SIX YEARS LATER, SUPERFUND SITE STILL AWAITS CLEANUP; MISSOURI ELECTRIC WORKS HEARING JAN. 9

The vacant, concrete building sits atop a desolate, hilly site. Outside, more than 30 metal drums are stacked along one wall of the building. Yellow stickers on many of the barrels warn of PCB contamination.

A red "no smoking" sign remains on the locked, glass front door of the former Missouri Electric Works building at 824 S. Kingshighway.

But the warning seems unnecessary now; the business closed after its president and owner Richard Giles died in March 1992.

Outwardly, the site is a silent place. But there is no peace. It remains a legal battleground as some business interests continue to fight the Environmental Protection Agency over cleanup plans.

The EPA has estimated it could cost $17 million to clean up the PCB-contaminated site.

EPA officials will hold a meeting at Cape Girardeau's Victorian Inn Jan. 9 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. to discuss the Superfund site.

It has been 12 years since the contamination problem was discovered and six years since the site was placed on the federal Superfund priority list.

EPA investigation of the site between 1984 and 1987 uncovered PCBs in concentrations of 21,000 parts per million in the soil. But legal action remains a stumbling block in getting the site cleaned up, said EPA lawyer David Hoefer of the agency's regional office in Kansas City.

A group of 11 businesses and their trade organization, Electrical Apparatus Service Association, are fighting the cleanup plan in federal court.

Eighty percent of the cleanup cost would be borne by so-called potential responsible parties, cities and businesses that took electrical transformers to the business for disposal, repair and storage. So far nearly 180 PRPs have signed off on the plan.

The federal government will pay the other 20 percent of the cost.

But the cost estimate is six years old. It doesn't include any cost for cleaning up ground water should it also be found to be contaminated, EPA officials said.

Current plans call for excavating and incinerating the contaminated soil at the 6.4-acre site.

But an alternative method is being considered by a committee representing the PRPs. That technology will be tested in an eight-week pilot project at the site beginning in mid-January.

EPA officials said a thermal blanket will be used to heat the surface soil. Soil below the surface will be heated by a thermal well.

The process is designed to vaporize organic contaminants such as polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs.

A Houston company, TeraTherm, will demonstrate the process at no charge with a view toward eventually securing the cleanup contract.

The process could prove cheaper than incineration. "It might be faster," said George von Stamwitz, a St. Louis lawyer who represents Missouri Electric Works Trust.

Stamwitz represents 42 companies, which as potential responsible parties have agreed to manage the soil cleanup and investigate the possibility of ground water contamination. The group includes large companies such as Union Electric as well as smaller firms.

The remaining PRPs, nearly 140 in all, essentially have bought out of the problem; they have paid some $4 million to $5 million into a trust to help fund the cleanup.

Parties who have signed a consent decree with the EPA can't be sued by other businesses regarding the Superfund site, Hoefer said.

He said the businesses fighting the EPA in court are worried that they may be saddled with future cleanup costs and won't have the option to sue the other PRPs to help pay the bill.

They currently aren't being asked to pay any of the cleanup costs. But the EPA could take them to court at a later date in an effort to get them to pay.

The group of businesses has blocked the consent decree by twice filing appeals in federal court.

U.S. District Judge George Gunn re-entered the decree last August, but the group has since appealed the case for the second time to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

It could be months before the federal appeals court rules on the case. A year ago the appeals court opened the doors for the current legal action by ruling that the group had the right to intervene.

"The delays have been frustrating," said von Stamwitz. He said the longer the cleanup is delayed, the more it could cost.