Alabama site off EPA Superfund list 52 years after chemical spill
A chemical spill site near the north Baldwin County community of Perdido has been officially removed from a list of the country's most polluted places more than 50 years after a train derailment contaminated the local groundwater with benzene.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this week it has deleted the Perdido Groundwater Contamination Site from its Superfund National Priorities List, signaling that "no further cleanup is required to protect human health or the environment," according to the EPA announcement.
According to EPA progress reports, all monitoring wells at the site have showed benzene levels at less than 5 micrograms per liter of water for five consecutive years, as required in the cleanup plan, paving the way for the site to be removed from the list.
Disaster in slow-motion
The site had been on the Superfund list since 1983, but the derailment that caused the pollution occurred in 1965.
Read more: http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/alabama_site_off_superfund.html
