EPA, public to discuss Superfund site
Meeting set for May 9
The public will soon have another opportunity to speak with representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about cleanup activities at the SBA Shipyard Superfund Site in Jennings.
The SBA site is located at 9040 Castex Landing Rd.in Jennings. The 98-acre property is located at the end of La. 3166 and is adjacent to the west bank of the Mermentau River, approximately two miles southwest of Mermentau.
Thursday, May 9, the agency will be holding an informational meeting from 6-8 p.m. at the Jennings High School Academic Center located at 2310 N. Sherman St.
Representatives from the EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) will be available to answer questions about current site’s cleanup activities. Attendees can also learn more about EPA’s Community Involvement programs like Community Advisory Groups, Technical Assistance Grants and Technical Assistance Services for Communities.
EPA Community Involvement Coordinator Jason T. McKinney said public participation is welcome.
“You will have the opportunity to talk directly with agency representatives in an informal setting,” he said.
The agency hosted an initial meeting in Jennings last fall in order to share findings and discuss the site investigation process.
EPA Remedial Project Manager Michael Torres reported last month that a shutdown of the federal government that took place from December 2018 to January 2019 caused delays in the sampling process of the site.
Torres said before the shutdown, crews were collecting samples from the soil, ground water and surface water, basically anything that could be contaminated. He said currently his team is reviewing the information on the first phase of the activities at the site.
SBA used the location for construction, repair, retrofitting and cleaning of barges from 1965 to 1999. The area has been designated as a Superfund, with the EPA saying soil, sediment and ground water area contaminated with waste from barge cleaning activities, including diesel, coal tar, creosote, crude oil, petroleum products and asphalt. Soil, sediment and ground water at the site contain numerous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and metals.
The samples are processed by independent and accredited laboratories that are unbiased in reporting their findings, Torres said.
Once results are completed, the public will have access to information related to any action taken by EPA on the SBA site by viewing a repository at the Jennings branch of Jeff Davis Parish Libraries located at 118 W. Plaquemine Street in Jennings.
Torres said there is no way to know how long the entire cleanup process will take.
“We are still in the assessing and collection stages and trying to determine the complexity of the cleanup process,” he said. “If it is the groundwater that is affected, it could take up to 35 or more years remove all contaminants.”
For access to public documents related to the SBA superfund site, the public can visit the site’s homepage at www.epa.gov or search through the LDEQs electronic public records database at www.ldeq.org.