Eagle Picher cleanup still a work in progress

Fifty-five acres along Interstate 25, two miles north of Socorro is undergoing a transformation that has been years in the making.

Eagle Picher Carefree Battery site is part of an EPA-listed superfund site has been receiving a lot of attention this past year from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED).

The property originally was owned by the U.S. government and was used as a Civilian Conservation Corps barracks in 1932. From 1936 to 1956, the facility was utilized as a State of New Mexico tuberculosis sanitarium. Septic waste from the sanitarium was discharged into wastewater impoundments located in the southeast portion of the property. This type of system was used for storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous wastewater and liquids.

Almost 10 years later, Eagle Picher Carefree Battery operated a manufacturing plant on the site from 1964 to 1976 and from 1980 to 2000. They built circuit boards, batteries and other products which started contamination spurring out from the facility.

Since that time, multiple investigations by the NMED have been ongoing at the Eagle Picher site since 1987 resulting in contamination from the now defunct and bankrupt Eagle Picher.

Last week, EPA and NMED staff conducted a community meeting in Socorro to update the agencies remedial activities over the past year.

Sai Appaji, EPA remedial project manager, told two dozen interested citizens mobilization at the Eagle Picher site began on August 21, 2023, and continues to be ongoing.

“We started the remedial action phase last year. It’s where the actual cleanup begins and we can address the amount of contamination,” said Appaji. “Once that is completed, the project will go into a “operation in the maintenance” phase which will be the ground water remedy phase. After those phases are completed, it could take up to 30 years before the property is “delisted as a Superfund site.”

During the past few months, the EPA established exclusion zones before it removed roofing materials and asbestos to containerize them. In addition, lead acid battery plates were disposed near the pony mix room. They also were handpicked and containerized for removal.

The next step involved evacuations of contaminated soil. Soils were segregated, stockpiled and placed in sample areas. Based upon the concentrations of lead, the soil was classified as either as hazardous waste or non-hazardous waste. Once the laboratory determination was made, the soil was transported to hazardous and non-hazardous landfills in Nevada.

About 1,5000 tons of waste soil was excavated and removed from the site. Clean soil was brought to the site to fill the excavated areas. According to the EPA a total of 117 truckloads equivalent to 2,513 tons of clean soil were transported to the site to fill the excavated areas and compacted in place.

One of the hiccups during the cleanup activities was the contractor noticed surficial asbestos containing building materials such as broken asbestos tiles, mastic and transite near the battery plate area. Additional soil sampling was performed to determine the presence of asbestos, but none was found. The ACBM material was handpicked from the battery plate area and properly disposed.

In February 2024 additional ACBM was found in several pocket areas on the east property. The contractor recently conducted an additional soil evaluation to determine the presence of asbestos contamination in the soil. Once a determination has been made, the waste will be disposed of appropriately.

This past May, additional soil evaluation was performed underneath the manufacturing building to determine potential soil contamination. According to Appaji, the EPA is waiting for lab data to determine the extent of soil damage.

With the additional presence of asbestos, the EPA is estimating the remediation process should be completed by mid-2025.

The NMED remedial design for the groundwater remedy is nearly complete and the agencies are planning to implement once the discharge options of treated water are reviewed and finalized.

The EPA expects construction of the groundwater treatment later this year and it will continue to monitor the groundwater until then.