The Village of DePue: A Toxic Legacy - Part 1

I quit subscribing to the daily newspaper because I was out of town so much that they just piled up on the driveway and annoyed my wife.  "Just go on the internet for the news," the wife said as I complained about losing my paper.  So I am trying to get the hang of Google News.

Well it seems that at some point I was curious as to how old Rick Santorum was and that search stuck as a news feed.  Took me till today to figure that I was the one who initiated it and not my good friends at Google.  I learned today that you can change it.  So I did, substituting "Rick Santorum" for "Hazardous Waste."

"Hazardous Waste" brought me the following news feed:

Pace of hazardous waste cleanup frustrates DePue residents

I read it...and...??

..most visitors heading to Lake DePue must pass another village landmark before reaching the shore — a pile of contaminated slag weighing at least 570,000 tons that looms over the main road into town, left behind by a zinc smelter that employed many locals for decades.

Okay, contaminated slag...

The mound of black slag is the most visible symbol of the toxic legacy that haunts this town about 20 miles west of Starved Rock State Park, where other facilities that made sulfuric acid, paint pigment and fertilizer also left behind a host of contaminants when they closed.

Hmm...toxic legacy...

The village's leaders and residents say they've felt abandoned for years, locked in a three-way struggle with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the two companies responsible for the industrial sites as they seek to have the contamination cleaned up. 

So the waste has not been cleaned up?

...many say the involvement of Northwestern University's Environmental Advocacy Center — which is providing DePue with free legal representation — has given them some much-needed clout and could help the town finally realize its goal of eliminating or containing the contamination.

So the waste has not been contained?

"It's not like we're just a bunch of hicks out here crying about our town being contaminated," Bryant said. "All the complaining we've done, we've learned that there's good reason for us to be worried about the type of cleanup we get here."

And that "good reason" to be worried is?

I have no idea.  Reading this article from the Chicago Tribune leaves me with the impression that the town is being impacted by a "host of contaminants" and no one is "eliminating or containing the contamination."

Wow...that sounds terrible, especially in 2012, that the State's EPA has done nothing to protect these townsfolk.

I wonder what the Illinois EPA has done?

Google search...and...I find this:

...and upon reading it, I find that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has not "abandoned" the village of DePue.  Now one can argue that more needs to be done.  That's what cleanup is all about.  But one cannot make the argument that the Illinois EPA has ignored the problem or has done little to meet the town's goal of "eliminating or containing the contamination."

Here is what the Illinois EPA discusses under the heading "Remediation Activities:"

The major sources of contamination from the New Jersey Zinc site have been intercepted and prevented from entering DePue Lake. The following remedial activities have been completed:

• In the 1980s, constructed a permeable reactive barrier south of the Zinc Slag Pile, known as the Iron-Rich Material trenches, to remove zinc and copper from the groundwater

• Construction and operation of an Interim Water Treatment Plant to collect and treat contaminated runoff that previously flowed uncontrolled to the South Ditch

• Construction of Surface Water Redirection and Protection System to segregate water in a 40-acre off-site drainage basin from contact with waste on the Plant Site

• Reestablishment of vegetation on most of the plant site to mitigate dust generation and migration

• Capping the Phosphogypsum Stack

• Excavation of grossly contaminated unnatural sediments in the South Ditch. Contaminated sediments were placed in an on-site corrective action management unit (CAMU) on the plant site.

Here is what has been done to date.

From the beginning of the Illinois EPA's involvement to the year 2000:

From 2000 to 2005

...and from 2005 to 2012

So what necessitated an article in the Chicago Tribune about the pace of hazardous waste cleanup?  Why does the paper claim that this pace "frustrates DePue residents?"  Why does Northwestern University's Environmental Advocacy Center think they can "help the town finally realize its goal of eliminating or containing the contamination."  And, for me, why is there "good reason for [DePue] to be worried about the type of cleanup [they are getting]?"


Next post: The Village of DePue: Data and Context - Part 2

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