The facility is located at 30 Kellogg Road, City of Cortland, Cortland County, New York 13045. The property is approximately 15 acres in size and contains a large main production building interconnected with several smaller production buildings, an office building and several support buildings, including a flammable storage building and a hazardous waste storage garage. The size of the facility buildings are estimated at 367,000 ft2.
The Buckbee-Mears facility was purchased by International Electron Devices (IED) on October 26, 2004, after Buckbee Mears closed the facility in June, 2004. IED re-opened the facility and resumed the manufacturing of products which included sheet metal components required for color television picture tubes and computer monitors. Plans to expand the facility operations into other, high tech, photochemically etched parts were terminated in May, 2005, when the facility closed due to a lack of funding.
On January 9, 2007, EPA received a report from a former employee that the Site had been vandalized. Based on the amount of chemical waste known to exist on Site and the absence of any PRP action to provide security or undertake a clean up, the ERRD Director granted verbal authorization of $250,000 to initiate a response action on January 10, 2007. A confirmation of verbal authorization was prepared the same day.
Delivery Order #044 was issued to the ERRS Contractor, WRS, on January 10, 2007.
On January 11, 2007, EPA and the ERRS contractor met on Site to assess the condition of the facility and begin to formulate a clean up strategy. The former maintenance supervisor of the facility was also on Site and accompanied EPA and ERRS on a tour of the facility. Several tank locations, hazardous waste storage areas and miscellaneous chemical storage areas were identified.
Site security was initiated at 1:00 PM on January 11, 2007. Security will remain in place full time while the ERRS crew is mobilized and the clean up action is underway.
On January 16, 2007, RST was activated to provide technical support during the removal action.
The planned scope of work for this action is to dispose or recycle all chemical wastes which remain on Site. This process will be accomplished in several phases. The first phase will be to dispose of the most dangerous materials posing the most significant threat of release including the outside tanks and cylinders of chlorine gas. The next phase will be to perform a detailed inventory of the entire facility and get an accurate measure of the number of containers and volume of waste remaining on Site. Disposal of these materials by either recycling or through an approved disposal facility will follow. The last phase will be to flush process lines, drain equipment reservoirs, catch basins and the water treatment tanks which may contain waste.
EPA will continue Site security and plans to mobilize equipment and personnel beginning on January 22, 2007. A HASP is being prepared by ERRS to cover planned Site activities. ERRS will pursue disposal and recycling options for the waste material posing the most significant threat of release. These materials include: Anhydrous Ammonia tank, Sulphuric Acid tank and seven cylinders of chlorine gas.
EPA CID is pursuing a criminal investigation of this facility. The Removal Program will support any field activities CID plans for this Site.
EPA plans to document the location, condition and volume of all waste material discovered on Site prior to its disposal. This information is necessary to counter any future PRP claims concerning any “takings” issues.
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