The EPA Superfund site is located on the northeast corner of Grange Hall Road and Patterson Road in Beavercreek, catty-corner to the city’s newly dubbed Spring House Park. The site is near suburbs and industrial facilities, and the Little Beaver Creek flows from west to east across the site.
The Kohnen and Lammers Chemical Company operated as a chemical recycling facility there from 1953 to 1969. Chlorinated volatile organic compounds and aromatic hydrocarbons chemicals were stored at the site in above-ground storage tanks and in drums, according to the EPA. A massive fire in 1969 caused the Lammers site to close.
In 1985 the Ohio EPA discovered contamination in residential drinking water wells nearby, and those residents were then connected to public water to avoid further exposure.
The EPA sued 38 defendant companies, or “potentially responsible parties” for cleanup costs, which previous estimates put around $13 million. Consent decrees with those companies were obtained in 2014 and 2019, after being argued before the U.S. Southern District Court of Ohio, according to the EPA website.
The soil cleanup method was originally selected in 2011. The agency had planned to use a biological treatment, mixing soil with zero valent iron, portland cement, and water.
According to the EPA’s website, remedial action had begun on the site in April. However, the EPA has since discovered more contaminated soil. The biological treatment method would require four times more soil to be treated, which is both difficult and expensive, the agency said.
The new plan would address the additional contaminated soil via heating the soil to remove contamination instead.
The site is divided in two areas, or “operable units.” One is the former Lammers Facility itself, and the other is offsite groundwater contamination. The groundwater plume migrates off site to the east, just north of East Patterson Road.
Public comments may be submitted at the meeting, on the EPA’s website under “Public Comment Period” or by mailing them to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, RE-19J, 77 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60604. Comments can also be emailed by July 15 to palomeque.adrian@epa.gov.
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