baird & mcguire

775 SOUTH ST

The Baird & McGuire facility is located on a 20-acre site in Holbrook and operated as a chemical mixing and batching company from 1912 to 1983. Later activities included mixing, packaging, storing, and distributing various products, including pesticides, disinfectants, soaps, floor waxes, and solvents. Some of the raw materials used at the site were stored in a tank farm and piped to the laboratory or mixing buildings. Other raw materials were stored in drums on site. Waste disposal methods at the site included direct discharge into the soil, a nearby brook, wetlands, and a former gravel pit. Hazardous wastes historically were disposed of in an on-site lagoon and cesspool. Also included on site were two lagoons open to rain and large areas of buried wastes such as cans, debris, lab bottles, and hundreds of bottles of chemicals. The lagoon area has been capped with clay. The on-site buildings were in various states of disrepair and unsecured; early activities conducted by EPA included demolishing all but one of the buildings and the tank farms. The tank farm area was temporarily capped. The site is completely fenced and a groundwater recirculation system was operated to contain the groundwater plume until permanent remedies were implemented. The site is 500 feet west of the Cochato River. The Cochato River had at one time, been diverted into the Richardi Reservoir, a water system serving nearly 90,000 people in the Towns of Holbrook, Randolph, and Braintree. Currently, the Cochato River is not being used as a supply source for the Richardi Reservoir. The South Street well field, part of the municipal water supply for Holbrook, is located within 1,500 feet of the site and was shut down in 1982.