EPA Adds Union County To Superfund Clean-up Site

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added the MacMillan Ring-Free Oil site in Union County, Arkansas, to the National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites on Thursday (May 8).

The list highlights sites that pose risks to people’s health and the environment. The superfund is the federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex, uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

The site, near a residential neighborhood and a school in Norphlet, operated as a crude-oil refinery and maker of lubrication oil and asphalt products from 1929 to 1987.

Nor-Ark Industrial Corp bought the property in 1989 to store asphalt products until 1991. Norphlet Chemical refurbished the site in 2004, intending to manufacture an automotive refrigerant, but the plant never operated as intended and the site has been abandoned since 2007.

“Contaminated sites like the one in Union County directly affect their surrounding environment and residents,” said EPA Regional Administrator Ron Curry. “It’s vital to the community and to EPA’s mission that we restore and protect the land by addressing this pollution.”

The EPA and Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality have found contamination from the site has seeped into groundwater and in drainage pathways that lead to wetlands north of the site. Soil on and under the property has also been affected.

With all NPL sites, EPA works to identify companies or people responsible for the contamination at a site, and requires them to conduct or pay for the cleanup.