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Cleanup to Begin at Troy Mills Landfill in Troy, New Hampshire

Release Date: 09/04/2003
Contact Information: Alice Kaufman, EPA Community Involvement Office, 617-918-1064

BOSTON -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that EPA is beginning work to construct a temporary containment system at the Troy Mills Landfill Site, in Troy, New Hampshire.

During the construction activities, expected to take about 8 weeks, work crews will be on the site between 6:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and will be entering the site from Route 12 where Bowkerville Road turns into Rockwood Pond Road and enters the landfill. A security guard will be on duty during non-working hours and on weekends.

EPA reminds people not to trespass onto the site, especially since open trenches may pose a hazard.

EPA will install three separate interceptor trenches totaling 100 feet to capture contamination seeping into nearby wetlands. The trenches are composed of standard pre-cast concrete collection chambers (also known as leaching galleys or leaching chambers). A high density polyethylene membrane will be installed along specific faces of the chambers to intercept and retain contamination which is floating on the groundwater.

Once the trenches are installed, the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NH DES) will remove floating contamination, most likely using a "vacuum truck" once or twice a month.

The Troy Mills Landfill (also called the Rockwood Brook Landfill), which is owned by Troy Mills, Inc., is located about 1.5 miles from town off of a dirt road on the company's mostly wooded 270-acre property. The 11-acre landfill was used from1967 until 2001 as an industrial waste disposal area by the owner, a local fabric manufacturer. From 1967 to 1978, two acres were used to dispose of up to an estimated 11,000 drums of liquid wastes and sludges containing Varsol, vinyl resins, plasticizers, pigments, top-coating products and industrial organic solvents. After 1978, the remaining nine acres were used to dispose of waste fabric scraps and other solid waste from the company's manufacturing complex. EPA and the NH DES identified elevated levels of metals, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) leaking from uncontainerized waste at the landfill, endangering the downstream fisheries, recreation areas, and wetlands.

In 1992, Troy Mills, Inc., completed a feasibility study detailing a proposed remedy that included capping the inactive disposal area, installing additional monitoring wells, and, if necessary, implementing a groundwater recovery and treatment system. The company in cooperation with the NH DES then completed detailed design studies. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001 and could not implement the remedial design previously approved by the NH DES in 2000.

In September 2002, EPA excavated 14 test pits in a two acre portion of the landfill and found deteriorated drums containing liquids and/or sludge in each. The drums contained hazardous materials including petroleum-based degreasers such as Varsol solvent, and plasticizer wastes.