Hart Creosoting

Referred to EPA

Site Background

The Hart Creosoting Company site is located south of the City of Jasper on the west side of State Highway 96, approximately 1 mile south of U.S. 190. Hart Creosoting Company used 8.8 acres of a total of 442 acres to operate a wood treatment facility from 1958 through May 1993. During its history, a pole peeling plant also operated at the facility from 1968 to 1978 and pipe threading operations were conducted at the facility from 1982 to 1985. Between 1984 and 1993 the TNRCC and the EPA conducted several inspections and cited the company for numerous violations in relation to its waste-handling practices. In March 1994, 10 months after the facility ceased wood treating operations, an expanded site inspection confirmed the presence of creosote constituents, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, in the soil, groundwater, and surface water. Records show that the site was inactive and all structures associated with the wood treatment process had been removed as of January 19, 1995. In May, 1995, the site was referred to the U.S. EPA for possible federal action. Based on an evaluation of the contamination and its potential threat to the health and safety of nearby human and animal life, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an immediate removal action, consolidating all of the surface impoundment sludge, and stabilizing and stockpiling the stabilized waste in an on-site clay lined storage pit. The storage pit was covered with a clay cap and topsoil and seeded to grow low vegetation as an erosion control for the capped storage pit.

Superfund Actions Taken to Date

• August 19, 1997, a August 19, 1997, a legal notice was published in the Texas Register (22 TexReg 8311-8312) describing the site and proposing the site for listing on the state Superfund registry. A public meeting to receive comments from the community was to be held at Jasper City Hall on September 25, 1997.
• September 25, 1997, a public meeting was held at Jasper City Hall to receive citizen comments on the proposal of the site for listing on the state Superfund registry.
• After reevaluating the HRS ranking package and score, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that the Hart Creosoting Company site was eligible for listing on National Priorities List (NPL) for remediation as a federal Superfund site and proposed the site to the NPL on April 23, 1999.
• July 22, 1999, Hart Creosoting Company was listed on the National Priorities List as a federal Superfund site.
• August 18, 1999, a legal notice was published in the Jasper News-Boy, proposing to delete the site from the state Superfund registry and inviting public comments on the determination that under 30 Texas Health and Safety Code § 361.183(d) the site has been accepted under the federal Superfund program and is therefore eligible for deletion from the state Superfund registry.
• August 20, 1999, a August 20, 1999, a legal notice was published in the Texas Register (24 TexReg 6574) proposing to delete the site from the state Superfund registry and inviting public comments on the determination that under 30 Texas Health and Safety Code § 361.183(d) the site had been accepted under the federal Superfund program and was therefore eligible for deletion from the state Superfund registry.
• October 29, 1999, a October 29, 1999, a legal notice was published in the Texas Register (24 TexReg 9712) officially deleting the Hart Creosoting Company site from the state Superfund registry in accordance with 30 Texas Health and Safety Code § 361.183(d). No
  comments or challenges were received to the determination that the site had been accepted under the federal Superfund program.
• September 1, 2002, effective date of the name change from Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

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