26-01-2025
DEP to assume oversight of Waverly Twp. superfund site
Five decades ago, a chrome-plating plant in Waverly Twp. stored its distinctive red-and-green industrial wastewater in an unlined lagoon, leading to groundwater, surface water and soil contamination. Neighbors with wells feared for their health as environmental regulators oversaw extensive cleanup and monitoring efforts.
Although the Precision National Plating site at 198 Ackerly Road ceased storing carcinogenic chromium-containing wastewater in a lagoon in 1970 and the plant was demolished in 2000, its impacts are still apparent as the state Department of Environmental Protection looks to assume oversight of the superfund site from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The DEP is accepting comments until Feb. 19 on a proposed consent order and agreement with the White Plains, New York-based Precision National Plating Services Inc. The order will require Precision to continue performing EPA-mandated monitoring and water treatment, in addition to building a new public waterline.
Precision contaminated the site with total chromium, which includes trivalent and hexavalent chromium, according to the DEP's consent order. Concerns have largely focused on the presence of hexavalent chromium as the major contaminant. Exposure can cause occupational asthma, eye irritation and damage, perforated eardrums, respiratory irritation, kidney damage, liver damage, pulmonary congestion and edema, upper abdominal pain, nose irritation and damage, respiratory cancer, skin irritation, and erosion and discoloration of the teeth, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA.
'The past and present conditions at the Site constitute a release and/or threatened release of hazardous substances and/or contaminants,' the DEP wrote in its consent order, which cites Precision for violating multiple sections of the state's Clean Streams Law, Solid Waste Management Act and Administrative Code for wrongfully discharging industrial waste into Pennsylvania's waters and wrongfully disposing of hazardous waste.
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The site of the former Precision National Plating factory is seen through a fence surrounding the perimeter in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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The site of the former Precision National Plating factory is seen through a locked gate off of Ackerly Road in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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A locked gate restricts access to the former Precision National Plating plant in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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The site of the former Precision National Plating factory is seen through a fence surrounding the perimeter in Waverly Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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In a phone interview Wednesday, retired DEP licensed professional geologist John Mellow recalled working on the site from the 1990s until his retirement in early 2010.
'It was a very controversial site for sure,' he said.
An Archbald resident and member of the Sierra Club's Northeastern Pennsylvania Group chapter, Mellow worked in the DEP's Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program. His role at the time was to make sure the DEP understood the extent of the contamination in all significant aquifers, whether it was a shallow aquifer going to the surface or the aquifers supplying residential wells.
'It was a very serious problem,' Mellow said. 'Hexavalent chromium, it's a human health contaminant that's very toxic.'
The goal now is to get rid of the toxic hexavalent chromium and, over time, the total chromium will also decrease, he said, calling it a long-term process. One part of the remediation is converting hexavalent chromium into trivalent chromium, which Mellow explained is less mobile and less toxic.
'This is a good reason why you have to have environmental regulations,' Mellow said. 'A lot of this was done before there was any requirements to have any kind of monitoring or treatment.'
A history of pollution
Less than a quarter mile from Ackerly Creek, and even closer to residential homes along Arch Avenue in neighboring Glenburn Twp., the Precision site was operational from 1958 until 1999, according to an EPA case summary. Ernest V. Berry Inc. operated the plant until 1971 when Precision National Corporation purchased the property, later changing its name to Precision National Plating Services Inc. in 1987, according to the EPA.
The site initially functioned as a chromium electroplating facility for locomotive crankshafts, and when Precision bought the property, it added an industrial component reconditioning facility, according to an August 2020 work plan from Precision. The reconditioning involved applying a protective and wear-reducing coating that contained chromium to various engine components for the railroad, marine and power industries, according to a September 2006 response approval summary from the EPA.
Chromium contamination in the soil and groundwater occurred between 1958 and 1987, according to Precision's 2020 work plan. From 1958 until around 1970, chromium wastes were disposed of in a lagoon at the northern end of the facility, but in May 1970, the contaminated liquid leaked from a break in the lagoon's retaining wall and was absorbed into the soil in a drainage pathway, with additional hazardous waste-containing substances flowing to the nearby creek, according to the EPA's case summary. Until July 1970, the plant also allowed chromium-containing water to flow into floor drains that discharged to the ground outside, according to a 2012 report from Precision.
The DEP began investigating the site in the 1970s over its waste-handling and disposal procedures, taking action against Precision to reduce groundwater contamination, according to an April 1998 responsiveness summary from the EPA. In response, Precision drained and backfilled its lagoon, provided nearby residents with bottled water beginning in 1979 and moved chromium-contaminated soil from the lagoon and other areas into a vault.
In 1987, Precision released an additional 200 gallons of wastewater from a faulty valve at the plant. A reporter with The Sunday Times described the Feb. 8, 1987, spill, writing that the state was investigating a greenish-yellow liquid that flowed from Precision and down Ackerly Road into Ackerly Creek.
In 1993, Precision began working with the EPA under its Superfund Accelerated Cleanup Model program.
Throughout the 1990s, Precision would go on to drill two wells on Arch Avenue to provide drinking water for residents, install a public waterline for people with contaminated wells, engage in residential well monitoring and soil sampling, long-term groundwater monitoring and the collection and treatment of contaminated groundwater seeping to the surface.
The plant permanently closed in April 1999, and its equipment was decontaminated and either sold or disposed of off-site, according to Precision's 2020 work plan.
