Celebrating 10 Years of Returning a CPA
Superfund	Sites to Beneficia
REGION 9
Success Story
Pemaco:
May wood,
California
Pictured: New Maywood Riverfront Park at the
Pemaco site. Source: EPA
Pictured: Pemaco Maywood site during
preparation for reuse. Source; EPA
EPA, the City of Maywood, the Trust for Public Land, and other
stakeholders worked together to revitalize the Pemaco Maywood
Superfund site. The site, located in a densely populated minority
community outside Los Angeles, occupies a 4-acre tract of land along
the Los Angeles River in Maywood, California. Operating as a
chemical manufacturing plant until 1991, EPA added the site to the
National Priorities List in 1999 after detecting hazardous chemicals in
the soil and ground water. By 2008, three years of soil treatment was
complete, and a solar powered, carbon-based treatment system for soil
vapors and ground water continued to operate.
Eight parcels along the river in Maywood, including the four acres
containing the Pemaco site, were chosen to be part of the Los Angeles
River Greenway Project, a city-wide effort to establish parks along the
River. The State supplied a grant to complete construction and the
City of Maywood, the Trust for Public Land, EPA, and various city
and state stakeholders collaborated closely to assure that the site
remedy would be in place for park completion within the scheduled
grant deadline.
The Maywood Riverfront Park was officially opened in May 2008 and
offers soccer fields, playground equipment, handball courts, and
basketball courts for area residents. This recreational park is one of
only two such parks available for residents of the city.
"Close collaboration between EPA and
the City was crucial to our success.
We had weekly conference calls and
regular meetings, and, in the end, were
able to provide the community with
something of real value... To see the
life that the park has brought to the
community is truly inspiring. Home
owners have made improvements to
their properties. There are handball
and basketball courts, soccer fields,
and playground equipment for
community use. Throughout our work
here, the community continued to state
that the park was a reuse that they
wanted to see. And they wanted to
make sure that EPA activities did not
cause any negative impacts to those
using the park. As a result, EPA held
community meetings every six to eight
weeks from late 2006 until early 2008.
Community meetings are currently
occurring every six months or so."
- Rose Marie Caraway, EPA Remedial
Project Manager at Pemaco
For more information, please contact Melissa Friedland at
friedland.melissa@epa.gov or Frank Avvisato at
avvisato.frank@epa.gov.
Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation
Superfund Redevelopment Initiative	March 2009

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