Phoenix-Goodyear Airport Area Superfund
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SFUND RECORDS CTR 0217-00055 SFUND RECORDS CTR 88004723 PHOENIX-GOODYEAR AIRPORT AREA SUPERFUND SITE FINAL REMEDY REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS Goodyear, Arizona June 21, 1989 7:00 o'clock p.m. BRUSH AND TERRELL, P.C. Court Reporters PREPARED FOR: 3120 West El Caminito Drive Phoenix, Arizona 85051 ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION (602) 246-2132 AGENCY (602) 973-1771 REPORTED BY: DONNA TERRELL 1 PHOENIX-GOODYEAR AIRPORT AREA 2 SUPERFUND SITE 3 FINAL REMEDY 4 5 taken at 7:00 o'clock p.m., June 21, 1989^ in the Goodyear 6 Community Center, 420 East Loma Linda, Goodyear, Arizona, 7 before DONNA TERRELL, a Notary Public in and for the County 8 of Maricopa, State of Arizona. 9 10 Goodyear, Arizona June 21, 19 89 11 7:00 o'clock p.m. 12 13 MR. JEFF ROSENBLOOM: Go ahead, Mr. Mayor. 14 MAYOR CARL GOW: Thank you, Jeff. We want to 15 welcome each one of you and thank you for taking the time to 16 come out in this heat and all and braving this weather. We 17 appreciate your coming. 18 The purpose of this meeting tonight is very 19 important. It's to inform you of the status and the 20 progress that's been made in this program here over in what 21 used to be Goodyear. I refer to it as Goodyear, but it's 22 Sarival now. So -- and we want to keep abreast of this 23 thing so that we can inform our citizens, and they'll know 24 what's going on as far as the water is concerned. 25 So we want to again say welcome to you. DONNA TERRELL, RPR, CP, CM Brush & Terrell Court Reporters (602) 246-2132 1 We're going to keep our hand in this thing to see that 2 progress is made and that our citizens are protected. Thank 3 you. 4 Jeff? 5 MR. JEFF ROSENBLOOM: What you have in front of 6 you is the agenda for this evening's presentation. My name 7 is Jeff Rosenbloom. I'm with the Environmental Protection 8 Agency up in San Francisco. The region — I represent 9 Region Nine, which covers California, Arizona, now Hawaii 10 and Guam. Not Hawaii now, but maybe that's — when you get 11 a little more seniority. 12 I'll try and keep xny presentation as brief 13 as possible and leave more time for questions and answers. 14 I have the first agenda item which is introductions. 15 We have — there are a number of 16 representatives here tonight from agencies and from 17 companies that have been working on the problem for a number 18 of years: The Department of Environmental Quality, 19 Department of Water Resources, Goodyear, Unidynamics, and as 20 well as other folks like yourself who have been with us for 21 a number of years. 22 I'd like to just sort of get into the 23 presentation. It's going to last about 20 minutes. It's 24 going to be technical in nature, but I'll try and keep it as 25 specific as possible without getting into too much technical DONNA TERRELL, RPR, CP, CM Brush & Terrell Court Reporters (602) 246-2132 1 jargon. 2 We do have time set aside for questions and 3 answers. So if during the presentation, you need 4 clarification, that's fine. But if you can hold like for 5 broader questions until the end, that would be great. 6 Also when I'm nervous I tend to talk 7 quickly. So if I ever start losing you, just flag me and 8 I'll slow down. 9 This is your first — your second handout. 10 It's sort of an overview of the site boundaries. It's all 11 pretty familiar to you. The official site boundaries are 12 Litchfield Road on the east. Buckeye on the south. Highway 13 85. It's I-IO on the north, although the actual boundary up 14 here is a little fuzzy. And on the west, it's Sarival. 15 Although these are the official boundaries, 16 our goal is to determine the extent of contamination. And 17 as I mentioned, if the contamination goes beyond those 18 boundaries, we'll track it. So we do have some 19 contamination that potentially is up above 10. 20 We've got about 40 square miles we have to 21 take a look at and it's taken us awhile. But we've finally 22 come to the end of the process. The goal we'll be 23 discussing tonight is the final remedy for the site, both 24 for groundwater and for soils. 