ECHO CHEMICAL/DeREWAL CHEMICAL SUPERFUND SITE

The next Super Fund site I was associated with was the Echo Chemical/DeRewal Chemical location in Revere, Pa.  on the south side of 611 between the bend at the road to Upper Black Eddy and the 412 turn off to the right.

Norbert and Manfred DeRewal operated several companies and locations, the facility in revere being one of them.  There were others in New Jersey and North Carolina, where I understand they were from.

Typically their companies took in spent industrial amounts of acids, such as those used in pickling baths, and either disposed of them or as in the case of the Revere location, used acid baths to strip the copper off rejected and obsolete printed circuit boards.

At Revere they had a large number of outdoor, unlined lagoons holding thousands of gallons of these waste acids, some of which were leaking into local surface water streams.

Dr. Crockett, my faculty adviser at Lafayette, asked me to go along with he and an undergraduate whose name I have forgotten, to Revere for an initial look-see at the location, which was not secure at that time.  I don’t’ know if he asked me just because he wanted another student involved, or if it was because I was familiar with the area, had my own car, and could provide transportation to the fellow who was actually investigating Echo for a project. Dr. Crockett drove us down the first time, which was going to be just to see what it was we would be dealing with.

The site had been abandoned by the DeRewals at some point before we went there the first time.  The office had been thoroughly vandalized and what office papers that hadn’t been removed by the owners were strewn around the floor, and what laboratory equipment had been left was smashed on the floor of the lab. A building next to the lab which had a leaky roof had several uncovered drums containing some sort of powder.  The other student and I mapped the lagoons so we would have enough sample containers when we came back to do sampling.

I don’t’ know much about the subsequent history of the site, or the efforts it took to clean it up, but if you drive past it now it is covered with brush and small trees and fenced in.  There are old newspaper reports online that provide more details about the cleanup.