BENTON -- Martin Priggel watched as two excavators with grapple attachments fed tires into a shredder at a tire dump east of Benton.

"Finally, we are seeing something accomplished," said Priggel, presiding commissioner of Scott County.

For six years some 500,000 tires have been stockpiled in the sandy field near Interstate 55. The tires long have been an eyesore and a breeding ground for rats, mosquitoes and complaints, said Priggel.

"We had to get everyone working together before we could get anything done," he said.

Scott County government, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, local legislators including Sen. Peter Kinder and Wood and Huston Bank, which holds a lien on the property, worked together to get the cleanup process under way.

Gary Gaines, director of DNR's Southeast Missouri regional office, said in addition to being a nuisance the tire dump posed an environmental threat, especially if the tires were to catch fire.

"The black smoke from burning tires is toxic and contains carcinogens," Gaines explained.

Burned tires also leave behind a toxic, oily residue. "At this site it was particularly dangerous because the soil is sandy, and there was a real danger of contamination of the groundwater," Gaines said.

In 1993, John Stephenson began stockpiling tires on the property. He planned to shred the tires himself and develop a market for the shredded parts. Some of the tires on the site have been shredded but were never sold.

Stephenson didn't have a permit or approval from DNR to stockpile the tires, and by 1996 the pile had grown to its present size.

DNR pursued litigation against Stephenson. He stopped putting tires at the site but never cleaned it up. He since has left the state.

In April, the Scott County Circuit Court granted DNR access to the site to conduct the cleanup. The cleanup is funded with money generated by a 50-cent tax Missourians pay on each new tire purchased.

"This is a reuse and reclamation project," Gaines said. "These tires aren't being transported to a landfill somewhere." Instead, the shredded tires will be burned to produce electricity.

Tri-Rinse Inc. of St. Louis won a bid on the cleanup, which is expected to take about six weeks and cost about $400,000.

Work on the reclamation project began Tuesday. A shredding machine can slice 15,000 car tires a day. The tires are cut into 2-by-6-inch strips.

A large pile of tire chips was growing on the site Tuesday morning when county and state officials visited. Timothy P. Shocklee, owner of Tri-Rinse, explained that trucks will haul the shredded tires to a processing plant to be shredded once more before being shipped to an Illinois power plant.

Gaines said the Benton dump is the last large tire pile in the 24 counties of Southeast Missouri. "We have a few sites with a few thousand tires, but this is the last really huge site," he said.

TIRE SITE CLEANUP

Importance of cleanup: Potential for ground water contamination if fire occurs

Number of tires: 500,000

Cost of cleanup: $400,000

Timeframe: 3 to 4 months to completion

Destination for tires: Shredded on site and used as fuel at Illinois power plant