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U.S. EPA HOLDS MEETING ON UNITED HECKATHORN SUPERFUND SITE

Release Date: 8/2/1996
Contact Information: Paula Bruin, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1587

    (San Francisco)--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) today announced it will hold a community meeting to discuss final cleanup activities to remove DDT-contaminated sediment at the United Heckathorn Superfund site, Richmond, Calif.  

     The public is invited to attend the informal meeting which will be held at 7 p.m., Thursday, August 8, 1996, at the Martin Luther King Community Center, 360 Harbor Way South, Richmond.

     U.S. EPA's cleanup plan calls for dredging DDT-contaminated soft bay mud from the Lauritzen Channel and Parr Canal in the Richmond Harbor and disposing of it at an approved facility.  The dredging will begin this month and is scheduled for completion in October 1996.
                           
     The U.S. District Court in San Francisco recently approved four settlements that U.S. EPA reached with those potentially responsible for contamination at the site.   Fifteen businesses, including Shell Oil Co.and Montrose Chemical Corp., have agreed to pay for or conduct the $9 million cleanup plan and to reimburse U.S. EPA approximately $1 million for past costs for removing DDT and other pesticide contamination from the land.

     The canal is in the Richmond Inner Harbor, which is in San Francisco Bay.  The United Heckathorn site includes portions of the Levin-Richmond Terminal, an active marine shipping terminal.

     United Heckathorn was a pesticide formulator which operated from approximately 1947 to 1966 in a facility adjacent to the Lauritzen Channel.  As a result of releases from Heckathorn's operations, soils at the site and sediments in the harbor were contaminated with various chlorinated pesticides, primarily DDT.  The Heckathorn buildings were demolished in the late 1960s, and since then the area has been used for bulk material storage. Contaminated soils at the site have been addressed by U.S. EPA- ordered removal actions which took place between 1990-1993.

     In 1990, the United Heckathorn site was added to the National Priorities List (NPL).  The NPL is U.S. EPA's nationwide list of hazardous waste sites potentially posing the greatest long-term threat to public health and the environment.  NPL sites are eligible for funding for investigation and cleanup under the federal Superfund program.

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