The New Kent Wood Preservatives, Inc site is located at 4101 S Mountcastle Road in Providence Forge, Virginia which is approximately 1500 feet from the intersection of Highway 60 East and Route 615 in New Kent County. The site is an old wood treatment facility that operated from the 1970's to the 1990's. The treatment process used a chromium, copper, arsenic solution that was applied on a unbermed concrete drip pad located near the middle of the site.
New Kent Wood Preservatives, Inc was founded in 1977 and was later sold in 1983 and renamed the Midland Timber Company. The site was sold numerous times throughout the 1980's. In 1985, a preliminary assessment was performed by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and concluded that there were drainage issues but that no sludge dumping had occurred. A former owner, Midland Timber Company, regraded the site to address the drainage issues. In 1986, four monitoring wells were installed at each corner of the site. These wells detected elevated arsenic and chromium levels down gradient of the old drip pad. Since then various sampling events and investigations have occurred by both EPA and State personnel resulting in concentrations of chromium, copper, and arsenic detected above background levels.
