EPA regional chief tours Brunswick Superfund sites

Brunswick and Glynn County are home to four Superfund sites, a concentration not found elsewhere in the state.

On Monday, EPA Regional Administrator Kevin McOmber visited three of those sites to see how the hazardous waste cleanup was progressing and to spread the word about their redevelopment potential. EPA has produced a “Brunswick Area Sites Investment Prospectus” available here. It also includes information about area sites remediated through Georgia’s brownfield program.

President Donald J. Trump appointed McOmber in February 2025 to the top spot of the eight-state Region 4 (Southeast) Division of EPA headquartered in Atlanta.

A civil engineer and former city councilmember in Suwanee, a 20,000-person city northeast of Atlanta, McOmber reported his impressions Monday after he and several other EPA staffers toured the sites.

Media were not invited on the tour but The Current GA sat down with McOmber and EPA Superfund and Emergency Management Director Hunter Johnson afterward at the Brunswick Library.

Three sites toured

McOmber and his team visited the Hercules 009 Landfill, the Terry Creek Dredge Spoil/Hercules Outfall site, and the LCP Chemicals site. Superfund sites are industrial areas the federal government has declared highly contaminated and needing monitoring and sustained cleanup.

The Hercules 009 Landfill is now mostly cleaned up and has been used as a parking lot for the Nalley auto dealership, McOmber said.

“You know, it serves as a cap for the landfill, and you know it’s a perfect solution that they’ve got in place there, and it’s functioning well for them,” McOmber said.

A five-year report is expected for the site next month. Remaining to be cleaned up is a benzene plume affecting groundwater in the topmost aquifer in the area. While that surficial aquifer is not used for drinking water, EPA is mitigating and monitoring the plume, Johnson said. Once that mitigation is complete the site can be removed from the Superfund list.

“I get excited about these sites for the reuse opportunities that are there,” McOmber said. “These were great sites back when they were originally serving some industrial use, but getting them cleaned up and back on the the tax rolls as something productive is an exciting outcome for these sites.”

At the Terry Creek site McOmber saw the concrete cap meant to prevent movement into the marsh of any residual toxaphene — a chlorinated pesticide produced for use mainly on cotton crops. Toxaphene contamination of the site prompted the removal of 35,000 cubic yards of dirt. Redevelopment interest is high on that marshfront site, McOmber said.

The 800-acre LCP site is mostly marsh. The upland portion is not yet ready for redevelopment but McOmber said there’s interest in a faster-to-play “executive” golf course there.

“It’s a group called First Tee, which is dedicated to young students and things that want to get involved in golf,” he said. “And golf has been a difficult sport because it takes time and it takes money, so they they are looking at this executive course because it’ll play faster with it being a short course.”

Cleanup is ongoing on the upland portion, Johnson said.

“We do have mercury still, subsurface mercury, and so that’s going to be the thing that we’re going to be addressing next out there,” Johnson said. “And we’re currently developing the plans for for how to address that.”

McOmber did not visit the 84-acre Brunswick Wood Preserving site, which Johnson said is ready for redevelopment but has received less interest because it’s not in a prime location.

EPA changes

McOmber noted that EPA Region 4’s workforce has dwindled by 300 positions since the beginning of the Trump administration, an approximately 26 percent cut.

“But we’re actually doing more work with less people right now, and I know that sounds hard to believe, but we’re managing to get a lot of work done,” McOmber said. “And it’s about focusing on what statutorily we’re allowed to do and required to do, and not doing some of the things that were being done by choice as opposed to under requirements, and so that’s been a good thing.”

McOmber said some of the newer regulations handled in the Biden administration lacked scientific support. He cited as examples the regulation of climate-warming greenhouse gases and a focus on environmental justice, the practice of rectifying the disproportionate distribution of environmental hazards to minorities and impoverished areas.

“Some of the greenhouse gas things that had been discussed in the past administration was not as clear as it it really should have been with regards to the science, and so we’ve gotten very, very focused on exactly what the science says.”

The Trump administration earlier this year revoked the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which previously recognized greenhouse gases as a public health threat. It also dismantled the Environmental Justice program, revoking funding and closing environmental-justice-related programs.

In Brunswick, majority Black neighborhoods grew up adjacent to the factories that later became Superfund sites. An ongoing Emory University-backed study of contaminants in residents’ blood samples suggests higher exposures for PCBs in Black study participants compared to white study participants. Emory recently received federal funding to open a Superfund research center to study the health outcomes of people who have lived in Brunswick long-term.

“We don’t have a direct role in that center, but we’re standing by to be good partners, and certainly support the public health outcomes,” public affairs specialist Patti Ghezzi said.

But McOmber suggested EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin views environmental justice initiatives as inefficient.

“The Administrator on that particular topic, wanted to make sure that every dollar that’s being spent is being spent on fixing things, you know, environmental improvements,” he said. “And in a lot of the cases there the money was going to a middleman that would then figure out how to get it to the people to do to do the work. Mr. Zeldin has been very focused on making sure that every dollar spent goes to cleanup.”

The Tide brings regular notes and observations on news and events by The Current staff.