116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Cryovac plant still vacant after 14 years
Groundwater, soil monitored for solvents left behind by plastic packaging production
CEDAR RAPIDS — About 250 people worked at Sealed Air’s plant in southwest Cedar Rapids, making the company’s Cryovac plastic food packaging when the factory closed in 2009.
Their jobs went to the company’s plants in Arkansas, South Carolina and Mexico. But hazardous byproducts and waste chemicals — mainly chlorinated solvents — were left behind in the soil and water at the still-vacant plant, 1125 Wilson Ave. SW.
“The concentrations in the subsurface are indeed in excess of what we call ‘statewide standards,’ which are health-based concentrations,” Matthew Graesch, project manager for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, wrote in an email.
Graesch manages the DNR’s Land Recycling Program, a voluntary program for former industrial and commercial sites. The Cryovac site at has been enrolled in the program since 2012. Given the chemicals’ stubborn nature, though, the site is unlikely to be declared “clean” in the near future.
“I don’t want it to take that long, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes another 10 to 20 years,” Graesch said. “The average life span of these sites is measured in decades. These sites don’t get cleaned up quickly. Often, it’s a several decades’ process.”
That means the site has little chance of development in the near future.
The city and private developers, however, have repurposed former industrial sites. The city bought and cleaned up the former Iowa Steel and Iron Works brownfield sites, removing 1,430 tons of contaminated soil from land that is now part of the NewBo Business District. Mount Mercy University bought and cleaned up the former Terex/Iowa Manufacturing site to build an athletics complex.
“We have no authority to prevent anybody from reusing the site,” Graesch said. “People are more than welcome to reuse the site, but they’d have to deal with the problem that’s there.”
Good location
The Cryovac site is in a “highly visible location, so it would be nice if we could get some momentum at redeveloping this property,” said Ron Corbett, vice president of economic development for the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance.
“We’ve reached out to the company, and I think there’s a willingness at the company to meet with the city and economic development officials.”
Sealed Air’s corporate successor, Charlotte, N.C.-based SEE, retains ownership and continues to pay property taxes for the site, currently about $85,000 a year.
SEE owns 17.5 acres, with buildings dating to 1951 and covering a total of 226,933 square feet. The property has an assessed value of $2.5 million.
“At this time, SEE (formerly Sealed Air) has no comment on the status or future plans for our plant in Cedar Rapids,” Christina Griffin, the corporation’s director of media relations, wrote in an email.
Site is ‘stable’
Owners of properties enrolled in the DNR’s Land Recycling Program pay the costs of monitoring and remediation efforts performed by a certified consultant. The Iowa DNR is reimbursed for project management time at $64.81 an hour, a rate that’s adjusted annually.
Graesch said the state notifies nearby residents when a property is enrolled in the program but “unless we feel there’s some aggravated risk,” neighbors don’t receive regular reports.
Twice-yearly groundwater sampling by Cedar Rapids contractor Terracon continues to find several chlorinated solvents in excess of safe levels.
The most recent report filed in August found it in excess of state standards at 12 of the 18 monitoring wells on the property and two of the nine wells in the surrounding neighborhood. The reports are archived at the DNR’s website.
“Natural attenuation is ongoing, and the overall condition of the site is stable,” according to Terracon’s report to the DNR.
Samples from off-site monitoring well 15, north of Wilson Avenue and 12th Street SW, and well 24, in the 1200 block of 22nd Avenue SW, turned up five chemicals in concentrations exceeding state standards. The most common were dichloroethane and dichloroethene, present in both wells.
All are chlorinated solvents, used in industrial degreasing chemicals or components in the manufacture of plastics. Chlorinated solvents breakdown slowly, posing a hazard to groundwater aquifers. Inhaled or absorbed through the skin, at high concentrations, they can cause breathing problems, skin rashes and temporary nervous system symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and numbness.
Testing determined people are not exposed to dangerous levels at the site.
“There are two common means by which humans can come into contact with these chemicals: ingestion of groundwater and inhalation of vapors,” Graesch wrote in an email.
Because testing hasn’t found hazardous vapor levels at shallow subsurface levels, and groundwater in the area isn’t drawn for drinking, “neither of these two pathways are complete at the site,” according to Graesch.
Drinking water OK
Any ground contamination around the plant does not affect the quality of drinking water in the area, according to the Cedar Rapids Utilities Department.
The old plant has a well that provided non-potable water for plant use, but there are no other public or private wells near the property.
Terracon also has performed “free product” recovery at the site, pumping chemicals that had collected at a monitoring site within the plant building. From several gallons of product recovered in 2018 and ’19, the volume has dropped and none has been recovered since September 2021, according to the most recent report.
Chlorinated solvents are more difficult to contain and recover than petroleum products often found at former gas station sites enrolled in the Land Recovery Program, according to Graesch.
“Petroleum is lighter than water and easier to recover,” he said. “These chlorinated compounds are much heavier than water, and when they’re released, they sink. What we end up having to do is monitor the degradation and do the best we can to eliminate the risk to human health. It becomes a triage situation, rather than a cleanup.”
Earlier testing led to the installation of a “barrier wall” along the north edge of SEE property. Graesch said the “wall” isn’t a physical structure but a “chemical fence,” a series of closely spaced shafts for the injection of chemicals that prevent hazardous materials from leaching off-site.
“The idea is to create a chemical barrier that will prevent additional chlorinated solvents from leaving the property,” he said.
“Groundwater data collected to date indicates a favorable response in the shallow groundwater aquifer to the injection,” Terracon reported to the DNR in March. “Initial indications appear to point to the barrier wall acting as an effective means of containing the further migration of contamination off the site,” with continued monitoring.
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