WASTE DISPOSAL, INC.
SANTA FE SPRINGS, CA
Cleanup Activities
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On this page:
- Background
- What Has Been Done to Clean Up the Site?
- What Is the Current Site Status?
- Activity and Use Limitations
- Enforcement Information
On related pages:
Background
The 38-acre Waste Disposal, Inc. site is located in Santa Fe Springs, California. The site consists of 22 individual parcels of land owned by multiple owners. The site contains a buried, 42-million-gallon-capacity concrete-lined reservoir originally constructed for crude petroleum storage. Wastes disposed of at the site include petroleum-related chemicals, solvents, sludges, construction debris, drilling muds and other waste materials. Following cleanup, operations and maintenance activities and monitoring are ongoing.
What Has Been Done to Clean Up the Site?
Remedial Action Completed (2006): The remedial action ("cleanup") was completed in 2006 and includes capping of waste, removal of small volumes of subsurface liquids, collection and treatment of soil vapor, surface water management, long-term operations, maintenance, and monitoring, and instutional controls. The remedial action implemented the cleanup approach that was selected in an Amended Record of Decision, or Amended ROD, that EPA issued in June 2002 (https://semspub.epa.gov/work/09/114909.pdf).
Prior Five-Year Reviews: EPA has conducted three Five-Year Reviews of the site’s remedy in 2009, 2014, and 2019. Five-Year Reviews ensure that the remedies that have been put in place protect public health and the environment, and function as intended by site decision documents. The most recent Third Five-Year Review concluded that response actions at the site are in accordance with the remedy selected by EPA and that the remedy continues to be protective of human health and the environment.
Please see these links for the 2009 Five-Year Review https://semspub.epa.gov/work/09/2210012.pdf and the 2014 Five-Year Review https://semspub.epa.gov/work/09/100003626.pdf .
Third Five Year Review: EPA completed the Third Five-Year Review for the WDI Superfund Site on September 12, 2019. The Third Five Year Review concluded that the site remains protective of human health of the environmnent. To view the Third Five-Year Review, please click here.
What Is the Current Site Status?
The remedial action was completed in 2006, and the site is currently in the long-term operations, maintenance, and monitoring (OM&M) phase of work. EPA continues to provide oversight of ongoing OM&M activities.
EPA is currently working with multiple parties who plan to pursue beneficial reuse activities at the site.
Activity and Use Limitations
At this site, activity and use limitations that EPA calls institutional controls are in place. Institutional controls play an important role in site remedies because they reduce exposure to contamination by limiting land or resource use. They also guide human behavior. For instance, zoning restrictions prevent land uses – such as residential uses – that are not consistent with the level of cleanup.
For more background, see Institutional Controls.
Institutional Controls: Institutional controls (ICs) have been recorded for each of the land parcels located at the site. The ICs consist of land use covenants that have been recorded with the county and establish requirements for access and notification as well as controls on land and water use. The ICs are designed to manage or control activities that could potentially damage the environmental systems (caps, pipelines, treatment system, surface water management systems, monitoring wells, etc.) that have been installed at the site. The Waste Disposal Inc. Group (WDIG) is implementing a program as part of long-term OM&M to monitor the effectiveness of these institutional controls.
Enforcement Information
Multiple Consent Decrees: EPA entered into multiple consent decrees with groups of potentially responsible parties (PRPs) to fund and perform environmental response work at the site. The Waste Disposal Incorporated Group (WDIG) is a steering committee of companies who helped fund and perform site investigations and remedial action under EPA oversight. EPA also entered into consent decrees with landowners at the site to provide site access, establish institutional controls on individual land parcels, and in some cases provide financial settlements to help pay for site activities.