News Releases from Region 04

Pepper Steel & Alloys, Inc. site in Medley, Florida included on EPA Superfund Redevelopment Focus List

Pepper Steel & Alloys, Inc. site in Medley, Florida included on EPA Superfund Redevelopment Focus List

Media Contact: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421 (Direct), (404) 562-8400 (Main), harris-young.dawn@epa.gov

ATLANTA (January 17, 2018) – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its initial list of Superfund National Priorities List (NPL) sites with the greatest expected redevelopment and commercial potential.  The Pepper Steel & Alloys, Inc. site in Medley, Fla. is one of 31 sites on the list.

“EPA is more than a collaborative partner to remediate the nation’s most contaminated sites, we’re also working to successfully integrate Superfund sites back into communities across the country,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “Today’s redevelopment list incorporates Superfund sites ready to become catalysts for economic growth and revitalization.”

The Pepper Steel & Alloys, Inc. site is a 25-acre site located near the eastern border of Medley, Florida, approximately 10 miles northwest of Miami and southwest of the Miami Canal. Commercial and industrial areas surround the site. From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, a variety of industrial businesses operated at the site and left behind trash and waste products, including rusted machinery, vehicles, aircraft, oil tanks, transformers, underground storage tanks and batteries. Site activities also included the recycling of electrical transformers, which resulted in the dumping of waste oil on the ground. EPA placed the site on the Superfund program’s National Priorities List (NPL) in 1984 because of contaminated soil resulting from facility operations.

EPA, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Miami-Dade County’s Department of Environmental Response and Management (DERM) and the site’s potentially responsible parties (PRPs) investigated site conditions and took steps to clean up the site in order to protect people and the environment from contamination. Site contamination does not currently threaten people living and working near the site. Through cleaning up contaminated soil, putting institutional controls in place and undertaking Five-Year Reviews, EPA, FDEP and the site’s PRPs continue to protect people and the environment from site contamination.

A commercial truck storage company operates on the site, as well as four trucks which sells heavy equipment parts. In 2016, SeaVee Boats acquired the site’s northern portion and plans to develop a boat manufacturing and sales facility. Other areas of the site are used for truck and heavy equipment parking.

Superfund redevelopment has helped countless communities reclaim and reuse thousands of acres of formerly contaminated land. Superfund sites on the list have significant redevelopment potential based on previous outside interest, access to transportation corridors, land values, and other critical development drivers.

In July 2017, the Superfund Task Force released its recommendations to streamline and improve the Superfund program including a focus on redevelopment training, tools and resources towards sites on the NPL. EPA will work diligently with developers interested in reusing these and other Superfund sites; will identify potentially interested businesses and industries to keep them apprised of redevelopment opportunities; and will continue to engage with community groups in cleanup and redevelopment activities to ensure the successful redevelopment and revitalization of their communities. 

Administrator Pruitt has set the expectation that there will be a renewed focus on accelerating work and progress at all Superfund sites across the country. The Superfund program remains dedicated to addressing risk and accelerating progress at all of its sites, not just those on the list.

This is not a complete list of sites in the Superfund program with redevelopment potential. The list is intended to be dynamic. Sites will move on and off the list as appropriate.

For more information, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/superfund-redevelopment-initiative/superfund-redevelopment-focus-list

Connect with EPA Region 4 on Facebook: www.facebook.com/eparegion4

And on Twitter: @EPASoutheast