[CPEO-MEF] Cleaning up Bedford - The job continues

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New Jersey
BEDFORD MINUTEMAN
Cleaning up Bedford - The job continues
By Natalie Goodale / Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 23, 2003

Amidst the nation-wide efforts of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to clean up the country's hazardous waste, lies a list of sites
that are on a priority clean-up list. Bedford has two sites on this
list, and the clean-up is slow and steady.


The Superfund National Priority List contains sites from all over the
country that are seen as hazardous to the environment. They are all in
the process of being treated, and they include the Naval Weapons
Industrial Reserve Plant, operated by Raytheon Co., and Hanscom
Field/Hanscom Air Force Base on Hartwell Road, both in Bedford.

Matt Audet is the remedial project manager of these sites for the
environmental protection agency. He said that the treatment on each of
the sites has been working, and there is more to come.

"In some cases, we are containing the migration of any contaminated
ground water," he said.

The Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant (NWIRP) occupies 46 acres
just north of Hanscom Field. Established in 1952, it contains
laboratories used for testing missiles, radars, and control systems.
According to the EPA, multiple wastes are generated from this sight;
they include chemicals such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs),
photographic fixer, waste oil and coolants, lacquer thinner, unspecified
solvents and thinners, Stoddard solvent, waste paint, and chromic,
sulfuric, nitric, hydrochloric, and phosphoric acids.

In 1984, three wells in the Hartwell Road Well Field, located just half
a mile from the naval site, were shut down due to contaminated water
from the NWIRP. This was a site where Bedford used to obtain much of its
water.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.townonline.com/bedford/news/local_regional/bed_newbmsuperfundpnb04232003.htm

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