25 What I'd like to do is give you a quick DONNA TERRELL, RPR, CP, CM Brush & Terrell Court Reporters (602) 246-2132 1 overview of the groundwater system and familiarize you with 2 some terms that I'll be using. 3 Y'all get your drinking water from the 4 ground. The groundwater in the area flows in from the east, 5 comes along and there is a natural groundwater divide along 6 Y\ama Road. 7 With all these lights on, can people see 8 this? How are we — is that better? 9 VOICES: Better. 10 MR. JEFF ROSENBLOOM: Okay. Good. There's a 11 natural groundwater divide along Yuma Road. It causes the 12 groundwater to turn to the south and to the north in this 13 approximate area. 14 What that's done — what that's done is 15 allowed us to split the site in two, to allow to us focus 16 our investigations in two distinct areas: to really the 17 northern area and the southern area. 18 Okay. That's an aerial view. That's which 19 way the water flows. What I'd like to do with this next 20 slide is show you what the groundwater looks like in a cross 21 section. 22 This is your third slide. No, fourth slide. 23 The geology in the area, we've divided into three large 24 sections: The upper alluvial \inits, the middle fine grained 25 units and the lower conglomerate units. DONNA TERRELL, RPR, CP, CM Brush & Terrell Court Reporters (602) 246-2132 1 They reach about 360 feet or so in depth. 2 Drinking water for the City of Goodyear comes from mostly 3 the lower parts of subunit B, subunit C and from middle fine 4 grained units. There is water up in subunit A is where it's 5 shallow and that water provides recharge for the areas below 6 it and is high in salts and is not used for drinking. 7 I'll refer to this as subunit A and then 8 down here we have subunit B and C. This dashed line 9 represents the fact that these two aquifers are very, very 10 similar and are highly interconnected. We find groundwater 11 at about 360 feet deep — about 60 feet deep. I'm sorry. 12 We met here about two years ago to discuss 13 the first remedy for the site, a partial remedy called an 14 Operable Unit, which is a horribly bureaucratic term for an 15 end-term remedy. Let me just tell you what that remedy is 16 and the status of it. 17 The remedy was to pump subunit A — that's 18 shallow groundwater -- beneath the — what we called section 19 16, which is the area where the Goodyear-Phoenix Airport is 20 located and the Loral Corporation. The water is to be 21 pumped out, treated with air stripping to remove the 22 volatile organics. And the water, since it can'.t be used 23 for any other purpose since — because of its high salts 24 content is to be reinjected back into the aquifer. 25 Let me give you — your next slide shows DONNA TERRELL, RPR, CP, CM Brush & Terrell Court Reporters (602) 246-2132 1 where that's located. This is the southern area. An 2 agreement was entered into between E.P.A. and Goodyear Tire 3 and Rubber to conduct these activities. Goodyear has taken 4 the lead — Goodyear has taken the lead and begun work on 5 installing the system. The extraction wells and injection 6 wells have just gone in. The treatment plant is being 7 constructed and should be in operation in December of this 8 year. 9 One interesting note is that when we met 10 last time, we talked only about Section 16, which is this 11 boundary right here, which contained the higher 12 contamination. Goodyear's taken the initiative and gone 13 beyond that and will be addressing all of the contamination 14 in this upper subunit. And that reaches down to the 15 southern end of the airport so that will involve more 16 pumping and far more water can be treated. 17 What I'm going to do from now is talk — is 18 continue to talk about the south area and then I'll go to 19 the north area, rather than bouncing back and forth, so it 20 keeps it a little more consistent. It keeps me from being 21 confused. 22 So let's continue talking about .the 23 groundwater in the south area. This slide, your slide 24 number seven — the groundwater underneath the — in this 25 area, in the southern area, this is in subunit B/C. This is DONNA TERRELL, RPR, CP, CM Brush & Terrell Court Reporters (602) 246-2132 1 the aquifer that provides water that is of drinking water 2 quality.