EPA INTERVIEWS GIRARDEANS

The Environmental Protection Agency is conducting interviews with people in Cape Girardeau concerning the handling of the Missouri Electric Works Superfund site and other EPA concerns.

"We want to know what people are thinking," said Hattie Thomas, a spokesperson for the EPA office at Kansas City, Kan., which keeps tabs on happenings in the four states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.

"This will give us community input," she said. "It will help us better understand the community and what the major issues are in Cape Girardeau.

The community involvement interviews will involve city and chamber of commerce officials and a number of citizens, said Thomas, who is in Cape Girardeau this week.

"We hit the ground running Monday," said Thomas. "Hopefully we'll wind up the interviews today."

Assisting in the interviews is Alan Cummings of DynaMac Corp., a contractor for EPA.

"Our goal is to talk with 20 to 25 people," said Thomas.

"People being interviewed will remain confidential," said Thomas. "But their remarks will be made public through the local public library."

Questions include those concerning the Missouri Electric Works, site contamination and others.

A contamination problem was discovered 12 years ago at the Missouri Electric Works site at 824 S. Kingshighway. Some areas at the site were found to have PCBs (polycholorinated biphenyls) in concentrations of 21,000 parts per million.

The site has been on the federal Superfund priority list for six years, and the EPA has estimated it could cost $17 million to clean up the site.

The cost for a full-scale cleanup will be borne largely by potential responsible parties: cities and businesses that took electrical transformers to Missouri Electric Works for disposal, repair and storage. The federal government will pay some of the cost.

Cleanup tests are currently being conducted at the site, said Thomas.

TerraTherm Environmental Services of Houston, Texas, will demonstrate its cleanup technology at the 6.4-acre site. The Texas firm is doing the work free in an effort to secure the full-scale cleanup contract. The cleanup test was approved by the EPA.

This marks the first activity at the site in years. The soil contamination was discovered in 1984.

The cleanup test will involve thermal blankets and wells that will heat the contaminated soil. The whole process is designed to vaporize contaminants.

The entire demonstration project should be completed soon, with test results expected by the end of May or early June.