Old ESCO abandoned transformer manufacturing Superfund site, Hunt County, Texas was placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on September 3, 2008. The NPL is a list of national priorities among the known or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants throughout the United States and its territories.

The NPL is part of the Superfund program, the common name for the United States environmental policy officially known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), enacted by the United States Congress on December 11, 1980 in response to the Love Canal and Times Beach disasters. Superfund law was created to protect people, families, communities and others from heavily contaminated toxic waste sites that have been abandoned. Many of the contaminants at Superfund sites are also regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

Background

In 1991, after nearly half a century from 1945, Old ESCO Manufacturing, an electrical transformer manufacturing, recycling and repair facility, of Greenville, Hunt County, Texas closed their operation. Selling the business as a going concern to Powell Industries which then moved the site to a new location in Greenville. Old ESCO, Greenville, covers an area of five acres, withUsed transformers which may still contain PCBs. Source: Canadian Environmental Law Association. interconnected buildings and a small shed on the site; residential property and small businesses in the Ardis Heights neigborhood border the site to the north and east. Alongside making new transformers, which transfer a voltage from one circuit to another via induction, Old ESCO repaired used transformers to be resold. During manufacturing polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) oil was used.

Contamination

Around 2,900 soil samples were taken from nearly 600 locations by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the EPA. Examination of samples found that soil to depths of up to 15 feet was contaminated with PCBs at levels which could potentially be harmful to human health. PCB concentration in on-site soils were found to be at 85,000 ppm Similar contamination of soil was also found in at least 35 nearby, mainly residential, properties with further danger possible should PCBs have leached into surface water and groundwater.

Remedial action

Banner to attract tourists to the city housing this Superfund site. Source: Greenville Chamber of Commerce.

Though the Old ESCO site was swiftly listed on the NPL, with less than a six month period after it was listed on March 19, 2008, to date, little remedial action has taken place. A public commentary period was held to list the site on the NPL. Since listing on the NPL, the first remedial work has focused upon removing contaminated soils from nearby residential property. However, a fire within the buildings on site on August 9, 2008 has caused disruption to remediation activities. Hurricane Gustav also hit at the beginning of September 2008, adding further delays to the start of remediation work at the former Old ESCO site. The EPA anticipates that this site will require long-term remedial action to alleviate contamination which has occurred.

Sources

• Greenville Herald Banner, Early morning fire at contaminated ESCO plant, August 10, 2008.
• Greenville Herald Banner, EPA schedules public hearing on ESCO contamination, April 6, 2008.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA News Release: Superfund and Brownfields, March 2008.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA NPL Site Narrative, September 2008.