Update on Cleanup of CTS Superfund Site

On Nov. 22, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice announced a $9 million cleanup at the CTS of Asheville, Inc., Superfund Site.

According to the EPA, the funding was agreed to by CTS Corporation, Mills Gap Road Associates and Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation.

According to the EPA’s Superfund website, the 53.54-acre site was used to manufacture electronic components from 1952 to 1986, until it was purchased by Mills Gap Road Associates in 1987. In 1997, 44.59 acres were sold to Biltmore Group and turned into a subdivision. The manufacturing building was demolished in 2011 and had been vacant since the mid-1990s.

The site was designated on the EPA’s National Priorities List in 2012. According to the EPA, the cleanup will address a 3.1-acre area contaminated by trichloroethylene, a solvent that leached into the groundwater in the area.

Cleanup, which will be overseen by the EPA, will begin in 2017 and is expected to reduce trichloroethene concentrations by 95 percent.

The funding follows unsuccessful challenges by CTS to personal injury claims by nearby residents.
— Carl Blankenship