Esthetician School in Mantua, VA

An oil distribution plant, located 2,000 feet (610 m) west of the community along Pickett Road in Fairfax City, was found in 1990 to have leaked approximately 200,000 gallons (approximately 4,700 barrels) of petroleum into 22 acres (0.089 km²) of the soil and groundwater of the Crook Branch watershed. At the time, the distribution plant was owned in part by a subsidiary of Texaco. The oil leakage may have occurred over up to twenty-five years, as the distribution plant had opened in April 1965. Four families were evacuated, and approximately 100 homes were connected to public water and sewer lines. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directed the installation of a “pump-and-treat” groundwater remediation system, which was augmented in 2000 by digging of horizontal infiltration wells, intended to wash contaminated groundwater into the remediation system. Storm sewers in the area were checked for leaks and relining was performed to prevent further contamination of surface water. By 2013, a four-year temporary shutdown test had shown that benzene and methyl tert-butyl ether vapor intrusion in homes directly above the contaminated groundwater plume calculated from sub-slab soil vapor sampling did not exceed the screening limit, and that groundwater contamination east of the distribution plant had fallen to levels controllable by natural degradation. The offsite remediation system was removed by 2016, but cleanup at the distribution plant is ongoing. The oil distribution plant remains in operation as of 2023 using nine reinforced surface tanks, despite objections that community members and a task force appointed by Governor L. Douglas Wilder had raised at the time the leak was being investigated. All underground tanks have since been removed and piping for trucks to discharge oil residual into at the loading rack was installed in 1991: both the underground tanks and the loading rack had been suspected sources of the leak. Groundwater in the Crook Branch watershed continues to be tested annually by the EPA and storm sewers are inspected for cracks.