Utility Pole Firm Faces $77-Million Cleanup

A toxic brew left from 30 years of treating telephone poles and railroad ties at the Koppers Co. site in Butte County, Calif., will be cleaned up under a $77-million consent agreement, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday.

The agreement is by far the largest negotiated Superfund cleanup this year in EPA’s Region 9, which includes Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and the Pacific Islands. Under such agreements, the companies or groups contributing to an environmental problem agree to pay for and administer the cleanup.

Waste waters from the wood-treatment processes had seeped from unlined ponds into the ground water, spreading a two-mile plume of underground contamination. The surrounding surface soil was contaminated with toxics, including arsenic and chromium. Fires at the site in 1963 and 1987 released other toxics that settled on nearby soil.

The EPA is requiring that alternative water supplies be provided without charge to neighbors “to serve all needs,” including irrigation. Contaminated ground water will be extracted over the next 30 years, passed through a carbon bed to remove contaminants, then reinjected into the water table. Soil will be treated by washing and other methods.

Use of pentachlorophenol, a prime contaminant, ceased at the site in 1988. The facility, owned by a subsidiary of Beazer PLC, a London-based development and building products company, otherwise continues in operation under scrutiny of the EPA.