Radioactive material removal resumes along DuPage River
Removal of radioactive thorium along the West Branch of the DuPage River has resumed after a year's hiatus.
Tronox Inc., the chemical manufacturing company responsible for the cleanup efforts, filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2009. After months of legal and political wrangling, a bankruptcy judge approved a plan to create a trust fund that will hold money needed to pay for the cleanup efforts in the portion of the river that runs through Warrenville. That move paved the way for cleanup work to resume.
The trust fund contains $25 million, which is expected to be enough to cover the cost of thorium removal from a nearly milelong stretch that runs from Butterfield Road to the Warrenville Grove dam, said Tony Charlton, DuPage County's stormwater management chief. Workers are already on site and are expected to be done with the second-to-last phase of the river cleanup by the end of this year.
Warrenville officials remain hopeful another $30 million can be placed in a similar trust next year to pay for the final stage of cleanup from Warrenville Grove to the McDowell Grove Forest Preserve dam to the south. Once that project is complete, forest preserve officials plan to remove the dam at Warrenville Grove to improve the river's flow and attract more fish and other wildlife.
Warrenville Mayor Dave Brummel said the city has restoration plans of its own once the river is clean, including adding a foot path along the waterway.
"This is a beautiful natural resource that has not been accessible to us in the past," Brummel said.
The radioactive material came from an old gas light-manufacturing plant in West Chicago. The thorium is a byproduct of work that went on there starting in the 1930s. The dangers were unknown at the time and the material was used as soil filler throughout the city until the plant was shuttered in 1973.
Additionally, the plant produced uranium at the federal government's behest during World War II as part of the storied Manhattan Project that created the world's first nuclear weapons. Some of that uranium runoff was discovered in nearby homes.
Most of West Chicago, the West Branch and Kress Creek have been decontaminated and the old factory site is now being used as a way station for excavated thorium that is barreled up and shipped to a federal depository in the western United States. West Chicago officials said they already had Tronox set aside money to ensure there will be funding available to remediate the factory site when all the cleanup efforts in the area are completed.
The affected areas were designated a federal Superfund site in the late 1980s and the federal government reimburses Tronox a little more than half the cost of the cleanup. From 1994 to 2008, the company received $315 million back from the federal government, federal energy department officials said in the past. Tronox should receive about $12.75 million back for the work on the river it's doing now.
But those federal paybacks are a year behind and with Tronox in bankruptcy court, Warrenville officials worry the final stage of the cleanup will have to be put off another year.
"Depending on how everything gets set up, that last year could take longer," said John Coakley, Warrenville's city administrator. "Right now, we're just a year behind schedule."