A public availability session held at Chuckatuck Library on June 17 allowed several community members to ask questions to the Environmental Protection Agency and Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The session was organized to discuss changes to the cleanup plan for the Saunders Supply Company Superfund site, located nearby in Chuckatuck.

The EPA is conducting a five-year remedial review of the Saunders Supply Company Superfund site and is issuing an “Explanation of Significant Differences” to limit activities on two land parcels at the site. An Explanation of Significant Differences provides additional information on changes to the remedy.

A 2016 evaluation of dioxin in soil on properties adjacent to the Saunders Supply Company property identified two areas with limited dioxin contamination in soil that exceeds EPA’s non-cancer Hazard Index for residential exposures, but only for residential use.

Restrictions to limit the exposure to remaining soils that were not included in the original record will be added by the Explanation of Significant Difference.

“We’re adding in a soil remedy that allows us to address that dioxin,” said Remedial Project Manager Lisa Denmark.

According to epa.gov, the Saunders Supply Company Site is a roughly 7-acre former wood treating plant. From 1964 to 1984, a mixture of pentachlorophenol — or PCP — and fuel oil was used as a wood preservative. The chromated copper arsenate process was also added in 1974.

Wood treating operations ceased in 1991.

Part of the spent PCP/oil sludge was disposed of by being burned in an unlined pit or a conical burner on site. This resulted in the generation of dioxin compounds. Some of the PCP sludge was also sprayed around the site to control weeds, according to epa.gov.

The soil at the wood treating facility and part of the adjoining property was contaminated with arsenic, chromium, copper, PCP and dioxins.

Additionally, the groundwater in the shallow Columbia aquifer is impacted by heavy metals and PCP, but a treatment plant is in place to address this contamination. This aquifer’s groundwater flows toward Godwin Mill Pond.

City officials told the Suffolk News-Herald previously that the city’s water supply is safe, and that the drinking water produced at the city’s G. Robert House Jr. Water Treatment Plant in Chuckatuck and delivered to customers has been well within EPA drinking water regulations for more than three decades.

The G. Robert House Jr. Water Treatment Plant and the City of Portsmouth Water Treatment Plant supply the potable water to the city’s water and sanitary system.

EPA installed a groundwater treatment facility and also removed contaminated soils in 1998, then transferred operation and maintenance of the groundwater system to Virginia DEQ in 2009.

According to William Lindsay with Virginia DEQ, the groundwater extraction and treatment system currently pumps and treats 15,000 to 20,000 gallons of groundwater each month.

This system uses a network of four recovery wells to pump groundwater from an area covering about one and a half acres, and each recovery well ranges from 20 to 25 feet deep.

EPA documented the selected remedy in a Record of Decision on Sept. 30, 1991. Institutional controls were established in the record to prevent the use of the Columbia and Yorktown aquifers as a source of potable water.

The restrictions discussed at the open house on June 17 will be added to controls established in that record of decision.

Denmark emphasized that the purpose of the Explanation of Significant Differences is to make sure that the community remains protected, especially if there is residential development at the site in the future.

She said that the EPA and Virginia DEQ simply want to be part of those conversations in the future to ensure these protections are still effective, and that the June 17 open house provided an opportunity to keep open dialogue between the community, EPA and Virginia DEQ.