RAMP Industries update

[jdelahunt@cc.colorado.edu (John DeLaHunt)]

According to Carol Pokorny, administrative contact at EPA Region VIII for
the RAMP Industries CERCLA site in Denver:

There is still waste at the site, to the tune of 26 rolloffs (20-40 cubic
yards each) of mixed waste, which, EPA is finding, is hard to get rid of.
Until this waste is gone, on-site groundwater and soil contamination
assessments cannot be started.

Preliminary ampling for off-site contamination has revealed little or no
off-site migration of contaminants.

Until the on-site contamination is qualified and quantified, a total cost
cannot be estimated.  Until the total cost is estimated, de minimus
settlements cannot be offered.

A follow-up letter to PRPs may be going out as early as December 1, 1996,
and will include revisions to the waste-in database from the intial
responses and EPA's own examination of the records.

Current costs (until end of August, 1996) are $3.5 million, and a high
estimate for total response and waste removal cost is $7 million.  Ms.
Pokorny feels the actual response and waste removal costs will top out at
$5-6 million.  This figure does not include on-site and off-site (if any)
contamination cleanup.

De minimus settlement offers will be made no earlier than late spring, and
checks will need to be cut no earlier than four months after that (because
of comment periods, DoJ approvals, responses to comments, etc).

In short, the removal of the on-site waste is holding everything up -- the
qualification and quantification of on-site contamination, which leads to
developing a total cost, which leads to de minimus settlement offers.

Look for follow-up letters soon, though, PA says.

Hope this helps with budgeting.

John

p.s.  I expressed some derisive sympathy when Ms. Pokorny told me of the
mixed-waste woes.  "Welcome to our world," I think, were the words I used.

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