Locus Wins Baldwin Park Operable Unit Superfund Site Professional Consulting and Engineering Services
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, 31 May 2002 — Locus Technologies (Locus), a leader in groundwater consulting and engineering services, announced today that it has been selected by certain settling Cooperating Respondents to provide professional consulting and engineering services at the Baldwin Park Operable Unit (BPOU), a part of the San Gabriel Valley Superfund site. The San Gabriel Valley Superfund site consists of plumes of groundwater contamination in an area more than a mile wide and 7 miles long. The groundwater in this area is utilized for multiple purposes, including public water supply. Traditionally, local water companies simply shut down water supply wells to avoid service of impacted groundwater. Groundwater contamination extends from the water table to more than 1,000 feet below ground surface. The primary contaminants in groundwater are chlorinated volatile organic compounds (VOCs), perchlorate, N nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), and 1,4-dioxane. Contaminant concentrations measured in groundwater in the BPOU area range up to several tens of parts per million.
In March 1994, EPA issued a Record of Decision (ROD) and selected a cleanup plan for VOCs in the BPOU and, in 1999, subsequently issued an explanation of significant differences to the ROD requiring additional treatment systems as a result of the discovery of perchlorate, NDMA, and 1,4-dioxane in groundwater. EPA then issued a Unilateral Administrative Order on 30 June 2000, directing 19 potential responsible parties (PRPs) to complete the remedial design and make arrangements for the construction and operation of the BPOU groundwater extraction wells, treatment systems, and related cleanup facilities. The selected remedy, now in the design and construction stage, calls for large groundwater pump-and-treat systems capable of extracting and treating approximately 21,000 gallons per minute. Current plans approved by EPA call for the remedy to be built as four sub-projects, ranging in capacity from 2,500 gallons per minute to 7,800 gallons per minute. Each subproject will have two or more groundwater extraction wells and a series of treatment processes expected to include air-stripping, ion exchange, and UV oxidation. Clean, treated water will be distributed by local water purveyors for use in the public water supply system.
Locus’s contract is with several of the Cooperating Respondents that include companies such as Oil & Solvent Process Company, Reichhold, Inc., Azusa Land Reclamation Co., Inc., Fairchild Holding Company, Hartwell Corporation, Huffy Corporation, and Wynn Oil Company. “We are very pleased to be selected as consultants to one of the largest groundwater cleanup projects in the United States. This further demonstrates Locus’s ability to provide technical and strategic representation to its clients on complex, multidisciplinary groundwater sites. We will be working closely with the Cooperating Respondents to implement the groundwater remedy and restore the public drinking water supply” said Mr. Gregory Murphy, Vice President of Locus Technologies in charge of the program.
