All News Releases By Date

EPA Region 6 Updates Its National Priorities List of Superfund Sites - One Site Added in Louisiana

Release Date: 09/14/2012
Contact Information: Dave Bary or Jennah Durant at 214 665-2200 or [email protected].

(DALLAS – September 14, 2012) The Environmental Protection Agency announced today, with support from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, that the EVR-Wood Treating /Evangeline Refining Company site near Jennings, Louisiana, has been added to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites.

The site, off Highway 97 and one mile north of I-10 in Acadia Parish, was home to wood-treating operations as well as oil refining from the late 1940s until 1985. The refinery also received waste water from the wood-treating facility, which was held in retention lagoons. Soil samples have shown elevated concentrations of arsenic, chromium, and copper, as well as several types of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. The contamination threatens nearby wetlands and commercial and recreational fisheries.

“Adding this site to the National Priorities List is an important step in ensuring public health and the environment will be protected,” said Acting Regional Administrator Sam Coleman. “Cleaning up hazardous waste in our communities and returning properties to environmental and economic vitality are EPA priorities.”

Superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

The NPL is the list of hazardous sites in the United States eligible for long-term cleanup action financed under the federal Superfund program. The EPA works to identify companies or people responsible for the contamination at a site and requires them to conduct or pay for the cleanup. For newly listed sites without viable potentially responsible parties, the EPA will investigate the full extent of the contamination before starting significant cleanup at the site. It may take several years before cleanup funding is available for these sites.

More information on the Superfund NPL is available at https://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/current.htm

More about activities in EPA Region 6 is available at https://www.epa.gov/aboutepa/region6.html