NEW ARKANSAS SITE PROPOSED FOR NATIONAL PRIORITIES LIST
On December 12, 2013, EPA proposed to list the MacMillan Ring Free Oil site in Norphlet, Arkansas on the National Priorities List. The site is proposed for listing due to contamination related to historic operations and the resulting polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and metals which are still found in the soil and groundwater at the site.
MacMillan Ring-Free Oil was a refinery from 1929 to 1987. The site has an unstable history since 1987 including the bankruptcy of one owner. Norphlet Chemical retrofit the facility for the manufacture of Freon but that was unsuccessful. In 2007 the facility was abandoned and has remained vacant since that time. Because of the contamination and location of the facility adjacent to the Norphlet Public School, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) placed the site on the State Priority List under the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission's Regulation No. 30. The ADEQ has assessed the site and, in November 2011, referred the site to the EPA for NPL consideration.
The NPL is the list of national priorities among the known releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants throughout the United States. The NPL, and accompanying ranking system, is intended primarily to guide the EPA in determining which sites warrant further investigation.
The MacMillan Ring Free Oil site would be the 10th site listed in Arkansas. The other 9 sites include 8 sites that qualified by site score and 1 site that was automatically placed on the NPL via the “silver bullet”. Under 40 CFR 300.425(c)(2) each State may designate one site as its highest priority and is limited to a single such designation. The State designation is known as the “silver bullet” within the Superfund program.
The official Federal Registry Notice proposing the listing can be accessed at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2013-12-12/pdf/2013-29349.pdf