SETTLEMENTS REACHED ON KEM-PEST SITE

Cape Chemical Co. has paid $470,000 in settlements for pollution of the Kem-Pest Superfund site.

The office of Missouri Attorney General William L. Webster announced Monday that the company's owners paid $30,000 under court order for pollution cleanup and environmental damage. In response, an attorney for the company issued a statement late Monday afternoon saying the company also has paid $440,000 to the Environmental Protection Agency to settle the company's federal legal liabilities.

The settlements involve the family of Charles E., Ruth R. and Elizabeth A. Knote.

Federal attorneys, acting at the request of the EPA administrator, filed suit to recover money the government spent to investigate the site near Cape Girardeau and enforce its cleanup, along with other actions. That cost, it said, came to about $615,000.

Kem-Pest Laboratories formulated pesticides at the six-acre site, east of Highway 177 on J.D. Street Road, from about 1964 to 1977, the federal lawsuit said. The suit said the process generated chemical wastes that were disposed of in a lagoon that was back-filled with clay in 1981.

The federal suit said the site is about 1,000 feet north of the Mississippi River. It said surface runoff water from the site and an on-site lagoon, which are in a 500-year flood plain, flows through a drainage channel leading into a culvert, from which the water reaches the river.

Attorney John S. Hahn of Washington, D.C., who issued the company statement, said Kem-Pest was dissolved many years ago. But he said the Knotes still own Cape Chemical Co. and Cape-Kil Pest Control Co., its trade name business. The companies are at 33 N. Frederick.

Webster's office said Webster mailed the $30,000 in a check Monday to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for deposit in the Missouri Hazardous Waste Remedial Fund. The fund is used to pay for cleaning contaminated sites.

Cape Girardeau County Circuit Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. signed a consent decree in the case on Nov. 4, the office said. It settled a lawsuit and a counterclaim between the state of Missouri and the Knotes that were filed in 1988, it said.

The statement from Cape Chemical Co. said the company will have no further responsibility for the site's cleanup.

"The settlements, which were made without admission of liability, will permit Cape Chemical to avoid involvement in any further legal proceedings concerning the Kem-Pest site," read the statement. Arrangements for the site's cleanup will be made by the EPA and the DNR, it said.

Aside from the statement issued by Hahn, Charles Knote declined to comment Monday. "Basically he has covered the territory very totally and I feel that's adequate," Knote said, referring to Hahn.

Elizabeth A. Knote could not be reached Monday. Hahn responded to a message left for her at work Monday.

Hahn said he wished to have the company's statement stand on its own. "Obviously they're very happy to have this behind them," he said.

Webster said over time the chemicals built up, seeping into the ground water.

"With the Kem-Pest site so close to the Mississippi River and north of the city of Cape Girardeau's water supply intake, Missouri and the federal government had special concerns that this area be contained and cleaned up," Webster said. "If chemically contaminated water were to enter the river, the quality of water supplied to downstream southern states could be adversely affected."

Hahn said U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. signed a decree settling the federal case about Sept. 24.