Region 8
Burlington Northern - Livingston
National Information
Regional Information
Site Information
National Priorities List (NPL) History
Proposed Date
10/15/1984
Livingston, Montana
Park County
Congressional District - At Large
ABOUT THE BURLINGTON NORTHERN SITE
The 90-acre Burlington Northern site is in Livingston, MT, about 100 miles west of Billings. It borders the Yellowstone River on the east. More than 100 years of railroad waste-treatment, storage and disposal practices contaminated soils and the Livingston aquifer. The aquifer, lying beneath the site, supplies municipal drinking water to the city's 6,700 residents.
The Potentially Responsible Party (PRP), the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF), has been working with the State of Montana to clean up contaminated ground water and soils.
BACKGROUND
Northern Pacific operated the facility until March 1970, when Burlington Northern Railroad (BNRR) assumed ownership and operations. BNRR operated it until 1986, when the site closed. In 1987, Montana Rail Link purchased or leased portions of the complex and reopened the site. Livingston Rebuild Center bought part of the facility in 1988.
Studies identified two contaminated ground-water plumes. One plume consisted of petroleum hydrocarbons. The other resulted from the release of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). The plume extends northeast for more than a mile from the shop complex.
VOCs contaminating the soil and ground water include tetrachloro-ethene (PCE), trichloroethene (TCE), dichloroethene and chlorobenzene. The ground water also has a diesel plume floating on top of the aquifer.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) conducted a pancreatic-cancer study in 1990 and a follow-up study in 1994. ATSDR's findings revealed an elevated number of pancreatic cancers in the area. However, no link could be made between the site and the cancers.
EPA proposed the site for listing on EPA's National Priorities List in August 1994. The site was never finalized on the NPL, as it is being cleaned up under State authorities, not under the federal Superfund program. The State and Burlington Northern (now BNSF) have a cleanup agreement.
In 1998, BN submitted the final drafts for two feasibility studies (FSs) and Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released the proposed Plan for the BN Livingston Shop Complex facility.
In 1999, BNSF contractors removed VOC contaminated soils from beneath a vapor-degreaser pit in the electric shop building. This was the last known source of ground-water contamination by VOCs.
In September 2001, DEQ released the Record of Decision for the BN Livingston Shop Complex. The final remedy included:
• cleanup levels for all known contaminants,
• monitored natural attenuation of VOCs and dissolved petroleum in ground water,
• Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) treatment of VOC-contaminated soils,
• capping of the cinder pile,
• bioventing for treatment of petroleum-contaminated soils, and
• free-product recovery systems and monitored natural attenuation of VOC's and disolved petroleum in groundwater.
The remedy also includes additional investigations, remediation alternatives analysis, and implementation of a State-approved remedy for contaminants posing unacceptable risks to human health, safety or the environment that were not addressed during the FS.
DEQ is currently working on a Statement of Work to implement the Record of Decision (ROD), part of further negotiations with BNSF. In the interim, BNSF is moving forward with final treatment of excavated soils contaminated with VOC's, and with the cinder pile capping.
BN Livingston Links
Contacts | Map | Records of Decisions (RODs) | Surf the Watershed