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EPA Issues Final Cleanup Decision for Reynolds Metals Superfund Site

Release Date: 10/02/2006
Contact Information: Judy Smith, 503-326-6994, [email protected] Chip Humphrey, (503) 326-2678, [email protected] Tony Brown, (206) 553-1203, [email protected]

(Troutdale, OR – Oct. 2, 2006) The U. S Environmental Protection Agency Region 10 (EPA) has selected a final cleanup plan for the Reynolds Metals Superfund Site near Troutdale, Oregon. EPA Superfund Program Director Dan Opalski signed the Record of Decision (ROD) on September 29, 2006.


    The final cleanup calls for:
    • making sure that future use of the site is consistent with the cleanup levels achieved by placing appropriate use restrictions on the property;
    • preventing the use of contaminated groundwater for approximately 20 years until it is cleaned up and permanently restricting the use of groundwater from the shallow silt zone in the south plant area;
    • operating the focused extraction/production well optimization (FE/PWO) system to continue removing contamination in the groundwater;
    • maintaining and monitoring capped areas; and
    • monitoring groundwater to make sure the cleanup is effective.
    According to Dan Opalski, Director of EPA’s Region 10 Office of Environmental Cleanup in Seattle, “The final cleanup action for this site will protect the health of the community and the surrounding environment and allow the property to be developed for productive re-use.”
      The final cleanup plan follows a decade of extensive cleanup work at the site. The Reynolds Metals Company Troutdale plant was added to EPA’s National Priorities List in 1994. Several early cleanup actions over the past decade removed contaminated soil and debris, which was transported to permitted off-site disposal facilities. An interim Record of Decision issued in September 2002 also called for installing and operating the FE/PWO groundwater cleanup system.
        Reynolds Metals Company removed additional contaminated soil and waste material from the site as part of their plant demolition activities in 2003 through 2005. Following the demolition of the plant, newly accessible areas were evaluated for additional cleanup needs. Extensive sampling and assessment confirmed that the soil no longer poses an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment and no further soil cleanup is needed.

        The proposed plan was made available for public review on August 4, 2006. Two meetings were held to present information to community members.

        EPA and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) will continue to oversee the ongoing groundwater cleanup and monitoring. EPA will also conduct a review every five years to make sure that the cleanup continues to be effective.

        The Record of Decision and other key project documents are available on the EPA website at: https://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/cleanup.nsf/sites/reynolds.


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