Hazardous waste cleanup begins at former Crest site

ALLIANCE, Ohio—Cleanup is underway at a former Crest Rubber Co. facility after an Environmental Protection Agency notice of hazardous waste violations in 2016.

The U.S. EPA is removing 55-gallon drums and smaller containers full of possibly toxic or ignitable materials from the facility in Alliance, Ohio, according to EPA documents.

Some of those containers showed labels for methyl ethyl ketone, acetone, Dicup 40C and VOL-Cup 40 KE, according to the original notice of violation by Ohio EPA dated Oct. 27, 2016. The department passed the site on to the federal EPA, which currently has authority over the cleanup effort.

Crest Rubber went into receivership in 2016 after its former owner, David Clark, died. Clark also owned C.F. Capital Investments, which owned the Alliance site. Both Crest Rubber, headquartered in Newton Falls, Ohio, and C.F. Capital are currently under the control of a receiver appointed by Huntington National Bank.

The 2.5-acre Alliance site was one of seven facilities within Crest Rubber when it went into receivership, and was abandoned as burdensome to the estate, according to a letter to Ohio EPA from Colin Skinner, lawyer to Steven Clark, David's son, who is not associated with the company.

The effort is in the waste identification phase, according to Jeff Kimble, EPA on-scene coordinator. The Alliance site consists of a warehouse building and a process building, which is structurally compromised.

"We've been focusing on shoring up that roof to make it safe for our workers to remove the waste underneath where the roof has already started collapsing," Kimble said.

EPA workers already have removed and disposed of about 300 cubic yards of environmental contaminants such as pigments, dyes and additives, to make room to physically access the more hazardous materials, Kimble said. The team is moving the drums and containers to the warehouse to sample and categorize the materials before removal.

"It's going to be a pretty big undertaking, just because several of the areas in both buildings, where there are drums, they're stacked three and four pallets high in some cases," Kimble said. "It's a slow process, just because of the way those wastes are stacked on top of each other at the site."

Although the initial report noted about 500 of the 55-gallon drums and about 1,000 smaller containers, those counts could end up being much higher, which is not atypical for these types of cleanups, Kimble said. Already in the cleanup, his team has documented more than 2,000 small containers, only in one building.

"It's probably a little bit more significant than what was first reported, but again, not unexpected when you get into these cleanups and there's this much stuff stacked on top of each other," he said. "Those first numbers are usually a little bit low. We're making a scientific guess so we can use that to determine what the cleanup is going to entail."

Projected timeline and costs

Despite the additional containers and materials, the cleanup is slated to take about five months, Kimble said. It is estimated to cost about $2 million to complete, and is working within that budget so far.

The largest concern for the Alliance site is combustible materials, said Kimble. "Because of the large amount of rubber here, it would be a hard fire to fight, and because there's still chemicals in there, we have to do a lot of air monitoring and protecting of the surrounding residents."

EPA keeps security on the property, and is working with Alliance fire and police departments to monitor the facility for activity. Kimble's team works with the U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Strike Team, the branch's hazardous materials technicians, to manage air monitoring equipment, looking for volatile organic compounds, and even dust levels on the site.

Beyond the initial cleanup of hazardous materials, the Alliance site contains a large amount of waste rubber that could require removal. That will take further action after his team finishes, Kimble said.

"From what we're seeing so far, we'll be able to take the hazardous waste offsite and make the site much safer for the surrounding community," he said. "But the fire department is still going to have concerns, and we're talking to Ohio EPA and others about the amount of waste rubber that's left behind. They'll be looking to remove that offsite also."

Though he hasn't totaled the amount of rubber on-site as it isn't a part of his cleanup effort, he said there are "probably in the hundreds" of cubic yards of super sacks (polypropylene bags made to hold waste materials) filled with compressed rubber blocks.

"It's a lot. It's not insignificant," he said. "But we're focusing on the stuff that may be immediately hazardous to even trespassers. We don't want somebody to stumble into this place and mess with the wrong material."

About 5,800 people reside within one mile of the facility, according to Ohio EPA documents.

Superfund will pay for the cost of the cleanup, though EPA also is working to identify a responsible party for hazardous materials on the site.

In general, the first party to be approached would be the owner of the facility. That recourse became unusable after David Clark died last year, Kimble said. Though the specifics of the investigation are still sensitive, during the cleanup EPA will look for other entities that sent materials and waste to the location. The team will not consider products purchased from valid companies used in his processes. Instead, they will look for materials given to Clark that effectively became waste.

Any determination or result from that investigation likely will not happen until after the cleanup is complete. If a responsible party is found after the cleanup, EPA would negotiate with them to recover government costs.

"In some cases, there just is nobody else. And that's why our program exists, to cover these types of cleanups when there is not a private entity to pay for them," Kimble said.

Ohio EPA also referred Crest Rubber's Ravenna facility to U.S. EPA for cleanup, and U.S. EPA is in the process of writing an action memorandum reviewing that site, Kimble said. The Alliance and Ravenna sites are the only two Crest Rubber facilities referred to U.S. EPA, he said.

During an October 2016 inspection, Ohio EPA documented more than 250 pallets of abandoned waste, including small containers and 55-gallon drums at the Ravenna facility and noted that about 8,200 people reside within one mile. Ohio EPA sent a follow-up inspection notice of violation to Crest Rubber in care of the estate of David H. Clark, dated May 15, 2017. That notice found excesses of regulatory levels for tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene and cadmium, as well as hazardous toxic and ignitable materials.

Universal Polymer & Rubber Ltd. acquired all of Crest Rubber's business assets except the Ravenna site in February 2017, according to Joe Colebank, president and CEO of UP&R. Crest's work force of seven was retained in the acquisition, and transferred to other UP&R plants. Financial details were not disclosed.

Crest Rubber was in continuous operation since its formation in 1960, producing hydraulic and pneumatic seals as well as various other industrial products.