The Virginian-Pilot
©
PORTSMOUTH
A former metal scrap facility along Paradise Creek will be added to the national Superfund program today, becoming the ninth contaminated site in South Hampton Roads on the Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous properties list.
The designation mandates that either the owner or the EPA create a plan to clean up the land, by removing or containing pollutants and contamination.
The 33-acre property off Elm Avenue near Norfolk Naval Shipyard is the site of the former Peck Iron & Metal company.
The business operated from 1945 to 1999 as a scrap yard, with the company buying, processing and shipping metals from military bases, government agencies and private haulers.
The metal included damaged and old equipment, along with scrapped Navy ships, an EPA report said. The site's listing in the Superfund register says the major contaminants are PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, which are likely carcinogens, and lead.
The Peck Co. no longer operates on the property but still owns the land. B. David Peck of Richmond, who inherited the business from his father, did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday night.
The property backs up to Paradise Creek, which the nonprofit organization the Elizabeth River Project has deemed a major environmental concern. The group in 2003 drew up a restoration plan for the waterway, and has worked with a number of industrial neighbors on cleanup and improvement projects.
Several years ago, the organization tried to work with Peck and the EPA to broker a voluntary cleanup agreement, but officials said those talks broke down.
According to an EPA report, several federal and state cleanup programs were evaluated for the property but weren't viable because of their cost. State officials supported putting the property on the Superfund program's National Priority List, the register said.
Another Superfund site along Paradise Creek - a dump at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard added to the national priority list in 1999 - is expected to be capped and turned into a wildlife habitat.
The Peck site is one of three areas in the country to be added to the list today. The others are in Utah and New Jersey. Nationwide, 1,270 uncontrolled hazardous waste sites are listed.
Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com
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Not to bad.
As kids after school we would "visit" Pecks and the Proctor and Gamble dump sites along the creek. Great place to play and find some neat stuff to augment our chemistry sets. I would think the P&G dump site would have more toxic chemicals leaching into the creek than Pecks. Wonder if anyone ever checked there.
Actually, Not Bad at All
The game the EPA is playing is purely political. Get this, Peck volunteered to clean up the site in 2004, paid a local consultant to draft remedial plans and the EPA WOULDN'T LET HIM DO IT! Our EPA is a joke! Next door you have a SPSA landfill and on the other side you have a former Navy landfill. Besides the real problem with that area is poly aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) not the contaminant that Pecks property has on it.