NC0001376_NOV-2021-PC-0510 Response_20211118

Gordon Eugene Boyce
313 Woodcliff Road
SCANNED
Raleigh, NC 27609
Q 919.6O8.7373/E: [e-mail]
November 18, 2021
Vanessa Manuel
Assistant Regional Supervisor
Water Quality Regional Operations Section
Raleigh Regional Office
Division of Water Resources, NCDEQ
1800 Barrett Drive
Raleigh, NC 27609
Subject: Notice of Violation & Notice of Intent to Enforce
NOV-2021-PC-0510
Compliance Evaluation Inspection
Riverplace WWTP
NPDES Permit 0001376
Wake County
Dear Ms. Manuel:
NC Dept of Environmental
Raleigh Regional Offle0
This letter is in response to the written results of the inspection of the WWTP conducted on
September 21, 2021 by Mr. Jason Robinson of your office and your subsequent NOV letter.
Before responding to items 3, 4, 5 and 7 of your letter in detail, we felt it important to provide
you general information to give context to the situation.
As you correctly pointed out in the introduction to your letter, the previous owners of the WWTP
permit, Burlington Mills facility, closed in 1996. They sold their entire Neuse River nitrogen
discharge allocation to the City of Raleigh in 1999 and then sold all the facilities. Again, you
correctly pointed out that by selling the nitrogen allocation, discharge from the WWTP was
prohibited.
We were a minor owner of the property when our other partners went bankrupt and we
"inherited" the property and the permit. We are not legally responsible for any of the conditions
that were produced prior to our ownership. When ownership passed to us, we never intended to
operate the WWTP. In fact, our desire then and now is to have the property used for beneficial
purposes, perhaps by the Town of Wake Forest.

From 2018 to 2020, Mr. Donnell of Envirolink, Inc. developed a plan to officially decommission
the WWTP. The plan was conceptual and was briefed verbally to members of the Raleigh
Regional Office. Additional details will be provided in the response to item 7 below. We
identified a contractor, TA Loving to execute the plan and to provide bids. One of the tasks in the
plan was to pump the liquid fraction of each of the basins to an on -site manhole and let it be
treated by Raleigh's Smith Creek WWTP. At the last minute, the pre-treatment coordinator for
Raleigh asked the contractor to test the liquid fraction for PFAS prior to granting final approval.
We did and discovered that there were high levels of HAS in the polishing pond which is the
most downstream unit. At that point, no discharge to the Smith Creek WWTP was allowed.
Once PFAS were discovered, we again looked for ways to treat the water so we could send it to
the Smith Creek WWTP. Since they did not allow any PFAS to be in water entering their plant,
carbon filtration was our only alternative. Doing this would have more than quadrupled the cost
of dewatering the WWTP and would have been cost prohibitive.
We began searching for other means of dewatering the basins in the WWTP. We located a
vendor with a proprietary flocculant aid chemical that showed promise in settling PFAS
compounds. We also decided to raise the possibility with DEQ air quality personnel of
evaporating the liquid fraction of the basins using greenhouse -like structures once PFAS
compounds had settled. To that end, we scheduled and participated in a video conference on
August 31, 2021. Shortly following that meeting, your office scheduled the WWTP inspection
conducted by Mr. Robinson.
We have also begun preliminary investigations into turning this site into a Brownfield project.
This process may have to be delayed since HAS compounds are not technically considered
"hazardous chemicals" yet.
You will see from our responses below that we are serious about decommissioning the WWTP
and converting the piece of property to some use beneficial to local citizens.
Item 3. N
c
b�1,t
It does not appear that the attached form is correct for our situation. n3enral
NOV 1 �u$lity
Item 4. �^yes
Dewatering activities have not occurred since the events you mentioned in 2009.A e�
stormwater is introduced into the basins through direct rainfall and not from overland flow.
There has not been any wastewater flow to the basins since 1996. The rainfall appears to be
removed from the basins by evapotranspiration and not by overflow. We have not taken actions
to prevent overflow.
Item 5.

NC Dept of-EDminonnuowl. Quality
NOV 19 2021
a. The discharge pipes were located on November 9, 2021. There i 41 **Mfic@
from the pipes. The primary discharge was dry. The secondary discharge was filled with
backwater from the Neuse River. It was obvious that there was no introduction of
different color or sediment. See photographs at Attachment A.
b. As discussed in the response from Item 4, we believe that evapotranspiration is the means
that stormwater is currently being removed from the basins.
Item 7.
We are not able to present a new plan to decommission the WWTP because of the presence of
PFAS in the 8 million gallons of liquid in the basins. Use of carbon filters to remove HAS from
the liquid fraction of the basins is prohibitively expensive. Additionally, there is no approved
method of disposing of the liquid even if it is filtered. Discharge to the Neuse River is not an
option and it does not appear that use of the manhole on site to pump liquid to the City of
Raleigh WWTP will be allowed.
Until PFAS compounds were discovered, we prepared plans to pump Iiquids from each basin in
turn to the Smith Creek WWTP to eventually be discharged to the river. Solid residuals were to
be dried on site and disposed of either on site or in landfills. Several rounds of chemical tests and
TCLPs were performed to verify the efficacy of this plan. Once each basin was completed, we
planned to have it inspected and accepted by the Raleigh Regional Office and the continue to the
next basin. A contractor, TA Loving, was identified to complete this plan at an estimated cost of
$1.3 million. PFAS put an end to this plan since pre-treatment personnel in Raleigh would not
accept water being introduced into the Smith Creek WWTP with any HAS present.
Following the identification PFAS compounds, we asked TA Loving to prepare an estimate to
completely remove PFAS compounds from the basins by using mobile, carbon filtration units.
Their initial estimates, which contemplated pumping filtered liquid to the Smith Creek WWTP
was more than $4 million. There were still numerous unknowns but based on the initial estimate,
this plan was not economically feasible.
When the filtration plan was discarded, we searched for more economical alternatives.
Conceptually we discussed creating greenhouse -like structures on the site with specially
designed walls, roofs, fans, and outlets to enhance existing evapotranspiration. Each WWTP
basin would be covered to prevent introduction of new stormwater. A proprietary flocculent aid
chemical would be introduced into the basin to settle HAS compounds. Water from the covered
basin would be pumped to the greenhouse structures at a rate that would maximize water loss
through evaporation. Solids remaining in each basin and each structure would be collected, dried,
and disposed of on site providing a non -discharge permit could be obtained. This concept was
briefed to DEQ's air quality personnel on August 31 to determine, if they would have any
objections. They did not have any.

To determine if this concept is feasible, we still need to:
• Conduct full scale testing of the flocculent aid chemical
• Determine the rate evaporation occurs in various sized greenhouses
• Determine how to economically cover the large basins
• Submit permit requests to dispose of residuals on site
Obtaining this information will allow us to develop a long-term plan with specific milestones.
We have also begun to explore getting the site officially designated a brownfields site. We have
had preliminary discussions with the Town of Wake Forest as they are interested in
taking advantage of the site's proximity to the Neuse River for recreational purposes.
In closing, we would like nothing better than to officially decommission the old Burlington Mills
WWTP and convert the property so that it may be beneficially used. Even though we are not
responsible for the existing situation we explored several alternatives for doing this ourselves.
Those alternatives proved to be exorbitantly expensive. We are going to need help from the
government to complete this process.
Sincerely Yours,
iordon Eugene Boyce
Attachments
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