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EPA TO REMOVE WASTE FROM MIDDLEBOROUGH PLATING SITE

Release Date: 03/15/2000
Contact Information: Alice Kaufman, EPA Community Affairs Office, (617) 918-1064

Boston - EPA New England has earmarked $160,000 to remove drums, containers and debris containing hazardous waste from an abandoned plating facility in Middleborough, MA. EPA inspected the former Middleborough Plating facility, located at 98 Cambridge St., and found plating sludges, several steel and polyethylene drums containing waste, debris scattered throughout the facility.

EPA expects to begin work March 20 and anticipates that it will take one and one half month to complete.

"The building is easily accessed through broken windows and it appears that young people have been in there," said Athanasios Hatzopoulos, EPA's cleanup manager for the site. "It's a bad situation when kids can be exposed to the types of chemicals left behind when the plating operations ceased. I will secure to the site to keep youth and others out of the building while we are cleaning it up."

During the investigation, EPA took samples of the material left in the drums, and in the standing water from a floor trench running through facility and sampled the debris on the floor. EPA documented high levels of inorganic compounds such as chromium, cadmium, lead and zinc, as well as cyanide.