ILLADA SITE SOON TO BE POLLUTANT FREE

GALE, Ill. -- Workers at the Ilada Energy Reclamation plant cleanup project worked Friday to cut down the site's final, large steel storage tank.

Meanwhile, nearby portable storage tanks ready to be trucked off held all of the remaining oil, sludge and water from the site.

The plant formerly contained waste oil and solvents contaminated with toxic materials, including polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs). But Illinois Environmental Protection Agency officials said in August that all contaminated oil and solvents had been removed.

Illinois EPA Community Response Analyst J. Stanley Black said Friday that he expected material from the site would be removed within the next week.

"For the reporters here this is the milestone," said Black during a morning press conference. "The crucial point is there's no more uncontrolled waste on the site as far as bulk waste."

Joined by media personnel and other EPA representatives, Black spoke in windy, bone-chilling weather from atop a levy next to the cleanup site. Down at the steel storage tank, a heavy equipment vehicle was readied to begin taking the tank apart.

Black said it was his understanding that the waste remaining on site came from the tank being demolished, referred to as tank No. 8. The tank was one of four large storage tanks that had originally been on the site, in addition to several smaller size tanks.

The material amounts to 55,000 gallons of non-PCB liquids and 25,000 gallons of water, according to a weekly process report for the project. Steel from the storage tank being demolished amounted to 282 tons, it said.

Dated Jan. 23, the report is the most recent information as to the material remaining on site, Black said.

Black said the storage tank would be cut up and taken to Granite City Steel, where it would be recycled into new steel. Waste oil from the site would be blended with other oil, he said.

"Since it's not hazardous there's no reason to not go ahead and use it," he said, referring to the oil. "You wouldn't want to destroy it or bury it."

Investigation of the site will continue to make sure no contamination remains behind, Black said. If contamination does remain, he said, alternatives to deal with the problem will be looked at.

"But as of this point the threat of any type of major release from the site has been removed. We don't have to worry about any of the tanks breaking open or catching fire," said Black.

The total amount of the cleanup cost was unavailable from Black. He said the cleanup cost is not relevant to the EPA because four of the potentially responsible parties are footing the cost, rather than the money coming from the EPA Superfund.

"We don't have any idea of the cost. We would certainly count pennies if we were paying for it or it was coming out of government money."

Potentially responsible parties (PRPs), are parties that may have contributed to the site

IP0,1problem. The four PRPs cleaning IP1,0up the site are Emerson Electric and Metal Container Corporation of St. Louis; Granite City Division of the National Steel Corporation, and Shell Oil Company of Houston, Tex.

Although those four PRPs are funding the cleanup, Black said, the four could choose to pursue funding from other PRPs tied to the project. A couple dozen PRPs exist, he said, but some of those overlap with each other.

Black said he believes there is a question of what will eventually be done with the land, such as whether it will be put to agricultural use or fenced off.

Steve Washburn, the EPA's manager for the project, said the land, if it turned out to be free of contamination, would be given to the parties that funded the cleanup. "What will happen to the land will be up to them," he said.

The Ilada plant closed in the early 1980s after state and federal EPA inspectors found large concentrations of toxic chemicals and metals in used oil shipped to the plant for recycling.

The plant is near Gale in northern Alexander County. Larry Wilson formerly owned the plant.