The Eagle Picher Carefree Battery Superfund site, located approximately two miles north of the city of Socorro, New Mexico, suffers from heavy metals in the soil and volatile organic compounds in the groundwater. And to add insult to injury, even the buildings on the site could contain lead-based paints and asbestos.
The heavy-metals contaminants include lead, cadmium and chromium from the Eagle Picher Carefree Battery Co.’s manufacture of circuit boards and lead-acid batteries. Much like crumbling asbestos, which releases toxic fibers that can be inhaled, leading to such fatal diseases as pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs, heavy metals and ground contaminants can become wind-borne if the contaminated soil is disturbed.
The concern at the Eagle Picher site is not that the contaminants pose an immediate danger, but rather the community’s exposure to them over a long period of time. Prolonged exposure to asbestos can cause irreversible damage that takes decades to fully develop and become apparent. In the case of mesothelioma, it takes an average of 40 years before there are signs of illness, and by that point the cancer is so far along that most patients only have an 18 month life expectancy.
Removal action involving excavating contaminated soil and erecting a security fence is done when there is an immediate threat. However, the EPA believes that only remedial action is necessary. The expected action for the Eagle Picher site involves a long-term clean-up that will prevent or minimize the release of hazardous substances.