WILMINGTON — Over two months after the Environmental Protection Agency presented a proposed clean-up plan for the Olin Chemical site in Wilmington, Section Chief Lynne Jenning recently informed the Board of Selectmen that the agency doesn’t expect to issue its final plan until the end of 2020 or in early January.
“I’m certainly glad to see that we are moving in the right direction” said Town Manager Jeff Hull. “This has been an issue for my entire 30-year time in Wilmington, so it’s good that we’re at a point where decisions about remediation are being made.”
Located at 51 Eames St., Olin Chemical was a 53-acre facility that produced specialty chemicals for rubber and plastics until 1986. Waste disposal practices caused contamination both on and off-site, prompting the town to close contaminated drinking water wells and municipal supply wells in the Maple Meadow Brook aquifer.
In August, Jennings led a virtual presentation on the EPA’s proposed clean-up plan and highlighted the agency’s three proposed action items — one short-term and two long-term — to correct six problem areas that she said need to be addressed.
Those problems include contaminated surface water, soils and sediments in the East and South Ditch streams, groundwater hot spots and the need to remove contaminants like Dense Aqueous-phase Liquid (DAPL).
The short term action item would address the DAPL and groundwater hot spots by implementing approximately 26 extraction wells and constructing an onsite treatment system.
The long term items would include demolishing plant B, targeting groundwater extraction to prevent discharge to surface water and creating containment caps and cover systems on areas of soil contamination that pose an unacceptable ecological risk.
Jennings said in August that the EPA chose their plan based on nine points of criteria, including cost, implementability and, naturally, effectiveness. Overall the proposed plan is estimated to cost over $48 million.
Still, there currently is no estimation for when the clean-up process will begin, according to Hull.
When speaking to the Sun, Hull said that he has some reservations about the proposed plan — particularly on the short-term solution to remove the DAPL — but ultimately feels glad that some progress is being made.
Still, he said that the progress doesn’t change the fact that the town hasn’t lost sight of the purpose for the clean-up.
“Even though it’s going to take a considerable amount of time, we expect that the public water supply that was contaminated will at a point in time be fully restored,” Hull said. “Whether that takes 20 years or 50 years who knows, but that is still our ultimate goal.”
The project update came as EPA officials met with the Board of Selectmen to inform the town about some upcoming investigative work around the Olin site.
Specifically, Jennings and James Cashwell, Olin’s director of Environmental Remediation, said that they will be using a low-flying helicopter equipped with an electromagnetic sensor to identify the impacts of contaminants to bed rock and fill in certain data gaps, which will occur sometime next week.
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Final clean-up plan for Wilmington Olin site won’t be ready until 2021 - Lowell Sun
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