ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
A contractor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week is trying to identify pollution from the Olin Corp.'s former Saltville plant.
Roy F. Weston Inc. of New Jersey is looking for a liquid transfer trench used by Olin and its predecessor, Mathieson Chemical Corp., between the early 1950s and the early 1970s. The Saltville plant, built by Mathieson in 1950, produced chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide.
The trench carried a caustic soda-ash mixture, including toxic mercury, from the chlorine plant to two settling ponds. The search for the trench is just another step in the agency's attempt to identify contaminated sites around the plant, EPA spokesman Pat Gaughan said.
The plant is a Superfund site. Mercury waste has contaminated surrounding soil and the North Fork of the Holston River.
The EPA plans to take about 20 samples along the 3/4-mile route of the trench and in small lagoons that were used by Olin as soda-ash deposit areas next to the river. The agency said it is looking for high mercury or alkaline levels.
It will be several months before test results are returned and a determination is made in conjunction with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality whether contaminated material will have to be removed or dealt with in some other way, Gaughan said.
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