Cape Fear Wood Preserving

• Site Profile
• Administrative Record Index: ROD Amend OU1 (PDF, 3 pp., 173K)
• Additional Site Documents including Five Year Reviews, Records of Decisions (ROD) and Explanation of Significant Differences (ESD).
• For documents not available on the website, please contact the Region 4 Freedom of Information Office (http://www.epa.gov/region4/foiapgs/submit.htm).

Site Background:
The Cape Fear Site is located in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, North Carolina, with CERCLA related contamination affecting approximately nine acres of a 41-acre tract. The site is adjacent to other industrial/commercial/agricultural establishments as well as private residences. Four homes are near the site and a subdivision is located approximately a quarter of a mile south of the site. Approximately 2,250 people live in the area of the site. Operations at the Cape Fear Wood Preserving Site commenced in 1953 and continued until 1983. The Cape Fear Wood Preserving facility produced creosote-treated wood from 1953 until 1978.

In the summer of 1977, the State determined the site was contaminated with constituents of coal tar and coal tar creosote and ordered the owner/operator to comply with North Carolina law. As a result, the owner/operator changed operations to limit further releases, installed a new well for a resident west of the site, and removed 900 cubic yards of creosote-contaminated soil from the treatment yard and the drainage ditch. Between January 1985 and September 1986, EPA sponsored several removal actions. The Remedial Investigation (October 1988), determined that the soils, groundwater, surface water, and sediment on the site are contaminated. The major contaminants throughout the site are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (which are organic compounds grouped under the general term of coal-tar based creosote) and the metals - copper, chromium and arsenic. The volume of soil that needs remediation is approximately 45,000 cubic yards. The volume of groundwater impacted by the site is approximately 24 million gallons. The volume of surface water impacted is approximately 1 million gallons. The groundwater plume extends approximately 300 feet off-site. The site poses an unacceptable future human health risk due to the exposure to contaminants in the soil, groundwater, and surface water/sediment.

Cleanup Progress: Actual Construction Underway
The Remedial Action Work Plan divided the remedial action (RA) into four phases. Phase I focused on removing hazardous materials and physical hazardous from the surface of the Site as well as demolition of the on-site structures. Phase II addressed the contaminated soils underneath an active railroad line that forms the western boundary of the Site. Phase III addressed the soil contamination at the Site. Phases I and II were completed in December 1996. Phase III treated approximately 110,000 cubic yards of soil using thermal desorption and was completed in April 1999. Phase IV focused on cleaning up the contaminated groundwater.The original 1990 remedial design (RD) for addressing the contaminated groundwater had to be re-evaluated when it was determined that a dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) (i.e., liquid creosote and its carrying oil) was present in the subsurface at the Site. The revised groundwater design was approved by the Agency in October 2000. Because the revised design included a number of new technologies, a ROD Amendment was issued on March 23, 2001. Construction of Phase IV began in May 2001 and was completed in August 2001. The groundwater extraction system involves 8 groundwater extraction wells with 4 of them having a second pump to remove the DNAPL. Treatment of groundwater occurs on-site through the use of activated carbon filters. Treated groundwater is discharged through 11 on-site infiltration galleries.

In 2004, the Agency conducted a Remediation System Evaluation (RSE) at the Site. This effort involves using a third-party to evaluate Site operations. These are broad evaluations that consider the goals of a remedy, the site conceptual model, above-ground and subsurface performance, and site exit strategy. The report for this effort made a number of recommendations. Originally, the treated groundwater was amended with urea and ammonium phosphate prior to being discharged to promote in situ biodegradation (the breakdown of contaminants in the subsurface by naturally occurring bacteria). The addition of the urea and ammonium was discontinued in 2004 in response to the RSE report. The original cleanup effort included 12 air sparging wells to help remove benzene and promote biodegradation. This system was also turned off based on the findings of the RSE. A third recommendation was to delineate the extent of groundwater contamination in the east-southeast direction. This was accomplished in May 2009. Between October 2004 and February 2005, the Agency conducted on-site in-situ thermal DNAPL desorption treatability study. The primary goal of this study was to determine if the Agency could aggressively remove the DNAPL (i.e., removed the DNAPL from the subsurface more quickly) at the Site. As part of the effort, four additional extraction points were installed. The conclusion of this effort is that it is possible to remove the DNAPL. The Agency needs to evaluate the pros and cons of aggressively removing the DNAPL at the Site. In the near future, the Agency will reassess the boundaries of both the remaining DNAPL and residual DNAPL at the Site in an effort to treat these areas more aggressively.

Operation & maintenance (O&M) activities include weekly Site visits to check on the groundwater extraction, treatment, and discharge systems as well as responding to alarms sent out by the computer control system at the Site. Regular maintenance activities include changing bag filters and transferring the contents of the DNALP storage tank to 55-gallon drums. Other maintenance activities include collecting occasional influent and effluent samples to check on the status of the activated carbon filters along with measuring groundwater levels and collecting groundwater samples from numerous of monitoring/extraction wells.

As of March 2009, over 26.7 million gallons of groundwater was been treated with the theoretical mass of dissolved contaminants removed at 2,545 pounds. Approximately 15,044 gallons (137,067 pounds) of DNAPL has also been removed.

The first Five-Year Review was completed in September 2006. The purpose of conducting a five-year review is to determine whether the remedy implemented at a Site is protective of human health and the environment. The September 2006 Five-Year Review Report concluded that the remedy at the Site is currently protective of human health and the environment in the short-term because the main source of contamination was remediated through source removal. Currently, no human or ecological exposure pathways exist to contaminated groundwater or soil. As stated in the 1989 ROD and/or 2001 ROD Amendment, the goal of the Cape Fear remedial action is to reduce on-site levels of contamination as to allow for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure. However, as there is a dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) present, this goal will not be achieved for a long time. Therefore, to insure long-term protection during this interim, the Agency has decided to implement institutional controls at the Site.

The current owner of the property has expressed some interest to the Agency about redeveloping a portion of the property.