Mini Project #5

What is a Superfund?

Superfund is the federal government's program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.

Near my home their are no Superfunds.


Superfund site cleanup begins

Jessica Coomes
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 28, 2008 12:00 AM

Inside two considerable water tanks tucked into a corner of Goodyear Community Park, contaminated groundwater from a local Superfund site is being scrubbed of pollutants.

The tanks, which started cleaning water last month, are positioned at the northern edge of the Phoenix-Goodyear Airport North Superfund Site and are supposed to stop the contaminants from flowing any farther north. Once the expansion is halted, contaminant levels in the 2-square-mile underground plume of water are expected to shrink until the water's chemical levels are safe again.

Polluted groundwater at the Superfund site has been treated since 1994, and the new treatment facility is expected to increase by 20 percent the removal of a dangerous chemical called trichloroethylene. That will increase even more when a second new treatment facility goes online in March.

Crane Co. is responsible for the cleanup after putting chemicals into the ground at the former Unidynamics Phoenix facility in Goodyear, where defense and aerospace component systems were manufactured.

Crane paid $1 million for the new treatment facility as part of a formal agreement reached in 2006 between the company and the EPA.

"I urge the EPA to keep the pressure on Crane," Litchfield Park Mayor Tom Schoaf said Thursday at a celebration for the new treatment facility at Goodyear Community Park. "I hope that the new responsibility that we've seen from this company continues. I hope they'll fund the necessary cleanup of the mess that's been made here."

The Superfund location was identified in 1983 and later was divided into two sites, north and south.

Officials reacted quickly to start cleaning groundwater at the south site, said Keith Takata, director of the Environmental Protection Agency Superfund division in the Pacific Southwest.

But they did not do enough to stop the plume from expanding at the north site, Takata said.

"We really didn't stay vigilant enough," he said. "I feel like we're back on track, and we're headed in the right direction."

At the new treatment facility, near Litchfield and Thomas roads, water is pumped from a well, cleaned in the two tanks and spit into a canal near Goodyear Community Park at 750 gallons per minute.

It is not used for drinking water; the stream is mixed with other water for irrigation.

"If we didn't contaminate the water in the first place, we wouldn't have to clean it up," said Steve Owens, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. "And that's part of our mission, as well, to make sure we don't have to have facilities like this built in the future, that we do a better job protecting our precious groundwater resources in the state."