Community meetings about Kerr-McGee Site in Navassa

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, N.C. (WWAY) — State and federal officials together with Multistate Trust representatives will hold two community meetings and a drop-in information session regarding the Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. – Navassa Superfund site on Tuesday, March 15.

Topics will include plans for the upcoming removal of contaminated soil from a former treated-wood storage area; environmental investigations and activities; natural resource restoration projects; and other redevelopment planning efforts.

The community meetings will be held at the Navassa Community Center between 1:30 to 3 p.m. and 6:30 to 8 p.m., and a separate information session will be held between 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

The community meetings can also be joined virtually by clicking to join via this Zoom link or type this link into a browser window.

From 1936 to 1974, Kerr-McGee and other companies used 70 acres of what is known as the 246-acre former Kerr-McGee property for creosote-based wood treating. It is bounded by the Brunswick River, Sturgeon Creek, a residential area and a light industrial area. The soil, sediment and groundwater are contaminated by creosote-related chemicals. Because of the contamination, the EPA added the property to the National Priorities List of federal Superfund sites.

In 2005, the site was conveyed to Tronox, a Kerr-McGee spinoff that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009. In 2011, the Multistate Environmental Response Trust (the Multistate Trust) acquired approximately 152 acres (later purchasing an additional two acres) of the former Kerr-McGee Property as a court-appointed trustee as part of the Tronox bankruptcy settlement involving the U.S. government, 22 state governments, and other parties.

The Multistate Trust is a court-appointed environmental response trust created to own, investigate, clean up, and facilitate reuse of hundreds of former Kerr-McGee Corp. (Kerr-McGee) and Tronox Inc. (Tronox) sites in 31 states, from Florida to Idaho and New York to Nevada. The Multistate Trustee’s parent company is Greenfield Environmental Trust Group, Inc. (Greenfield), which is a professional services provider to the court-appointed trustees of multiple environmental and custodial trusts.

DEQ, EPA and the Multistate Trust continue to work on the site investigation, remediation and redevelopment planning. In 2021, following the EPA’s issuance of a Record of Decision for Operable Unit 1, that 20-acre area was deleted from the NPL which allowed for it to be returned to productive reuse.

For more information about the site, visit the EPA website or the Multistate Trust website.