EPA Region 7 Invites Great Bend Community Members to Attend Presentation About Plating Inc. Superfund Site

US Environmental Protection Agency representatives from EPA Region 7 will present at the Great Bend City Council Meeting on October 2 to provide community members with information about the Plating Inc. Superfund Site.

Over the next several months, EPA will be conducting cleanup work under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund. In April 2023, Plating Inc. was one of three Superfund sites in Kansas on the National Priorities List (NPL) to receive funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to begin or expedite cleanup projects.

"In April, EPA Region 7 representatives traveled to Wichita to celebrate the second round of funding for Superfund sites from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law," said EPA Region 7 Administrator Meg McCollister. "That funding is now being put to work to clean up contamination in communities across our nation's heartland."

The presentation will be held Monday, October 2 from 6:30 to 7:30 PM at Great Bend City Hall at 1209 Williams Street in Great Bend.

The Plating Inc. Superfund Site sits within the airport industrial area in Barton County one and a half miles west of Great Bend. An inspection from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment determined that 6,400 gallons of chromic acid was on-site in 2007, along with other acids and hydroxides. The secondary containment was inadequate and chromic acid was found to have discharged into the soil. A two-mile-long groundwater plume of hexavalent chromium has impacted domestic water wells and is moving toward Great Bend's public water supply wells.

EPA has selected remedial designs for addressing the soil and groundwater contamination. The agency anticipates that remedial actions – the construction or implementation phase of site cleanup – will begin in fall 2023.

(Information courtesy EPA.)