A small Iowa town is among five communities with Superfund sites the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposes be added to its National Priorities List.
Le Mars is a small town of almost 10,500 people and county seat of Plymouth County in northwest Iowa. It also is home to EPA's Highway 3 PCE Site, reportedly contaminated years ago by a former dry cleaning business, according to a March 17 news release.
"No community deserves to have contaminated sites near where they live, work, play and go to school," EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan Regan said. "Nearly two out of three of the sites being proposed or added to the priorities list are in overburdened or underserved communities. EPA is building a better America by taking action to clean up some of the nation's most contaminated sites, protect communities’ health and return contaminated land to safe and productive reuse for future generations."
The other four communities and their Superfund sites being proposed for the list are the Lower Hackensack River, Bergen and Hudson counties in New Jersey; the Brillo Landfill in Victory, N.Y.; Georgetown North Groundwater in Georgetown, Del.; and Hercules Inc. in Hattiesburg, Miss.
EPA's protocol for adding sites to the National Priorities List requires potential sites meet agency requirements and also be proposed to the list in the Federal Register. EPA's proposal is also subject to a 60-day public comment period.
The news release also listed a dozen Superfund sites across the nation that will be added to the National Priorities List.
The Highway 3 PCE site, located southeast of Plymouth Street West and Central Avenue Northeast in Le Mars, was discovered by EPA investigators in April 2008 while looking into the nearby Le Mars Coal Gas Plant Site, according to the news release. Groundwater samples were found to contain tetrachloroethene (PCE) and its breakdown products. Those contaminants were reportedly not put there by the gas plant.
