apache powder co.

1436 S APACHE POWDER RD

The Apache Powder Superfund Site is located in Cochise County, Arizona, approximately seven miles southeast of the incorporated town of Benson and 2.5 miles southwest of the unincorporated town of St. David. The site study area covers approximately nine square miles and includes 1,100 acres of land owned by Apache Nitrogen Products, Inc. (ANP), formerly known as the Apache Powder Company. The San Pedro River bounds the eastern side of the site, running from the southeast corner of the property north towards the northwest. The San Pedro River National Conservation Area (SPRNCA), owned by the Bureau of Land Management, is located approximately two miles south of the site along the San Pedro River. In 1922, ANP began manufacturing industrial chemicals and explosives, including nitroglycerin, nitric acid, ammonium nitrates, and blasting agents. Presently, ANP manufactures solid and liquid ammonium nitrate, ammonium nitrate-based fertilizers, nitric acid and aqua ammonia primarily for agricultural and mining customers. . Historically, these operations produced both liquid and solid wastes that were disposed of on ANP property. These past use and disposal practices resulted in contamination of soils on the facility and groundwater contamination in a perched system underneath the plant’s operations area, in the nearby shallow aquifer and the San Pedro River. The groundwater contaminants in this Southern Area of the site are nitrate and perchlorate. In the Northern Area of the site the shallow aquifer groundwater is contaminated only with nitrate. In the early 1990s, ANP undertook a program to replace eight privately-owned domestic supply wells by constructing new wells tapping the uncontaminated deeper aquifer after these households were provided bottled water in 1989. The Apache Powder Site was placed on the National Priorities List (the NPL or Superfund list) in 1990. In September 1994, EPA signed a Record of Decision (ROD) which selected various remedial alternatives for cleanup of the soils and groundwater contamination at the Site. Since then, many cleanup actions as well as additional investigative studies have been completed to either remove or reduce the amount of contamination in both soils and groundwater at the Site.