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Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water site in Aberdeen, N.C., proposed for addition to EPA's Superfund National Priorities List

Release Date: 03/19/2008
Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov

(Atlanta, Ga. – March 19, 2008) The Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water site in Aberdeen, North Carolina has been proposed for addition to EPA’s National Priorities List (NPL) of hazardous waste sites. It is one of six hazardous waste sites to be proposed for addition to the NPL, while twelve sites nationally are being added to the list.

The Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water site is about 1 acre in size and located on highway Route 211 in Aberdeen, Moore County, N.C. Powdered Metal Products (PMP) manufactured precision machine parts at the facility from 1980 until 1995. The operation utilized a trichloroethene (TCE) dip-vat as part of the manufacturing process. During the investigation of ground water contamination at the Geigy Chemical Corporation NPL site in 1990, which is located just on the other side of State Route 211, TCE, lead and pesticide contamination was detected in numerous private wells along Crestline Lane and Route 211. Investigations have identified contaminated soils in the vicinity of the former TCE dip-vat utilized by PMP as the source of TCE contamination in the ground water.

To date, there have been 1,581 sites listed to the NPL. Of these sites, 324 sites have been deleted resulting in 1,257 final sites on the NPL. With the proposal of the six new sites, there are 60 proposed sites awaiting final agency action: 55 in the general Superfund section and five in the federal facilities section. There are a total 1,317 final and proposed sites on the NPL.

With all Superfund sites, EPA tries to identify and locate the parties potentially responsible for the contamination. Historically, through EPA’s enforcement program, approximately 70 percent of Superfund cleanups have been performed by the parties responsible for site contamination. For the newly listed sites without viable potentially responsible parties, EPA will investigate the full extent of the contamination before starting significant cleanup at the site. Therefore, it may be several years before significant cleanup funding is required for these sites.

Sites may be placed on the list through various mechanisms:

Ÿ Numeric ranking established by EPA’s Hazard Ranking System.
Ÿ Designation by states or territories of one top-priority site.
Ÿ Meeting all three of the following requirements:
Ÿ The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the U.S. Public Health Service has issued a health advisory that recommends removing people from the site;
Ÿ EPA determines the site poses a significant threat to public health; and
Ÿ EPA anticipates it will be more cost-effective to use its remedial authority than to use its emergency removal authority to respond to the site.

For information on the other final and proposed sites: https://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl/current.htm