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Study to show extent of contamination |
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Saturday, January 26 2008 |
By CHRIS MEYERS
Staff writer
An environmental study will soon be done at the site of a former electrical substation in Columbia City.
Crews started to decommission the substation in the late 1990s, but work was slowed when they found contamination in the soil in the parcel of land located north of the Blue River on the west side of Main Street.
“The project sat there for a total of nine years,” said Glen Howard of SES Environmental, which offers environmental consulting and management regarding safety issues.
Howard was at the Friday morning meeting of the Columbia City Board of Works to offer SES’ services to the city in regard to the cleanup.
SES was the company originally contracted to clean up the site in 1998 when the contamination was first discovered.
Oil in the soil and on the surrounding pavement as well as deposits of polychlorinated biphenyls, which have been known to cause cancer and non-cancer effects on the endocrine, reproductive and immune systems.
Howard said the good news on the contamination was that the PCBs and other contaminants found in the area are not the kind that usually spread down and out in the soil and therefore might hopefully be contained to a small area.
“We need to identify the depth and breadth of the contamination,” Howard said, adding that if any groundwater is contaminated it will greatly raise the costs of cleanup.
The board of works was presented with the options of doing further study before excavating the soil or starting outright with excavation.
Howard said it is a “gamble” to start excavating without doing a study because the contamination may not have spread and could be quickly removed, but may have spread much farther than expected, which would add to the costs of excavation.
The board voted 2-0, with Mayor Jim Fleck absent, to proceed with a study before any excavation is done.
Jeff Walker, outside operations manager, said the area in question is where leaky transformers were stored once they were removed from the poles around town.
Columbia City has hired SES in the past to do perform other services and Walker said it has been a good company with which to work.
Howard said SES will notify IDEM about the ground quality once the samples are examined. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, January 28 2008 )
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