arrowhead associates, inc./scovill corp.

RTE 3

The Arrowhead Associates/Scovill Corp. site is located on 30 acres in a rural area in Westmoreland County, Virginia. The Scovill Corp. electroplated cosmetic cases from 1966 to 1972, when Arrowhead, Inc. of Delaware acquired the business and its assets. Arrowhead continued the electroplating operations until 1979. From 1979 to 1981, Arrowhead also filled the cases with cosmetics. From 1981 to the present, A.R. Winarick has assembled and filled cases with cosmetics, and beginning in the early 1980s to the present, Mattatuck Manufacturing has fabricated automobile wire harnesses at the site. Plating wastes were treated in a surface impoundment system and discharged to Scates Branch under a permit issued through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. After the plating operations ended in 1979, process equipment and materials were abandoned at the site. An estimated 1,100 people obtain drinking water from shallow private wells within three miles of the site. A coastal wetland is about one mile from the site and local surface water is used for recreational activities. High levels of VOCs, chemical components of solvents and degreasers, in the groundwater at the site pose a significant threat. The contamination plume extends off-site and into Scates Branch and the South Fork Scates Branch where groundwater discharges to the stream. Surface soil sampling did not indicate a widespread presence of contamination; VOCs, metals, and cyanide were found in a few locations. In subsurface soil, high levels of VOCs were found in two former drum storage areas and in one of the former pond areas. High levels of heavy metals were detected in the area of the former disposal ponds.