All News Releases By Date

EPA Completes Federal Superfund Cleanup of Perry Builders Hazardous Waste Site in Bainbridge, New York

Release Date: 04/03/2002
Contact Information:

(#02018) NEW YORK, N.Y. – The last of nearly 400 shipments, totalling10,000 tons of hazardous and non- hazardous waste, left the abandoned Perry Builders facility on Pruyn Street in Bainbridge, New York destined for a licensed disposal facility. This marks the successful end of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) $1.9 million Superfund cleanup of the former lumber treatment facility that began last summer. EPA’s action was triggered by the threat to trespassing children of direct contact with the heavy metals arsenic and chromium, which contaminated concrete structures and soil on the site as the result of the wood treatment operations conducted there from 1988 to 1997. “We took action at the site through our Superfund program before it caused any harm to the public,” said EPA Regional Administrator Jane M. Kenny. “Working with the state’s environmental and health agencies, we were able to clean up the the site to background conditions that will allow for its unrestricted use in redevelopment plans. This is a tangible future benefit for the Bainbridge community,” Ms. Kenny added. The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) asked EPA last June to use its Superfund authority to address high levels of heavy metal contamination found at the site during its evaluation as a candidate for EPA’s Brownfields program. The program spurs efforts to redevelop abandoned or underutilized contaminated industrial properties. In July, EPA initiated 24-hour security and other measures to prevent unauthorized access to the site. Simultaneously, EPA began cleanup activities that included the demolition of concrete roof panels in the treatment and post-treatment areas of the building to provide a safe work environment for removing contaminated concrete flooring and underlying soils. By the end of August, EPA had collected and staged all the treated wood debris and general debris in the building for off-site disposal. In September, the vacuuming of the heavy metal-contaminated dust and small debris in the process areas was completed and the material was shipped off-site for proper disposal in October. All the demolition work of building structures at the site, including the main building, was also completed in October. Air monitoring of particulates (dust) was conducted during the entire demolition process and no significant releases were detected. The bulk of the collected hazardous and non-hazardous materials were shipped off-site for proper disposal by the end of December. Additional excavation, collection and off-site disposal of hot-spot soil contamination was completed in early February and the last shipment of hazardous material, which included capacitors containing polychlorinated biphenyls and mercury vapor light bulbs, left the site on March 19.