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U.S. EPA PROPOSES ADDING DEL AMO TO FEDERAL SUPERFUND LIST

Release Date: 6/14/1996
Contact Information: Paula Bruin, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1587

     (San Francisco)--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) today proposed adding the Del Amo site in Los Angeles County to the federal Superfund National Priorities List (NPL).  The Del Amo site is one of 15 being proposed nationwide.

      The site was first proposed to the NPL in 1991, but is being reproposed with updated technical information.  Shell Oil Co. and Dow Chemical Co., in cooperation with the U.S. EPA and the state of California, have been coordinating and conducting site investigation efforts.  

      U.S. EPA also announced a $50,000 Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) was awarded to the Del Amo Action Committee, Torrance, Calif., to review cleanup activities being conducted at the nearby Montrose Chemical Corp. Superfund site.  The committee was awarded a similar grant for the Del Amo site in October 1995.  The grants allow the group to review cleanup activities being conducted at the two sites. Montrose, a DDT manufacturer from 1947 to 1982, was added to the NPL in October 1989.

     The proposed Del Amo Superfund site includes a synthetic rubber manufacturing facility which operated from the mid-1940s through the late 1960s, and wastes from the facility were disposed of in pits, which are contaminated with volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds.  

     Sites are proposed or placed in a final status as part of the periodic review and update of the Superfund program.  The NPL is U.S. EPA's list of hazardous waste sites potentially posing the greatest long-term threat to public health and the environment.  U.S. EPA identifies and ranks NPL sites according to threats to nearby populations through actual or potential contamination of soils, groundwater, surface water or air.

     With today's decision, there are now 92 final and four proposed sites in California.  Nationwide, there are 1175 final and 55 proposed sites on the NPL.

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