SITE INFORMATION AND CORRESPONDENCE

Home Browse Search

INFORMATION SHEET ORDER NO. 5-01-057 WOODBRDIGE PARTNERS, INC. FORMER VICTOR FINE FOODS FACILITY CLOSURE OF SURFACE IMPOUNDMENTS Woodbridge Partners, Inc. owns a closed and previously abandoned meat processing and packaging plant on the Highway 99 Frontage Road north of Lodi. The facility is approximately one-third of a mile north of the Mokelumne River. Past operations at the facility have caused extensive pollution to local aquifers. These revised WDRs require closing a Class lI Surface Impoundment and an Underground Injection Well. These WDRs also require resumption of groundwater monitoring to evaluate the need for additional groundwater cleanup. The Victor Fine Foods Facility operated as a meat packaging and processing plant for 30 years until it closed in 1991. The facility was abandoned until 1998 when it was sold as tax defaulted property to the discharger, Woodbridge Partners Inc. In the past, the Victor Fine Foods Facility discharged high TDS brines and other process wastewater to unlined ponds. These discharge practices resulted in high TDS wastewaters percolating into local groundwater. Subsequently, nearby domestic and agricultural supply wells in multiple upper aquifer zones became polluted. In the early 1990s, the plume of high TDS groundwater extended at least one-half mile north and 150 feet deep. Prior to closing and ultimately abandoning the property,the previous discharger in compliance with board requirements: replaced several polluted domestic and agricultural water supplies, constructed a Class 11 surface impoundment to contain process waste water, conducted groundwater monitoring, and operated a groundwater extraction and remediation system that included an underground injection well. Efforts to comply with Board requirements stopped when the facility closed. Cease and Desist Order No. 88- 191 named previous owners Golden Gate Fresh Foods and Goehring Meat Inc. and required implementation of the final groundwater remediation. Order No. 88-191 remains in effect. e Efforts to monitor and cleanup groundwater stopped soon after the facility closed in 1991. Subsequent to closure of the facility, one groundwater sample event was collected in January 1999. Results from this sample event are inconclusive but indicate that TDS concentrations are decreasing by the process of dilution. Closing the remaining pond, the Class 11 Surface Impoundment, and the underground injection well will prevent further pollution of groundwater. Resumption of groundwater monitoring will allow staff to determine what if any future actions are needed to cleanup groundwater. RDA