Justice Department sues over Cape Girardeau site cleanup costs

The U.S. Justice Department has filed suit against four companies to recover the cost to clean up contamination at the former Missouri Electric Works Superfund site in Cape Girardeau.

The government seeks to recover more than $5.4 million already spent to clean up contamination at the site at 824 S. Kingshighway and to make the companies liable for any future cleanup costs.

Companies named in the suit are St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc., formerly known as Arch Minerals Corp.; Momentive Specialty Chemicals Inc., formerly known as Borden Chemical Inc. based in Columbus, Ohio; K&M Investors of St. Louis; and SWEPI LP of Houston.

The case, in U.S. District Court, has been assigned to Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr.

According to federal court records, Arch sent transformers containing oil that included polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, to Missouri Electric Works for repair during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Arch agreed to a $20,000 settlement with the EPA in mid-1990s related to the transformer cleanup efforts, said Arch spokesman Deck Slone.

The U.S. government "never finalized the settlement at that time. They recently contacted us proposing a new settlement on the same terms," Slone said.

Missouri Electric Works bought, sold, rebuilt and repaired electrical transformers. All four companies named in the suit sent transformers with PCB oil to the company's Cape Girardeau facility.

In 1984, Missouri Department of Natural Resources inspectors first visited the site and found 55-gallon drums containing oil laced with PCBs drained from the transformers. Many of them were leaking. The Environmental Protection Agency later determined more than 70 percent of the six-acre site's surface soil was contaminated with PCBs. More than 30,000 tons of PCB-contaminated soil were treated in 2000, according a March 12 report posted on the EPA's website.

In 2001, it was discovered that ground water at the site was also contaminated with PCBs, chlorobenzenes and TCE.

EPA is negotiating groundwater contamination clean up efforts with the responsible parties, said Chris Whitley, EPA Region 7 spokesman.

"We are working toward a legal order that will define responsibility and what steps still need to be taken," Whitley said. The EPA is working closely with the Justice Department in this case.

Nearby wetlands are also believed to be contaminated, but this is yet to be fully investigated by the EPA, said Whitley.

In 2009, the property was purchased by Fronabarger Concreters of Oak Ridge. Gene Fronabarger did not respond to a request for comment.

Look for more on this story later at www.semissourian.com and in Thursday's Southeast Missourian.

mmiller@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

824 S. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, MO