Months before work wraps up, north St. Louis Superfund site gets added to EPA ’emphasis list’
Date Posted: October 31, 2019
Posted In: News,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Another St. Louis Superfund site has cracked the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of the country’s most urgent cleanup priorities.
The Carter Carburetor Superfund site, a former manufacturing plant in the 2800 block of North Grand Boulevard, was added Wednesday to the Administrator’s Emphasis List, which identifies cleanup projects targeted for “intense, immediate action” from the agency.
A $30-million cleanup started six years ago at Carter, and is a “few months” away from completion, according to the EPA. After cleanup is complete, the EPA will work “to ensure this former Superfund site is ready for redevelopment and can become an asset to the community,” regional administrator Jim Gulliford said in a statement.
But the agency did not explain the timing or respond to any questions regarding the new designation.
The carburetor plant ceased operation in 1984, and the 10-acre property has been designated as a Superfund site since 1993. When remediation work was set to begin in 2013, EPA officials said that chemicals like carcinogenic PCBs extended all the way down to bedrock, more than 20 feet below ground level, at parts of the site.