Infrastructure Act adds funds to clean-up Velsicol Burn Pit
The larger funding for US EPA under the Infrastructure Act that passed Congress in 2021 is providing sufficient funds to U.S. EPA to begin clean-up of the Velsicol Burn Pit site west of the former plant site across the Pine River. The company formerly disposed of wastes at the site, often burning them, hence the name.
The burn pit had a complex history of Superfund. Created a site in 1983 at the time Velsicol reached agreement (the Consent Judgment) with the EPA and state Dept. of Natural Resources to assume costs of cleaning its contamination in the community. Since Velsicol promised the site, often called the Gratiot Golf Course site, would immediately remediated and all contaminants moved to th old plant site and buried there, EPA made the odd decision to list the site on the National Priorities list and then immediately delete it.
After formation of the Pine River Task Force and return of EPA to remediation along the Pine River, the site was found to be contaminated and deserving of being on the Superfund as a site in need of clean-up. Since the Superfund tax had been abolished in 1995, there weren’t funds to give attention to many sites, such as the burn pit. Now with funding available from the Infrastructure Act, the site will be remediated. Below is the text from a story on Jan. 6 Gratiot County Herald .
Velsicol Burn Pit to Receive Millions from EPA for Cleanup
By William Meiners Herald Staff Writer.
Eight days before Christmas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a $1 billion Investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to initiate cleanup and clear the backlog of 49 previously unfunded Superfund sites and accelerate cleanup at dozens of other sites across the country. The Velsicol Burn Pit in St. Louis is one of four Michigan Superfund sites selected to receive funding. Until this historic investment, many of these were part of a backlog of hazardous waste sites awaiting funding. The other Michigan sites include the Charlevoix Municipal Well in Charlevoix, the Tar Lake Site in Mancelona Township, and Ten-Mile Drain in Saint Clair Shores. “For more than 100 years, the upper Midwest was the nation’s industrial center. But when factories and mills closed they left behind a legacy of toxic sites that are challenging to clean up,” said EPA Regional Administrator Debra Shore. “The bipartisan infrastructure law will fund stalled cleanups at seven Superfund sites in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana and accelerate our efforts to restore and revitalize communities here in the Midwest.” According to an EPA press release, the infrastructure funds will be used to implement EPA’s selected remedy for the main source areas of contamination within the former burn pit boundaries, including treating the source materials posing the highest threat, excavating ash piles, and hooking up several nearby residences to the municipal water supply as a precautionary measure. Once the source area cleanup is complete, EPA will evaluate the groundwater and create a plan to address the contamination.
. For lifelong Gratiot County residents like Jane Keon, the response has been a longtime coming. Keon is a founding member of the Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force, an EPA-sanctioned Community Advisory Group that is overseeing the cleanup of chemical contamination in St. Louis. She literally wrote the book, entitled Tombstone Town, about the first 16 years of the task force and its Herculean efforts to convince people at both local and national levels of the awful mess left by the chemical company. “We’ve made a lot of progress,” Keon said. “It’s still slow. None of us had any idea how severe the problems were in St. Louis. Even the EPA didn’t know. As they moved forward, they would find more problems.” With those problems finally acknowledged, the remedies remain forthcoming. “Many Michigan families and local communities have been waiting way too many years to have toxic Superfund sites” cleaned up in their own backyards. The recently passed infrastructure bill is going to finally make the cleanup of these sites a reality in Charlevoix, Mancelona, St. Louis, and St.Clair Shores,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow. “These are the kind of investments that will help strengthen our local economies and keep our families safe for generations to come.” Even local politicians were encouraged by the news. “EPA and EGLE have been working for many years to clean up the plant site and the adjacent area including over nine square blocks of residential property and the Pine River,” said Jim Kelly in one of his final days as St. Louis mayor. “The last big step is to clean up the burn pit, one of the worst early Superfund sites. We look forward to having this area cleaned; otherwise, it may continue to pollute our ground water.” What seems clear is the consistency in which Velsicol polluted both the Pine River and St. Louis. Back in the day, factory fumes literally peeled paint off nearby houses. And years later, as the waste had not been properly contained, Keon said, “We commissioned a bird study because a lot of people in the neighborhood were finding dead birds in their yards.” With a wildlife toxicologist from Michigan State University, they discovered 12 contaminated blocks after the published study in 2013. By 2015, The EPA was attempting to rectify it. Time and money are factors in all of it. Though the latest news is encouraging, Keon said you can usually double the estimates on time resolutions from the EPA