west kingston town dump/uri disposal area

PLAINS ROAD

This site consists of two adjacent properties, the West Kingston Town Dump and the University of Rhode Island (URI) Disposal Area. Known in the past as "South Kingstown Landfill #2," the 6 acre West Kingston Town Dump received solid waste from the Town of South Kingstown beginning in the 1930s. In the early 1950s, the Town of Narragansett and URI also began disposing of their solid waste in the landfill. This disposal of solid waste went unregulated until 1967, when the Rhode Island Department of Health (RI DOH) noted, during a site inspection, that wastes disposed of at the site were from industrial, residential, commercial, and institutional sources. Numerous operational violations were subsequently cited by the RI DOH. A 1975 study conducted by the URI Department of Civil Engineering and the Rhode Island Water Resources Board resulted in the discovery of a leachate plume beneath the landfill which was contaminating groundwater as far as 1,200 feet west of the dump. From 1945 to 1987, solid waste was also accepted at the 12-acre URI Disposal Area, referred to in the past as the "URI Gravel Bank" or the "Sherman Farm." After closure of the town dump in 1978, the URI Disposal Area began accepting most of URI's waste, including small quantities of empty paint cans, oil containers, and pesticide containers. Lab equipment, machinery, closed drums, and old tanks buried on site were discovered by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) during a 1987 inspection. The RIDEM instructed URI to remove contaminated debris from the site, an action which was completed by URI in 1987. Vehicle access to the site is restricted by a locked chain-link gate across the gravel access road at its intersection with Plains Road. An estimated 15,800 people obtain their drinking water supply from three major public wells located within 4 miles of the site. An additional 12,000 persons are supplied by private wells, the nearest being approximately 1,000 feet northwest of the site. The site is located within the Chipuxet River valley basin. Hundred Acre Pond, part of the river, is approximately 1,500 feet from the site. The river basin is a major groundwater resource.

• Fischer & Porter Co. (Warminster, PA)
• New Cassel/hicksville Ground Water Contamination (New Cassel/hicksville, NY)
• Kysor Industrial Corp. (Cadillac, MI)
• Pohatcong Valley Ground Water Contamination (Warren County, NJ)
• Ellis Property (Evesham Township, NJ)

• Rockaway Borough Well Field (Rockaway Township, NJ)
• San Fernando Valley (area 4) (Los Angeles, CA)
• Verona Well Field (Battle Creek, MI)
• North Penn - Area 1 (Souderton, PA)
• Valley Park Tce (Valley Park, MO)