United States
Environmental Protection
Agency

National Priorities List (NPL)

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*Final Site

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WALTON & LONSBURY INC.

OSWER/OSRTI
Washington, DC 20460

May 2013

Attleboro, Massachusetts

Bristol County

(?) Site Location:

The 2.8-acre Walton & Lonsbury Inc. (W&L) facility is located in a mixed residential/industrial area in the
southeastern Massachusetts City of Attleboro.

Site History:

Operations at W&L site date back to 1940 and include industrial chromium plating with a minor copper plating
operation. The facility was equipped with multiple oversize chromic acid dipping tanks placed beneath the facility
floor. Facility operations included parts degreasing using trichloroethylene (TCE), grit blasting, chrome plating using
cyanide, stripping with acids, aqueous rinsing, grinding and polishing. Prior to the construction of a wastewater
treatment system in 1970, untreated wastewater was discharged directly to a wetland adjacent to the facility. After
construction, chrome hydroxide sludge generated by the treatment system was discharged to an unlined lagoon and
wastewater was discharged to another unlined surface impoundment, and from there through the wetland area to Bliss
Brook. This treatment system was replaced with a closed-loop system in 1984. However, the continued use of an
onsite dry well to receive gray water from the facility, leaky plating tanks, and roof runoff containing chromium
condensate from the process air vents has contributed to the continuing contamination of onsite soils.

1 Site Contamination/Contaminants:	

Principal contaminants associated with the site include total and hexavalent chromium, lead and TCE.

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