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Flash Cleaners site in Pompano Beach, Fla., proposed for addition to EPA's Superfund National Priorities List

Release Date: 03/19/2008
Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, [email protected]

(Atlanta, Ga. – March 19, 2008) The Flash Cleaners site in Pompano Beach, Florida 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 Flash Cleaners Site is about .5 acres in size and located at 4131 North Federal Highway, Pompano Beach, Broward County, Fla. From 1977 to approximately 2001, Flash Cleaners was operated as a dry cleaning facility. Dry cleaning operations have been discontinued at the site. The facility is currently being used as a drop-off location for outsourced dry cleaning services. During a 1999 Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) inspection, FDEP noted the presence of two dry cleaning machines at the facility. The non-operational machine and waste containers were located on a bare concrete floor with no secondary containment. Wastewater from dry cleaning activities were reportedly discharged to an on-site septic tank, which resulted in soil and ground water contamination.

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