Delaware County Plant Added to List of Superfund Priority Sites

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

March 13, 2012 | 3:12 PM

A container plant in Trainer, Delaware county has been added to the Superfund National Priorities List. The Environmental Protection Agency released a list of 9 new contaminated industrial areas that will be listed as Superfund clean-up sites. The EPA says the Metro Container Corporation plant in southeastern Delaware County, about 20 miles from Philadelphia, poses a risk to the Delaware river and its adjoining wetlands.
Stauffer Chemical Company operated a factory at the site from 1920 to 1959. Up until 1987, several container companies reconditioned steel drums at the plant. The site is currently owned by an industrial paint company, Trainer Industries. The EPA says Trainer Industries now uses it for storage. In a release, the EPA explained how the companies dumped hazardous waste into an unlined, open pit.

The main source of contamination on the property is a half-acre backfilled industrial waste lagoon that was used for disposal of drum contents and wastewater. The unlined lagoon was eventually filled in with soil and artificial fill materials and is no longer accessible. Additionally, site soils are contaminated. The contaminants of concern at the site are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), inorganics, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

By getting listed as a priority Superfund site, EPA investigators will determine the extent of the contamination and how to remediate the site. If possible, the EPA will force the responsible parties to pay for the clean-up.