EPA finds groundwater contaminants

Addressing the groundwater problem could push the cleanup cost past $13 million.

First it was contaminated soil. Now it's contaminated groundwater at the former Missouri Electric Works site in Cape Girardeau that has the federal Environmental Protection Agency proposing costly cleanup work.

Added to the price tag of the completed soil work, the environmental cleanup could end up costing more than $13 million.

The EPA is proposing to continue monitoring the groundwater for the next 30 years on the 6.4-acre Superfund site on South Kingshighway and in an adjacent wetland area where monitoring wells show contamination has spread. Superfund is a federal program that carries out EPA emergency and long-term removal of solid waste.

The EPA also wants to determine if the contaminants are degrading naturally enough or if it needs a little chemical boost.

Either way, it could cost more than $6 million to clean up the groundwater over the next 30 years, EPA officials at the regional office in Kansas City, Kan., said Tuesday.

More than 100 "potential responsible parties" -- former customers of Missouri Electric Works -- would end up footing most of the bill just as they did to clean up the PCB-contaminated soil five years ago. PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyl, is an industrial chemical compound noted as an environmental pollutant that accumulates in animal tissue.

A cleanup contractor excavated more than 38,000 tons of soil at the Missouri Electric Works site and heated it to temperatures of up to 950 degrees to remove the contaminants at a cost of $6.9 million.

The potential responsible parties paid about 80 percent of the cost. The EPA paid the remainder of the cost under an agreement worked out with the federal agency.

The EPA's proposed plan, outlined in a lengthy report, is available for review at the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

The EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources will hold a public meeting from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Sept. 8 in Cape Girardeau to receive comments and answer questions about the cleanup plan.

The meeting will be in the Lincoln Room of Drury Lodge, 104 S. Vantage Drive. The EPA will receive public comments through Sept. 19.

Under the proposed groundwater cleanup plan, any drinking-water well constructed on the Missouri Electric Works site at 824 S. Kingshighway would have to include equipment to filter the water, said Pauletta France-Isetts, EPA remedial project manager.

EPA officials said any future business at that site could avoid well treatment costs by simply hooking up to the city's water system.

The contamination is relatively small.

"We are talking parts per billion," said David Hoefer, an EPA attorney.

France-Isetts said, "The contamination doesn't pose a huge risk to people. Most of the risk is a future-use risk."

But EPA officials said that shouldn't prevent the site from being developed for a business.

"There really are not going to be too many restrictions on excavation," France-Isetts said.

Hoefer said the EPA wants to see development at the Missouri Electric Works site.

The former transformer repair business closed in 1992 after the environmental problem surfaced. Since then, the industrial building on the site has stood vacant and the site has appeared virtually abandoned except during the periods of environmental cleanup.

"We want to see it back in productive use," Hoefer said.

But unlike the soil cleanup, groundwater contamination is harder to address.

The toxic chemicals don't degrade easily and it's technically impractical to clean up groundwater in the fractured limestone bedrock, EPA officials said.

The natural biodegradation of the contaminants in the wetland area might be enough. But the EPA said it may be necessary to install injection wells and add a hydrogen compound. "It would enhance the ability of microorganisms to grow and deal with contamination," France-Isetts said.

That solution could cost $4.8 million, EPA officials said.

Without injection wells, it could cost $3.9 million to monitor the groundwater contamination in the wetlands over the next three decades.

On the Missouri Electric Works site itself, the EPA estimates it would cost more than $2.2 million to monitor the groundwater contamination over the same time period.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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