LEWIS RUN – Another company has been found to hold some
responsibility in the potential for contamination at the Lewis Run
Borough municipal well site.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has proposed a
consent order and agreement with Tronox LLC for “its de minimis
share of Response Costs for the Site.”

Freda Tarbell, DEP’s Northwest Regional Office community
relations coordinator, said Tuesday that Tronox has signed the
consent order and paid the $18,150 fee charged by DEP. The fee will
go directly to the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund, said Tarbell.

“As far as the DEP is concerned, this is not a final step,”
explained Tarbell. “We will wait until the end of the public
comment period and see if there is any new information that would
indicate Tronox’s responsibility might go beyond de minimis.”

A legal advertisement in Saturday’s Era indicates the public
comment period will end in 60 days from that date. The agreement is
available for inspection at the DEP office in Meadville.

Tronox is the second company to be found responsible in the
contamination of the groundwater in Lewis Run near a well site, or
well #3 in the borough.

Tronox, according to the consent order, is the successor company
to Kerr-McGee LLC.

In early 2005, the DEP reached an agreement with McCourt Label
Cabinet Co. for it to pay more than $100,000 over a 20-year period,
plus two percent of the company’s net profit between the years 2014
and 2033, to resolve its liability for the site. The company must
also implement an environmental management plan at its Lewis Run
facility.

Control Chief had been named as a potential responsible party in
the past; whether or not that is true today is not known.

The potential for contamination and actual contamination of
three wells in the borough has caused the municipality to have to
tap into Bradford City water. The borough did not want to do this
for two reasons: one, they prefer to supply their residents with
drinking water on their own, and the switch to city water would put
an added cost on borough residents.

While real estate transactions were occurring in the 1990s, it
was discovered there was potential for drinking water
contamination. Because of this, the DEP asked borough officials to
take well #3 out of operation, which has been done.

The well is near a plume of volatile organic compounds (VOCs),
including trichloroethylene (TCE), which is used to remove grease
from fabricated metal parts and some textiles, and
tetrachloroethylene (PCE), which is found as a component of aerosol
dry-cleaning products and is usually used in the textile industry.
Another VOC found at the site is cis-1,2-dichlororthylene.

The borough had two other wells and a spring it could rely on to
supply its residents with drinking water when the use of well #3
was discontinued. But, the two other wells were eventually found to
contain Benzene, a carcinogen and component of gasoline. In
addition to the Benzene, the wells were found to have higher than
acceptable amounts of iron and manganese, leaving the water cloudy
and with poor taste and odor.

While the borough stopped operation of well #3, the DEP searched
for a new site for a new well and drilled one. That operation
stopped when the DEP ran into right-of-way access and funding
problems. Another problem with that well was announced in January;
the well would not be a good source of water for borough residents
to drink. To this day, that project is on hold.

Borough officials are angered that they borrowed money to drill
well #3 on their own and want compensation. In the past, DEP
officials suggested the borough go to the responsible parties for
collection. The borough has decided this would cause problems
between those companies and the borough and have not done so.

At this time, borough officials are asking the DEP to compensate
them for the money they spent drilling well #3, which they can no
longer use. There is no further information on where that issue
stands.

The legal advertisement posted in Saturday’s Era states the DEP
has “incurred approximately $1,200,000 in response costs and
expects to incur an additional $500,000 to abate the release and
threatened release of hazardous substances at the Site.”