DuPage Co. thorium cleanup payments stalled
A $24.9 million payment intended to further cleanup efforts of radioactive materials in DuPage County has been halted by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Tronox, the bankrupt chemical company in charge of thorium remediation operations in West Chicago and along parts of the West Branch of the DuPage River, was to receive the payment from federal Recovery Act funds. However, the Justice Department interceded at the behest of local and congressional officials who wanted to make sure the money was spent where it was intended.
Without any stipulations, Tronox could have used the funds to pay off creditors instead of putting it toward the cleanup work that needs to be completed.
The $24.9 million payment is actually owed to Oklahoma-based Tronox - formerly Kerr-McGee - for reimbursements as part of the Superfund site agreement reached in the late 1980s that called for the soil throughout much of West Chicago to be dug up and replaced. The negotiated Superfund agreement calls for the federal government to pay 55 percent of the cost for the cleanup, which in 2002 totaled almost $700 million.
So far, Tronox has received $315 million from the federal government between 1994 and 2008, a U.S. Department of Energy official said. The Energy Department is administering reimbursements for Tronox, including Recovery Act funds. Energy officials said Tronox was eligible for a $17.6 million reimbursement in 2009 and a $7.3 million payback in 2010. All $24.9 million has been placed in escrow by the Justice Department, energy officials said.
Doug Platz, legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, whose district covers the Superfund site, said the Recovery Act funds simply "accelerated" payments owed to Tronox, but didn't mandate how they would be spent. Platz said Foster asked for the Justice Department to withhold the funds until guarantees were made that it would be spent on actual cleanup work in DuPage and not to pay off the company's debt.
"Since Tronox declared bankruptcy they've completely stopped cleanup," Platz said.
Attempts to reach officials from Tronox were unsuccessful.
An old gas light-manufacturing plant near downtown West Chicago is responsible for the problem. The radioactive thorium was a byproduct of the work that went on at the plant beginning in the 1930s.
That byproduct material was used as fill throughout the area because its harmful effects were unknown at the time.
The plant even produced uranium during World War II at the government's behest, remnants of which were found in nearby homes. Kerr-McGee bought the plant nearly 40 years ago and inherited the problem. The company shuttered the facility in 1973.
During the cleanup, the contaminated soil was put in barrels and shipped to a federal storage facility in the western United States, officials said.
However, attorney Barb Magel said two spots along the river still need to be cleaned up at a cost of about $44 million; some homes still need remediation; and the old plant that has been used during the nearly two decades of cleanup also will require a scrub down before Tronox is off the hook.
Magel represents the local taxing bodies that are fighting to get the cleanup work completed.
"We're hoping to be in a position to start up work again this construction season," she said.
It's unknown if the funds will be released to Tronox by then to help in any such cleanup effort.