KEM-PEST CLEANUP BEGINS

The Environmental Protection Agency has started a $2 million cleanup of the Kem-Pest Superfund site in Cape Girardeau.

Agency officials, along with representatives of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers, held an informal public meeting Tuesday in Cape Girardeau to answer questions about cleanup of the site and address health-related concerns.

Steve Kovac of the EPA's Superfund program said the two-phase cleanup will include excavation of soil around the Kem-Pest site, situated about three miles north of Cape Girardeau, between Highway 177 and the Mississippi River.

Kem-Pest Laboratories produced pesticides at the site from about 1964 to 1977, he said. The process generated chemical wastes that were disposed of in a lagoon that was back-filled with clay in 1981.

"The actual on-site cleanup effort that is taking place currently involves excavation and transport off-site of the contaminated soils," Kovac said.

He said soil will be excavated from the lagoon to a depth of 10 feet. Contaminated surface soil around the building also will be removed.

Hattie Thomas, community relations coordinator for the EPA, said the Corps of Engineers is acting as the "contractor" for the excavating work. "They will have trucks hauling soil away by the second week of April," she said.

Kovac said monitoring wells installed around the site showed that there was some on-site ground water contamination, but that the surrounding area was essentially free from contaminants.

"By removing the lagoon, we'll be removing what was considered to be the source of the contamination," he said. "We'll also excavate some drainage channels that we found to be contaminated on the site."

Kovac said tests of drainage channels off-site showed decreasing levels of contamination "as we moved away from the site."

He said the first phase of the cleanup excavation and disposal of the contaminated soil in a permitted hazardous waste facility should be completed by the "first part of May."

The second phase will involve an on-going plan to monitor ground water and to determine how best to remove contaminants from the building itself, Kovac said.

"That design should be completed by September," he said. "There's no remediation of the ground water, but we will continue to monitor the ground water."

Missouri has no approved hazardous wastes facilities to dispose of the excavated soil, Kovac said, so the material will be taken to a facility in Peoria, Ill.

"We looked at the cost of building a permitted landfill spot here, but found that to be a bit more expensive and involved some long-term controls," he said.

The $2 million cleanup effort will be funded mostly through the federal Superfund. The Missouri DNR is responsible for paying 10 percent in matching funds.

Also, $470,000 was paid toward the cleanup by the family of Charles E. Ruth R. and Elizabeth Knote identified as the potentially responsible party (PRP) that caused the pollution.

Charles Knote operated the laboratory at the site, which was shut down several years ago.

"The PRP was not financially capable of financing the entire project," Kovac said. "So a settlement was reached, and those funds will be going into the Superfund for the cleanup."

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

When the laboratory was operating, waste water from Kem-Pest apparently was discharged in the lagoon, and over time, pesticides and sludge built up and seeped into the ground water.

The federal government has said that before cleanup began, direct contact with contaminated soils at the site posed a threat to trespassers and future residential and industrial uses. A number of houses are within 1,000 feet of the site.

For more information on the cleanup effort, contact the EPA Office of Public Affairs at (913) 551-7003 or the toll-free environmental action line at 800-223-0425.