It's not a perfect success story yet for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but an official said the Medley Farms superfund site has come a long way from the environmental mess discovered in 1983.

The EPA is in the midst of its third 5-year review of the superfund site south of Gaffney, a review necessitated by the fact that test results show some toxic chemicals above allowable limits continue to be present in the groundwater.

While he can't predict when the EPA's involvement at the Gaffney site will end, EPA remedial project man- ager Ralph Howard said ongoing cleanup efforts are getting the site closer to the EPA's goals.

In 1983, more than 5,300 chemical drums were removed from the Medley Farm site during an emergency cleanup. The site was subsequently added to the EPA's national list of priorities in 1989. After several years of research, two systems were constructed in 1995 to clean the soil and groundwater of the contaminants.

By 2004, the soil cleanup efforts had met EPA targets and the EPA and state health officials agreed to the cessation of a solid vapor extraction system at the site. Howard said that system acted like a giant vacuum cleaner to rid the soil of chemical vapors.

Groundwater cleanup continues to this day, though.

Of the 25 test wells on the property, eight of the wells still show some levels of the chemicals dumped on the site, albeit at much lower levels.

The EPA's goal is to get the water clean enough to meet drinking water standards. Typical in such efforts, the amount of chemicals removed by the initial filter-type system slowed over time and a new type of clean-up effort using microorganisms to consume the chemicals began in 2004.

The cleanup efforts are being paid for by the companies whose chemicals were found on the site, Howard said. "They've done everything the EPA has asked," he said.

When the process began it was believed it could take as many as 30 years to clean up the site. It's been about 13 years since the process began.

"We really don't know (how close we are to finishing)," Howard said. "We've got cleanup goals and for the time being we still intend to make them meet those cleanup goals."

If it's ultimately determined that cleanup efforts can't reach the drinking water goals, Howard said the EPA could close the books and place restrictions on the water use. But, he said, "Our mission is not to settle for that."