Tower Chemical Company EPA Superfund Site

 EPA superfund  Add category

 Upload a photo

The Tower Chemical Company (TCC) site is an abandoned pesticide manufacturing facility located approximately five miles east of downtown Clermont, Florida. The main site, including the original production facility, wastewater pond, and burn/burial pit, is approximately 16 acres.

From 1957 to 1981, TCC manufactured and stored various pesticides used primarily in the citrus industry. TCC discharged acidic process wastewater into a 0.5-acre, unlined seepage/evaporation pond, which was located over a former sinkhole area. This created a leaching conduit into the deeper Floridan aquifer. In the last year of operation, TCC disposed of acidic waste water on a spray irrigation field off site, southwest of the waste water pond. TCC also burned and buried its waste on a 1.5-acre portion of the site in the early years of operation. In 1980, the wastewater pond overflowed into an on-site drainage ditch and then flowed downstream into the Gourd Neck of Lake Apopka, where vegetation and aquatic animals were affected. TCC ceased manufacturing operations in December 1980.

After TCC closed, two new businesses leased portions of the site property: Classic Manufacturing Company and Vita-Green Inc. From 1981 to 1986, Classic Manufacturing Company used a 1-acre portion of the site that included the utility building for the manufacture of plastic fishing worms. Vita-Green Inc., a company that blended and packaged potting soils for home garden use, moved onto the site in 1981 and used an area adjacent to the TCC production facility. Vita-Green ceased operations in 1998.

The TCC facility has been subdivided into four tax parcels – the largest parcel is about 15 acres. The other three parcels encompass the remaining one acre. The site's largest parcel was purchased in 2005, and is currently in commercial use as a storage facility for recreational vehicles, boats, trailers, and other vehicles. The new owners have cleared the collapsed portion of the main production building and have converted the remaining building and slab as well as the adjacent uncontaminated land into a storage facility.

In 2006, a commercial trucking operation which hauls spring water to bottling plants purchased the remaining three parcels at the site. The company maintains the property as an unpaved parking area for tank trucks used to haul water.

www.epa.gov/region4/waste/npl/nplfls/towercfl.htm#back