May 24, 2004—A Dow Chemical plant in La Porte, Texas, on May 4 became the 1000th facility to achieve the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) environmental progress indicators for controlling both: (1) human exposure to environmental risks from waste, and (2) migration of contaminated groundwater.
The indicators measure realistic, achievable cleanup goals that are protective of human health and the environment based on site-specific conditions at a facility. They complement EPA long-term waste cleanups by setting time-specific benchmarks for preventing releases of contaminants at these sites.
To date, 74 percent of 1714 EPA-designated high priority RCRA Corrective Action facilities have met the current goal for human exposure and 63 percent have met the current goal for groundwater. EPA has a 2005 goal of controlling human exposure at 95 percent and groundwater at 70 percent of high priority facilities.
The Dow La Porte facility is a chemical manufacturing facility producing plastics, synthetic resins, and industrial organic chemicals such as phosgene. It has an operating plan in place to ensure that no off-site human exposures are occurring and on-site exposures are adequately addressed through on-site worker health and safety programs. Dow also has plumes of ground water with contaminants such as chlorobenzene and aniline, but recovery efforts since 1989 have diminished both their size and concentration.
The environmental indicators initiative takes place under the auspices of EPA’s Corrective Action program, which holds owners and operators of treatment, storage, and disposal facilities responsible for investigating and cleaning up soil, ground water, surface water, and air releases from their waste sites, regardless of when the releases occurred. The program can be an effective tool in preventing future Superfund sites.
For more information about the Environmental Indicators initiative visit EPA.
