Valley of the Drums | |
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Superfund site | |
Geography | |
County | Bullitt County |
State | Kentucky |
Coordinates | 38°4′55.9″N 85°43′25.0″W / 38.082194°N 85.723611°W |
Information | |
CERCLIS ID | KYD980500961 |
Responsible parties | A.L. Taylor (inferred) |
Progress | |
Proposed | December 30, 1982 |
Listed | September 8, 1983 |
Construction completed | August 10, 1990 |
Deleted | May 17, 1996 |
List of Superfund sites |
The Valley of the Drums, officially known as the A.L. Taylor (Valley of Drums) Superfund Site, is a 23-acre (9.3 hectare) toxic waste site near Brooks in northern Bullitt County, Kentucky, near Louisville, named after the waste-containing drums strewn across the area. After it had been collecting waste since the 1960s, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analyzed the property and creek in 1979, finding high levels of heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, and some 140 other chemical substances. It is known as one of the primary motivations for the passage of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or Superfund Act of 1980. While the widely publicized Love Canal disaster is often credited as the reason the Superfund law was passed, Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs has said that Love Canal looked like a suburban community, while "Valley of the Drums became the visualization of the problem."[1] Officially, cleanup began at the site in 1983 and ended in 1990, though later problems have been reported and investigated.