the
site. That study was completed
in May 1993. EPA issued the
Record of Decision (ROD) in
June, 1994 which included
natural attenuation of ground
water with a contingency for
extraction and treatment if any
contamination was detected.
Currently, the parties are sam-
pling 22 monitor wells.
Community Group Wins
Technical Assistance Grant
EPA obtained community
support by holding public
meetings and asking for citizens
to participate in the selection of
remedy. Public input moti-
vated EPA to expedite the
removal of obvious wastes from
the site.
In May 1992, the Ascension
Superfund Koalition (ASK)
received a $50,000 Technical
Assistance Grant (TAG) from
EPA. The TAG allowed ASK to
hire a technical advisor to
review EPA documents and
instruct residents on the results
of the excavation, the site study,
and future plans for the site.
at Putehtowii
" €»| lfm^am,s$nd private parties worked together to remote 'k-.^. - ,
and 'altfdge and used "soil washing** to
ap3 frits, Storage tanks -and plant equipment also were dismMMleC' awd^irolioris
.Tffiist Major eife
't sife'jthat t\ras ecologically dead back to a condition where Mother Nature could
i, tesie^iiftd -anew was the end result.
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