The Dempster Industries Site is located at 711 S. 6th St. in Beatrice, Gage County, Nebraska and covers approximately 10 acres. The Site is improved with nineteen buildings, totaling approximately 250,000 square feet. The facility served as a metal manufacturer for over 100 years but appears to have gone out of business in the early 2010s, and his since been abandoned.
In October 2022, EPA is initiated a Time-Critical Removal Action to mitigate the immediate threats to public health, welfare, and the environment posed by the abandonment several hundred chemical containers, including 55-gallon drums of chlorinated solvents, corrosives, and flammable liquids. The former facility and abandoned containers have experienced frequent trespassing and vandalism therefore pose an imminent and substantial threat of release.
Removal Action Conclusion
The various buildings and surrounding grounds were canvassed for any potentially hazardous waste containers. The identified containers were screened for health threat characteristics and consolidated into compatible material groups. The groups were segregated appropriately inside one of the former operations buildings. The containers were secured behind temporary fencing with appropriate hazard warning signs. The high variability of the contents of the containers resulted in an extended period of negotiating what like waste streams could be consolidated and disposed through appropriate permitted disposal vendors. Ultimately there were several disposal vendors used with each shipment requiring its own packaging and off-site shipment event. Once all the waste had been shipped to its final disposal destination the security measures from the temporary storage area were removed and the property control released to the local government.
