Olean Well Field Superfund Site

The Olean Well Field case began in January 1981 with a drinking-water discovery rather than a visible dump. Testing found volatile organic compounds in municipal supply wells and private wells in the Olean–Portville area, forcing officials to protect water users while investigators worked backward through the aquifer toward possible sources.

The federal site covers roughly 800 acres and is a groundwater system rather than a single disposal lot. EPA's investigation identified four principal industrial source properties—Alcas, McGraw-Edison/Cooper, AVX, and Loohn's Dry Cleaners—but each property has its own contaminants, remedy history, and evidentiary limits.

Immediate protection and long-term cleanup followed different timelines. Affected municipal wells were removed from ordinary service or treated, public water was extended to private-well users, and source-area groundwater remedies were designed and revised as investigators learned more about plume movement.

The early public-health response also evolved. A period community-relations record says residents with contaminated private wells were initially advised to boil their water, advice that does not remove volatile solvents and can increase their release into indoor air. EPA subsequently installed granular-activated-carbon filters and monitoring, then extended public water to affected properties.

The resulting record documents contamination beneath an inhabited city: water-supply data revealed the problem, monitoring wells helped reconstruct movement, and decades of source control followed. The regional marker is not a present-day exposure map for individual homes.