Northwest Transformer (Mission Pole) Superfund site and Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street) Superfund site, Everson, Whatcom County, Washington were placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on June 10, 1986 and June 24, 1988 respectively. 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

The Northwest Transformer (Mission Pole) Superfund site, set in a 1.6 acre parcel of former agricultural land in downtown Everson began to be used by the Northwest Transformer Service Company in 1958. Northwest Transformers used this site A transformer leaking PCBs. Source: webshots.at Mission and Pole Street as a salvage yard to store, repair and recycle electrical transformers and capacitors between 1958 and 1985. Other activities were carried out including dismantling and reclaiming equipment, burning casings for transformers in an open concrete burn pit, along with draining waste transformer oils into a seepage pit. Storage and salvage operations took place in a barn on-site, where PCB-contaminated dielectric fluid was drained from the transformers before their dismantling.

In 1985 the company moved its Mission and Pole Street storage and salvage functions to the half-acre Northwest Transformer South Harkness Street site in Everson, the business declared bankcruptcy and was closed in 1987. This the Everson firm’s second listing on the NPL. An inspection by the Washington State Department of Ecology in December 1985 found high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in on-site soils, leading to the site’s listing on the NPL three years later.

Contamination

Northwest Transformer (Mission Pole) Superfund site

During operation, PCBs, solvents and other chemicals were released into on-site soil. PCBs were store north of the site’s operation building, which were spilled in an outside of the building, while waste transformer oil was burned for space heating in a furnace. In 1981, the company was fined by the EPA for violations of record keeping, marking, storage, dating and disposal requirements. High levels of PCBs were found in sludge/sediment samples from drains and moderate levels in onsite surface soils.

Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street) Superfund site

Soil and buildings were contaminated with PCBs and heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium and lead; PCBs were found in soils at concentrations up to 250 ppm, xylene up to 2,800 ppm and lead up to 1,410 ppm. With soils being particularly permeable at this location, coupled with the presence of shallow ground-water, this meant that there was potentially an ease of movement of contaminants to groundwater. This was of concern since there were potable water wells within three miles of the site used by more than 10,000 local residents. However monitoring by the EPA found that groundwater was not affected by contamination. Sediment had caused some migration of contaminants from the site via pipeline, though the EPA determined that this had not spread far from the site and posed little risk.

Remedial action

Northwest Transformer (Mission Pole) Superfund site

Early remedial action by the EPA in 1985 included building a fence, excavation and disposal of 1,400 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated soil and debris and removal of 6,500 gallons of PCB-contaminated liquid. Longer term remedial activity required investigation and monitoring of on-site soils, and in 1989 a remedy of in-situ vitrification (ISV) of PCB-contaminated soil was chosen. ISV is the thermal treatment process which involves melting contaminated soils or sludge to destroy, remove or make hazardous material immobile. Though problems with this technology called for an amended remedy which South Harkness Street site re-use as a parking lot. Source: EPA.simply required excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil which took place between 1991 and 1994. More than 4,700 tons of soil/debris and 50,000 gallons of contaminated liquids were disposed of or treated.
Following completion of this work in June 1994, all requirements were met and groundwater continued to be monitored until 1999.

Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street) Superfund site

In a similar vein to the Mission Pole site, South Harkness Street also had the challenge to remove large quantities of PCB contaminated soil. The main method implemented was excavation and disposal of contaminated waste in off-site landfills.

The 1998 Five-Year Review of the site by the EPA states that the site could now be sold and used by others, without further monitoring.

Deletion from the NPL

Northwest Transformer (Mission Pole) was deleted from the NPL on September 28, 1999 after all appropriate remedial measures had been carried out. Spending less than 10 years on the NPL, on September 26, 1997 Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street) was deleted from the NPL, as it had met all clean-up goals and was protective of human health and the environment. A new asphalt parking lot has been built on this former site.

Sources

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Factsheet Northwest Transformer.

• United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA NPL Factsheet Northwest Transformer (Mission Pole), August 2007.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA NPL Factsheet Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street), August 2007.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA NPL Site Narrative Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street), February, 1990.
• United States Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA Second Five Year Review Northwest Transformer (South Harkness Street), February, 1999.