Hazardous Site Cleanup Completed at Westan Tannery Site in Tioga County

The Department of Environmental Protection this week announced the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program contractor, URS Corp., recently completed its cleanup of the abandoned Westan Tannery in Westfield Borough and Westfield Township, Tioga County.

 

The site was abandoned in May 2005 when the facility closed its operations.

 

During a 10-week period beginning the end of October 2007, URS collected drums and various sized containers scattered throughout the 400,000 square foot building area of the former tannery property. Hundreds of drums and smaller containers of waste and products used in the tanning process were left behind. The collected containers were field analyzed to determine if the contents were hazardous, and repackaged for transportation as necessary.

 

On February 26, American Waste Management Services was approved to provide transportation and disposal services for many of the collected containers. On August 20, the last load of containerized waste was removed from the facility. URS subsequently focused all of its attention on draining about 400 tanning vats that were later backfilled with soil. On November 25, the last load of about 940,000 gallons of vat liquids was transported to a wastewater treatment facility at the Greentree landfill in Elk County.

 

The total cost of the cleanup was about $1.5 million, and was paid by the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund..

 

For more information, visit the DEP's Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program webpage.