Document yrOOxXoG3NBB04wXqgLM4EB4V

ST.LOUIS POST-DISPATCH TUESDAY. APRIL 12, 1927 SECTION 1.MI Cleanup Is Begun At PCB-Polluted Waste Facility By MARTHA SHIRK Of the Post-Dispatch Staff The job of scooping up and carting away 58,500 gallons of chemically con* laminated soil from a makeshift waste disposal site in Jefferson County began today tinder the supervision of federal environmental agents. ' The chemical Is polychlorinated bl* phenyls, or PCB, It can cause skin and liver ailments. Yesterday, a 3000-foot segment of a tributary of the Meramec River was diverted through a pipeline so (hat it would bypass the contaminated area. Chemicals from the 2500-square foot contaminated area have been leaking Into the creek, a nameless tributary of Calvey Creek, for about six weeks, officials say. Harry U. Gilmer, a chemical engineer for the Kansas City office of the United Stales Environmental Protection Agen cy, (a co-ordinating the cleanup opera tion. "We made considerable headway, but It's probably going to take us two weeks to clean up the whole area," he said. The waste was dumped In the area last February by a driver for the Bliss Salvage Oil Co. of Eillsvillo, officials say. The stale has asked Jefferson County Circuit Judge Charles Sheehan to order the company to identify a site from which wastes were removed from sever al weeks ago and to ban the company from transporting them. In addition, the stale is asking that the company be fined $15,000 for each day the wastes were kept at the pit or allowed to seep Into the stream. A hearing on the slate's request was scheduled lor today at the courthouse In Hillsboro. Laboratory analysis of soil samples taken (rom the waste pit indicate PCB levels ranging from 1.4 per cent to 1.8 per cent -- or from 14,000 to 18,000 parts of chemical for each 1,000,000 parts of soil. Gilmer described those levels as `.`dangerously high." PCBs arc used in electrical transform ers and cgpacltators, in lubricants^ in waterproofing chemicals and In "carbon less" duplicating paper. The only domes tic producer of the chemicals, the Mon santo Co. of St. Louis, plans to halt production by next November because of the risk they pose. Federal officials are treating the dis posal site as a major threat to th environment. The Coast Guard's Gulf Strike Team Force has sent several investigators to the scene from Its headquarters in Bay St. Louis, Miss. The Gulf Strike Team Force Is a 20-member group trained to fight oil spills. ` In addition, the EPA'S Emergency Environmental Research Unit arrived in Jefferson County from Edison, N.J., yesterday with a special environmental emergency response unit to filter the polluted water in the creek. The cleanup operation Is being fl- nancec by funds from the EPA'S emer gency lund, administered by the Coast Guard. Gilmer said the Federal Govern ment wo ild probably try to recover the costs of the cleanup from the polluter. GHnr said most of the residents of the area had been warned lo stay away from the creek and the disposal site. But he said It waa impossible to determine how many of them had been exposed to PCBs when a fire was set In the pit last March tl. The fire caused the PCBs to vaporize and spread over the area. "Wherever they fall, there is the poten tial that they will work their way Into the food chain," he said. The wastes were orginally In a 250- jquare-foot pit on the..property of. A) Harris, near the town of Dlttmer, about 55 miles southwest of St. Louis. After state officials began investigat ing complaints from neighbors, some of the wastes were carted away by Blits; others were plowed under. "The compa ny's cleanup operation was actually a cover-up operation," Gilmer said. "In stead of a 250-square-foot area, we've got a 2500-square-foot area to clean up. The cleanup crew has ordered 000 65- gallon drums, which will be usod to hotd the wastes while they are transported to a sanjtary landfill site in Illinois. j HONS OOQ2t?