DOJ and EPA announce $50 million settlement to clean up Polk County Superfund site

COPPER BASIN, Tenn. (WDEF) – The Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that OXY USA Inc. agreed to clean up contaminated water and sediments in the Ocoee River and one of its watersheds at the Copper Basin Mining District Superfund Site in Polk County, Tennessee.

From the mid-1800s until 1989, the Copper Basin Mining District Superfund Site was the location of extensive copper, iron, and sulfur mining operations, mineral processing, and sulfuric acid production. Throughout that time, wastes generated through those operations, which included sulfuric acid, lead, mercury, PCBs, and other contaminants, were disposed of in, on, and around Davis Mill Creek and North Potato Creek, both of which discharge to the Ocoee River. These contaminants can still be found in the sediments and surface water at the Site.

The settlement requires the company to spend an estimated $40 million to maintain and operate a water treatment system, prevent access by the public to contaminated water, and monitor contamination in the Ocoee River.

In addition, OXY USA Inc. will reimburse EPA approximately $10.8 million toward costs incurred in its past cleanup actions at the site. The company will also reimburse EPA and the State of Tennessee for costs incurred by those agencies in overseeing the work required by the settlement

EPA officials say under earlier agreements with EPA and the State of Tennessee, OXY constructed and installed a system to collect and treat contaminated water and sediments from the Davis Mill Creek watershed prior to discharge in the Ocoee River.

Now OXY will continue to operate and maintain the system, including any necessary refurbishments of the plant.

In addition, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) agreed to implement measures at its dams along a 38-mile stretch of the Ocoee River in order to prevent contaminants from becoming airborne. EPA will oversee the work, which will implement the cleanup remedy required by the Agency’s 2011 and 2014 Records of Decision for the Ocoee River and the Davis Mill Creek watershed respectively.

EPA, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and OXY began response work at the Copper Basin Mining District Superfund Site in 1990. Over the last 25 years, EPA has overseen extensive work at the Site, including the construction of two water treatment plants (WTP). The first WTP went on-line in 2002 and the second one in 2005. To-date, 535,231 kilograms of hazardous waste, oil, equipment and soil contaminated with lead and polychlorinated biphenyls have been removed from the Site and properly disposed. The volume of water treated to-date is 8,266,257,000 gallons at the London Mill Wastewater Treatment Plant, 9,761,564,000 gallons at the Cantrell Flats Wastewater Treatment Plant, and 49,362,271,000 gallons at the North Potato Creek Water Treatment Plant, totaling 67,390,092,000 gallons.
Also under the Consent Decree, the United States, on behalf of the Department of Defense and the Department of Commerce, agreed to pay OXY approximately $12.6 million to settle claims for OXY’s past and future cleanup costs, based primarily on the United States’ ownership and operation of a portion of the site between 1941 and 1946.