January 18, 1995

The Friends of the Shenandoah River has held a technical assistance grant from the Environmental Protection Agency for the past three years.

As grant holder, the FOSR serves as the community information source concerning activities at the Avtex Superfund Site. A quarterly newsletter is published conveying recent activities at the plant site.

Over the past five years, a slow but orderly sequence of events has occurred. The initial effort was an emergency effort to secure the site and perform emergency actions to protect the community from harm. The carbon disulfide tanks were emptied. Contaminated soil was removed and shipped to hazardous landfills. Stored chemicals were identified and disposed of. Damaged and contaminated buildings were razed.

The next step was to conduct a remedial investigation to determine the extent and types of contamination of the plant site and the Shenandoah River so that an orderly decontamination process can be conducted.

The EPA created 11 areas of the Avtex plant for remedial investigation. The EPA designated these 11 areas as separate management units and assumed remedial investigation responsibility for five of them. FMC Corp. has completed its preliminary investigation of the remaining six management units as follows:

EPA - onsite sewers, onsite buildings, offsite soils, terrestrial ecology and the Shenandoah River study.

FMC - onsite soils, viscose basins, sulfate basins, waste water treatment plant lagoons and residuals, fill areas and fly ash piles and onsite and offsite ground water.

The purpose of the investigation was to determine the nature and extent of contamination associated with each management unit and to determine the effects of contaminants from each management unit on other units.

The EPA's investigation determined the nature and extent of contamination in the 12 miles of sewer lines, in the 60 acres of floor space in the main building, in the surface and subsurface soils adjacent to and in proximity to the Avtex plant and in the Shenandoah River. Included in the EPA's investigation are the effects of site contaminants on migratory birds, wildlife and vegetation.

The following are the results of FMC's investigation:

Onsite soils - The onsite soils cover 220 acres. Consequently, FMC divided the soils into 16 different sites in order to isolate the various area , both by soil type and by contaminants. Of the 16 sites, FMC completed 10 investigations and reported data gaps for the remaining six. While the 10 completed soil sites show no evidence of contamination in soil or a potential to create a localized impact to ground water quality, the other six sites warrant further investigation.

Viscose basins - Waste viscose is a by-product of staple and filament rayon fiber. It had been stored since the 1940s in 11 numbered lagoons. American Viscose used lagoons (later called basins) one through eight. FMC used basins nine through 11. After 1983, all viscose waste was pumped directly into waste water treatment plants. Viscose basins nine through 11 contain carbon disulfide, phenol, arsenic, zinc and elevated pH. They continue to contribute to ground water contamination and warrant further study of their impact on ground water quality.

Sulfate basins - The sulfate basins cover 85 acres and were used for 10 years to neutralize spent viscose rayon spinning bath with lime. Sulfate basin No. 6 was cleaned out in the early 1980s and is Fly Ash Basin No. 6. Sulfate basins one through eight, though containing approximately 809 million pounds of zinc, show disulfide concentrates generally less than 500 micrograms per kilogram.

Waste water treatment lagoons and residuals- The waste water treatment plant, including the emergency lagoon and two polishing basins constructed in 1948, neutralized acidic discharge. The EPA began treating waste water in 1990. By August 1991, all water had been pumped from the sulfate basins into the waste water treatment plant. The remedial investigation indicates the presence of carbon disulfide, zinc and PCB Aroclor 1242 in the basins.

Fill areas and fly ash pile- The fill areas are dry dumps for solid waste that had been impounded and buried. The EPA closed the areas in 1983 and hydro seeded them when the new landfill was opened. Fly ash came from the coal-fired boilers and was disposed in four settling basins, each with a capacity of four million gallons. Although out of use since the early 1980s, the fill areas and fly ash piles shows arsenic elevated five-to-10 times above background soil concentrations.

Onsite/offsite ground water- The State Water Control Board and Avtex have investigated ground water in the vicinity of the Avtex plant and FMC investigated onsite ground water. Carbon disulfide, phenol, arsenic, zinc and elevated pH were detected. The prime sources of the contaminants are viscose basins nine through 11.

Many wells were drilled on site and across the South Fork of the Shenandoah River to determine the extent of the underground pollution of ground water from the viscose basins. FMC has recommended further investigation of the extent of the ground water contamination by drilling additional wells. When the additional data is developed, a remedial plan will be developed to contain and hopefully remove the ground water pollution.

A later report will detail the findings of EPA's investigations of the onsite sewers and buildings and offsite soils, ecology and the Shenandoah River biology and chemistry.