Site Information
Portions excerpted from HoltraChem Manufacturing Site Fact s, U.S. EPA, March 2001
The HoltraChem Manufacturing Company in Orrington, Maine is located on a 235-acre property on the banks of the Penobscot River. Approximately 50 acres are developed and include the manufacturing facility, five landfills, a surface impoundment and a waste pile. The immediate plant area is approximately 12 acres. It opened in 1967 and manufactured chlorine, caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) used by paper mills. The plant also manufactured hydrochloric acid and the pesticide chloropicrin. The plant closed in September, 2000.
The plant used a chlor-alkali process to separate sodium and chlorine from salt water. In this process, elemental mercury was used as a cathode to collect the sodium from the water. The chlor-alkali process is an older technology and has been replaced by mercury-free production techniques at newer plants and some converted older plants. When it stopped operations last fall, HoltraChem was one of 13 chlor-alkali plants left in the country. There were as many as 30 chlor-alkali plants in the United States at one time.
This particular plant has been owned and operated by three different companies. The plant began operation in 1967, and was first owned by International Minerals and Chemical Corporation (IMC), which in the 1990's became known as the Mallinckrodt Group. In 1974 IMC sold the plant to Sobin Chemical, a subsidiary of Mallinckrodt that was absorbed back into the parent company in 1977. IMC then sold the plant in 1982 to LCP Chemical and Plastics Inc. In 1988 LCP changed its name to the Hanlin Group. Hanlin filed for bankruptcy in 1991. HoltraChem purchased the property in 1994.
A site investigation, completed last year, determined that the HoltraChem property, including parts of the Penobscot River, is contaminated with mercury, chloropicrin and several volatile organic compounds. Additional investigation will be done into the presence of additional areas of mercury contamination and polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs).
Specifically, the following contaminants at a minimum are present on site:
Soils: chloropicrin, ethylbenzene, xylenes, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead and mercury.
Groundwater : 1,1 dichloroethane, acetone, bromodichloromethane, bromoform, carbon disulfide, carbon tetrachloride, chlorobenzene, chloroform, chloromethane, chloropicrin, dibromochloromethane, methylene chloride, trichloroethene, mercury, potassium, and sodium.
Surface Water: carbon tetrachloride, chloroform and mercury.
Sediment: mercury
Biological samples: mercury
