`Soil cleanup gets tentative OK`

By Michael Roknick
Herald Business Editor

With an estimated price tag of up to $6 million, a federal agency gave a tentative OK for a soil cleanup plan at the former Westinghouse Electric Corp. plant in Sharon.

Ridding the soil of toxins at the closed 50-acre complex is part of the overall cleanup at the plant which, when finished, would remove the site from the federal Superfund list.

On Friday the federal Environmental Protection Agency gave the nod to a plan it believes would best clean contaminated soils at the site. The plan was submitted by CBS Corp. Westinghouse is the plant’s former owner and is required to foot the entire cleanup bill. Before merging with CBS, Westinghouse created a special fund to pay for environmental cleanups at its closed plants. CBS is overseeing the cleanup of the Sharon site.

A 30-day public comment period now begins on the plan; the EPA has scheduled a public meeting at 7 p.m., June 24 at the Sharon municipal building for comments on the plan.

After the comment period expires, EPA will review the comments and the plan for 45 to 60 days. After that EPA expects to issue a final cleanup plan for CBS, known as a record of decision, said Pat Gaughan, EPA public affairs officer.

That final OK, though, isn’t necessarily final. If during the cleanup unexpected problems were to surface, such as additional contamination, EPA could amend the plan, Gaughan said.

“So far everything is going well on this site,’’ Gaughan said.

But even if everything falls into place, work on the soil cleanup isn’t expected to begin until next year and CBS estimates it will take six months to complete.

EPA estimates the cost at between $4 million to $6 million.

“That’s our estimate of the cost; we don’t look into what CBS Corp.’s costs might be,’’ Gaughan said.

Cleaning the soil at the complex is part of a multi-phase cleanup at the site. CBS is removing toxic materials such as polychlorinated biphenyls and lead-based paint inside the 850,000 square-foot industrial building at the complex.

Work on that part of the cleanup could be completed by the end of this year. But because of the huge size of the building, the cleanup will likely take until the fall of 2000 to complete, CBS has said.

Developers, city officials and community leaders want the plant cleaned of environmental hazards so that the industrial building, along with a 200,000 square-foot office, can be sold or leased to house new industries. Because of the potential liability, a Superfund site is considered unsellable until it’s cleaned up and the site gets final approval from EPA.

Once CBS cleans the industrial building, it will ask EPA to give its final approval for the building.

EPA will inspect the site and review cleanup documents to ensure the building has been cleaned. While the soil and groundwater at the complex also must be cleaned, EPA has agreed to allow the industrial building and offices to be occupied by businesses while CBS cleans the soil and groundwater.

Westinghouse operated the plant from 1922 to 1985. The company used PCBs in insulating oil in transformers. PCBs have been linked to causing cancer in laboratory animals, according to the EPA. Westinghouse stopped using PCBs in 1976.

EPA added the plant to the Superfund list in 1990 after the company found that soil and groundwater at the complex contained PCBs. In 1995 EPA found PCBs, along with lead-based paint, in the middle section building at the plant.

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Updated June 11, 1999
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