EPA plans final cleanup at Ruetgers site

By Stephanie Koons

Representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presented a plan Tuesday night at Mount Nittany Middle School for cleaning up the remaining portion of an area that was polluted by a chemical manufacturing company.

Ruetgers Organics, formerly Ruetgers-Nease Chemicals, a plant on College Avenue that has shut down production, opened in the late 1950s. The company manufactured the pesticides mirex and kepone from 1959 to 1974. The chemicals leached from a waste pile on the site and spread to Spring Creek and Thornton Spring on College Avenue. Contaminated water was then sprayed on open fields at the southern end of the site.

EPA has been aware of problems at the site and added it to its Superfund list. In 1995, a cleanup plan was set in motion that removed the majority of the pollutants. The agency is now proposing a plan that would remove any remaining contaminants from the site.

Frank Klanchar, an EPA project manager, said the agency’s preferred cleanup option would divide the 15-acre spray field on the Ruetgers Organics property into two areas: the redevelopment parcel, which will use a combination of soil cover, asphalt/ building slab and soil excavation; and the remediation parcel, which will have two feet of soil placed on top of the contaminated soil on the former spray field, seeding the area so that vegetation can grow on the soil cover, and designing the cover to prevent erosion and promote stormwater drainage.

Mary Shoemaker, a member of College Township Council, said she was concerned that the asphalt and concrete cover-ups wouldn’t prevent lateral water movement underneath the surface and said she prefers to remove contaminants rather than cover them up.

Shoemaker also asked who is paying for the cleanup project. Rainier Domalski, president of Ruetgers Organics, said the company is footing the $20 million bill.

Susan Smith, of Lemont, said she was concerned that a lot of people don’t know that Spring Creek was contaminated.

“Shouldn’t there be some kind of warning signs now?” she said.

John Thornton, of State College, inquired about the catchand- release policy for fishing in Spring Creek. In previous years, eating fish caught in Spring Creek was prohibited because the levels of kepone and mirex were found to be above the Food and Drug Administration’s safety standards.

Klanchar responded that the EPA was not concerned about any health risk in Spring Creek.

Testing by the agency has determined that the fish is now safe to eat, he added, but Spring Creek still has a catchand- release policy for wildlife preservation.

The EPA will have a public comment period until April 20, during which residents can voice their opinions on the plan. After that, the EPA will choose the cleanup option for the site. Klanchar said he hopes the project will begin next year.

For more information, contact Francisco J. Cruz, EPA community involvement coordinator, at 215-814-5528 or 800- 553-2509 or cruz.franciscoj@epa.gov.