Cleanup starts at burned SW Indiana plant site

FORT BRANCH, Ind. — A crew hired by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has started removing asbestos from a former meat packing plant in southwestern Indiana that burned for several days last year.

Officials expect it will take four to six weeks to complete the cleanup work at the former Emge plant near the Gibson County town of Fort Branch.

EPA project manager Kevin Turner tells the Evansville Courier & Press that the $400,000 cleanup will leave the site environmentally clean but that agency isn’t demolishing the building.

The asbestos was exposed when part of the plant was torn down in June 2010 so the fire could be put out after four days of smoldering inside the concrete walls.

The plant was closed in 1999 after 90 years of operation.