Public Meeting June 21 in Morrisville to Present PCB Removal Action Plan

6/14/2006

A public meeting will be held Wednesday, June 21, from 7-9 p.m., to present the Removal Action Plan to be conducted at the Ward Transformer facility. The meeting will take place at the Morrisville Commerce Building, 260 Town Hall Drive.

The plan relates to contamination by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the Ward Transformer site. The Ward Transformer plant, located near Raleigh-Durham International Airport, reconditions electrical transformers and used PCBs in this process between 1964 and 1977. The PCBs, banned in 1979 for health and environmental risks, contaminated soils on the site and surface water and stream sediments downstream of the site.

After fish and sediment sampling revealed high levels of PCBs, the EPA and the State of North Carolina issued fish consumption advisories between 2004 and 2005 for Little Brier Creek, Brier Creek Reservoir, Lake Crabtree and Crabtree Creek as it enters Umstead State Park. The advisories recommend no consumption of carp or catfish from these bodies of water and only one meal per month of any other fish caught in them.

Wake County and the City of Raleigh formed a task force in summer 2005 to determine the exact level and extent of contamination; to determine why nothing has been done to date to clean up the contamination, which has been recognized for more than 25 years; and to hasten the cleanup and make certain it is complete.

 

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