Introduction

In 1990, the state environmental agency removed drums and tanks of waste solvents from the site. The removal action also included decontamination of the building and removal of trash and debris from the site. Ace Solvent Recovery (ASR) accepted waste solvents, primarily tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene. The facility stored waste solvents in tanks and drums on concrete pads in an area west of the office/warehouse building. Distilled solvents were collected in tanks and drums for off-site shipment. For a short period in the early 1970s, ASR also accepted used transformers. When the transformers were stripped to recover the metals, the transformer oils were simply drained onto the ground. The soil near the former transformer operation is contaminated with olychlorinated biphenyls at concentrations of up to 158 mg/kg. Remediation technologies act to contain contamination, separate it from the soil or groundwater, or destroy the contaminants. This chapter also provides an outline of this book.