CURTIS, Neb. — Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad is cleaning up a contaminated site they “inherited” from a former battery recycling operation in Curtis, the McCook (Neb.) Daily Gazette reported.
Steve Forsburg, in charge of corporate relations for BNSF, in Kansas City, said the railroad is working with the state and the EPA to stabilize the soil at the locations of the former Curtis Metals battery-recycling facilities.
Forsburg said contaminated soil and debris are being treated and will be disposed of properly at a landfill between Grant and Ogallala.
According to records filed at the Curtis city office, a company called Curtis Metals, owned by Dean Herman, recycled batteries, stored copper and brass and smelted aluminum from the mid-1960’s until 1990 at two locations along the southern edge of Curtis.
Curtis Metals leased the land from the owner at that time, Burlington Northern Railroad.
The waste generated at the Curtis Metals site was the result of a spent lead-acid battery breaking operation designed to recover the lead in the batteries. The operation resulted in lead-contaminated and low-pH soils.
The other major waste component, according to records compiled by the RETEC engineering group of Fort Collins, Colo., was sulfuric acid.
From 1980 to 1986, the facility processed about 3,000 batteries per week, or 156,000 per year. Records indicate that, assuming each battery contains about six quarts of acid, the total amount of acid disposed in the facility’s impoundment systems was about 230,000 gallons.
The report reads: “In general, the facility has elevated metals in the surface soils (at a depth of 0 to 12 inches) throughout the facility where battery breaking or battery storage operations took place.”
According to the records compiled by RETEC, spent batteries arrived by truck and were unloaded directly onto a “battery breaker” or piled temporarily nearby.
The breaker, or guillotine, sheared off the tops of the batteries, and the lead-bearing groups inside were separated from the cases and shipped off-site to secondary lead smelters.
Spent electrolyte (which was approximately 20 percent sulfuric acid) was collected under the guillotine and drained through either an asphalt-lined swale into an asphalt-lined acid collection impoundment, or an unlined ditch to a sand absorbent collection system.
The empty battery cases were washed and crushed in a hammermill process. The resulting materials were separated in a tank where residual lead and rubber case materials sank and were sold, along with the battery groups, to lead smelters.
The floating polypropylene was skimmed off the top and sent to resin manufacturers to be used in injection-molding processes.
The water was allowed to evaporate. The main battery waste pile was unlined and encompassed about 6,000 square feet — 125 feet by 50 feet, and about 10 feet high.
In 1978, the recycling operation relocated about one-quarter mile west, and the original site was used to store copper and brass and to smelt aluminum.
In 1988, RETEC prepared a plan minimize the risk of future releases into the environment. The plan included excavating approximately 3,000 cubic yards of lead- and low pH-impacted soil and treating it with lime to raise the pH and reduce the leaching potential of the lead in the soil. The treated soil was covered with clean soil and capped with asphalt cement.
In 1990, the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality requested a site assessment, and four ground water monitoring wells were installed. Water tests indicated that ground water quality did not exceed drinking water standards.
The wells were plugged and abandoned in 1993. A dilapidated coal shed on the site was demolished and landfilled along with scrap and debris from the recycling sites.
By 1997, locally elevated lead concentrations were observed in areas near the former facilities, leading to these latest remediation efforts.
The lead waste at the sites is listed as a hazardous waste, but is not ignitable, corrosive or reactive.
RETEC’s report indicates that after restoration activities, the site will be available for reuse. Because no waste will remain, post-closure monitoring will not be necessary, although ground water monitoring will continue for about a year.