EPA SAYS KEM-PEST SITE CLEAR OF CHEMICALS

After a multimillion-dollar cleanup, the once pesticide-laced Kem-Pest site near Cape Girardeau no longer poses an environmental threat and should be taken off the Superfund list, the federal government says.

The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking public comment for the next month in advance of making a final decision on removing the site from the Superfund list. The agency will collect comments through Sept. 5.

The EPA action comes after two decades of investigation and cleanup of the former pesticide laboratory site and more than a decade as a federal Superfund site. Superfund was created by Congress in 1980 to handle the worst hazardous waste sites.

The six-acre site off County Road 654 near the Mississippi River was home to Kem-Pest Laboratories from 1963 to 1977. The business, run by the Charles Knote family of Cape Girardeau, made pesticides.

Today, little remains to suggest it was the site of a major environmental cleanup that cost the federal government $3.1 million and the Knotes another $470,000 and drew the involvement of everyone from Cape Girardeau County commissioners to federal judges.

The site sits at the end of a rut-filled, gravel road next to corn fields. It is surrounded by a metal fence with a locked gate. Grass and weeds grow on the cleaned-up ground that extends east to a shrub-and-tree-filled fence row. Weeds have taken root in a gravel parking lot, which was a staging area for cleanup operations over the years.

Elizabeth Knote said her family, which reported the environmental problem in 1981, is ready to move on.

"I am 46 years old. I have spent almost half my life dealing with the EPA. It's time for this to be over," she said.

Court battle

The Knotes battled the EPA in court over cleanup plans in the 1990s. Both U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh and a federal appeals court sided with the family in the dispute over how to deal with the contaminated Kem-Pest building.

Limbaugh said in his ruling that the EPA had "an attitude of supremacy tantamount to contempt."

The EPA, which at one point talked of leaving most of the building's basement standing, ended up demolishing the entire structure.

The Kem-Pest company dissolved years ago. The Knote family still owns Cape Chemical Co. in Cape Girardeau and still owns the Kem-Pest site.

When the Kem-Pest lab was operating, chemical wastes were drained into a lagoon. Over time, pesticides and sludge built up and seeped into the ground water, the EPA said.

The company stopped producing and disposing of pesticides in 1977, and the Knotes backfilled the lagoon with clay in 1981 and notified the EPA.

In 1984, the environmental agency installed water monitoring wells and collected water and soil samples at the site. They were found to be polluted with pesticides. The EPA put the site on the Superfund list in 1987, citing concerns about the pesticide-laced soil.

Contaminated soil was dug up and hauled to an approved hazardous-waste site. The area was then backfilled with clean soil and seeded with grass. The lab building was demolished, the debris hauled to a landfill.

The work was completed in 1996.

Monitoring ends

The EPA monitored the ground water for several years, ending last year. The results showed no further contamination problems.

"We pulled all the monitoring wells last month," said Victor Lyke, EPA project manager with the federal agency's Kansas City, Kan., office. "We would not have pulled those wells if we thought any of the residents were in danger."

Larry and Judy Gordon are among a handful of residents who live near the site. The Gordons live in a mobile home on County Road 654, a few hundred feet from the fenced site. They've lived there for six years.

The Gordons said they trust the EPA and are confident the site has been cleaned up.

"It doesn't bother us," said Judy Gordon. She and her husband say the EPA has kept them informed during every step of the cleanup process and tested their well water several times.

"They checked it from the faucet and the well," she said. "They are real nice people."

The agency invites public comments. Additional EPA records and reports about the site are available for review at the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

Want to participate?

The Environmental Protection Agency is requesting comments from the public on its plan to remove the Kem-Pest site from its Superfund cleanup list. Comments should be sent to Hattie Thomas, EPA Office of External Programs, 901 N. Fifth St., Kansas City, Kan., 66101, or faxed to (913) 551-7066, or e-mailed to thomas.hattie@epa.gov.