With oversight from the EPA and approval from Abington Twp. — now Waverly Twp. — Precision tore down its 45,000-square-foot building in fall 2000, though the remediation efforts were far from over.
The cleanup
Throughout the 2000s, Precision worked to treat and monitor its chromium contamination, largely reducing the levels of hexavalent chromium. With two water treatment systems on-site, water sampling results from April 1, 2023, through June 30, 2023, which were submitted to the EPA on July 12 and are the most recent available online, show trace amounts of hexavalent chromium still present in some samples, though after treatment, the carcinogen is undetectable.
In its latest pollution report from Aug. 6, the EPA summarized the past 20 years of efforts to clean up the site. In September 2005, the EPA approved a plan submitted on behalf of Precision to use calcium polysulfide to reduce the amount of hexavalent chromium in groundwater and soil by turning it into a less toxic form called trivalent chromium, which will remain in the soil and bedrock. Precision began injecting the chemical the following July.
Additional testing in October 2007 and March 2008 confirmed the residual contamination remained at the site, about 18 to 30 feet below ground, according to the EPA.
In August 2008, Precision carried out additional injections to treat those contaminated areas in the shallow bedrock, and hexavalent chromium levels dropped in Ackerly Creek due to a combination of the activities, the EPA reported.
Precision and EPA signed a new administrative settlement agreement and order on consent on May 3, 2012, with multiple rounds of calcium polysulfide injections between fall 2012 and fall 2018.
Semi-annual and quarterly sampling between 2016 and 2020 to document chromium levels showed the injections appeared to have been effective, though some hexavalent chromium persisted in isolated areas, as well as further downhill toward Ackerly Creek, according to the EPA. Precision then targeted those areas in the summer and fall of 2020 with more injections.
The EPA allowed Precision to reduce its chromium surface water sampling from quarterly to semi-annually in 2021 because it continued to keep chromium levels below the minimum requirement in Ackerly Creek. Most samples do not detect hexavalent chromium, and those that do have remained under the minimum levels since July 2016.
The future
With its proposed consent order and agreement, the DEP will require Precision to continue the incomplete corrective actions outlined in the EPA's 2012 settlement. Those are:
* For as long as releases continue, to collect contaminated water from groundwater seeps until total chromium levels remain below 100 parts per billion to prevent human exposure to contaminated groundwater.
* Treat the water from the currently collected seeps.
* Sample semi-annually both on- and off-site groundwater wells and nearby residential wells, with an accelerated schedule during any chemical injections.
* Perform air monitoring during any treatment conducted.
* Groundwater within the contaminate area shall not be used for drinking water until the maximum contaminant level for chromium is reached.
Additionally, Precision will be required to work with Pennsylvania American Water Company to install a waterline extension at and around the site to provide owners of nearby vacant properties within the chromium-impacted area with public water. Pennsylvania American Water does not have any project details at this time, company spokeswoman Susan Turcmanovich said in an email Thursday.
Precision will also have 90 days from the agreement's effective date to provide the DEP with documents showing its efforts to procure environmental covenants for properties impacted by or threatened to be impacted by chromium contamination.
Precision must also submit quarterly progress reports to the DEP.
Attempts to reach attorney Kevin C. Quinn of Kingston-based Hourigan, Kluger and Quinn, who is representing Precision according to the consent order, were unsuccessful.
Jim Davis, the chairman of Glenburn Twp.'s board of supervisors, said his township has been very pleased with the information shared by the EPA throughout the process.
'Obviously a superfund cleanup site and a municipality being able to just make information available to their residents, it's been helpful,' Davis said. 'If the DEP is going to be taking over oversight of this, I'm very comfortable with what direction it's going in.'
Davis has lived in Glenburn Twp. since 2014 and is in his sixth year as a township supervisor, but he grew up half a mile from the Precision site on Oakford Road.
'I know there were a lot of residents that were very much involved, especially the ones that were impacted, who were very upset with what happened, especially with the owner, Precision,' he said, noting the ongoing efforts to cleanup and manage the site. 'The EPA and the DEP have continued to serve the public interests of public health, and I hope that continues.'
A longtime advocate of the Lackawanna River, Bernie McGurl, who is the retired executive director of the Lackawanna River Conservation Association, doubts the chromium will ever be fully removed from the ground. McGurl reviewed the most recent water sampling results submitted by Precision to the EPA.
'It's probably typical of a lot of bad industrial operations that just went on and on and on in the old days before people were cognizant of the potential impacts,' said McGurl, who is now a senior consultant with the LRCA. 'The damage is pretty extensive and deep, and it's going to be persistent in the groundwater — I don't think they can ever rectify it.'
While water samples could be below the minimum level of contamination the day they're tested, they could also spike on other days because there is not a constant testing procedure, he said.
As a result, McGurl lauded the DEP's proposal for Precision to work with Pennsylvania American Water to bring an additional public water supply to the area.
Because the chromium went untreated and unabated for so long, the geology itself is containing the material in minute quantities 'in the nooks and crannies and crevices' of the ledge stone, rocks and groundwater tables, where it would flow into Ackerly Creek and then into the now-depleted Glenburn Pond, McGurl said.
'It's always going to be there,' he said.
To comment on the proposed consent order and agreement, submit written comments to Scott J. Bene in the DEP's Environmental Cleanup and Brownfields Program by emailing sbene@ or at 2 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701.
