West Chicago asks Congress for $15 million to clean up former Kerr-McGee site
West Chicago officials are asking the federal government for a $15 million reimbursement that they say will allow a stalled environmental cleanup project at the former Kerr-McGee factory site to be completed.
An environmental response trust, tasked with oversight of cleanup projects at the former factory site and nearby locations, hasn't been able to complete the work because it hasn't received additional federal funding since the stimulus program of 2009, according to an April 1 letter from West Chicago Mayor Ruben Pineda to congressman Peter Roskam.
"We hope you will remind the administration how important it is for the United States to honor the environmental commitments it makes to bring environmental justice to local municipalities like West Chicago, and how disheartening it is to all of us at the local level who have worked so hard to successfully complete the project when it appears that the United States is choosing to ignore its part of the bargain," Pineda wrote.
Pineda's letter came just days before a historic settlement was reached Thursday between the federal government and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to settle claims related to the cleanup of thousands of sites across the country contaminated with hazardous materials.
In 2006, Anadarko acquired Tronox Inc., a spinoff of Kerr-McGee Corp.
The $5.15 billion settlement is the largest ever for environmental contamination, but it doesn't include West Chicago, which reached its own deal with Tronox in 2011. West Chicago officials aren't seeking any of those settlement dollars but instead want the $15 million reimbursement included in the Department of Energy's Title X program, which has provided previous reimbursements to West Chicago pursuant to the 2011 agreement.
Pineda wrote that additional funding to the Title X program through Congress' fiscal year 2015 energy and water appropriations bill would allow the cleanup work to continue and "help our community achieve our vision of a clean and safe environment."
In total, the city says, the government owes more than $54 million to sites across the country under the Title X program.
Stephanie Kittredge, a spokeswoman for Roskam, said in a statement that he "is working to ensure the Department of Energy meets its legal obligations to our local community."
The Kerr-McGee factory in West Chicago for years produced a radioactive sandlike substance called thorium, a by-product of the factory's gaslight mantle production process and early development of the atomic bomb.
The factory opened in 1931 under the ownership of the Lindsay Light and Chemical Co. Kerr-McGee bought the factory in 1967, only to close it in 1973.
Through the 1950s, the factory made available the thorium substance to local residents as fill for landscaping projects, before it was later determined to be potentially hazardous, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
A storm sewer from the factory site also carried thorium to nearby Kress Creek and the West Branch of the DuPage River.
In the early 1990s, Kerr-McGee sought to bury the thorium on site, but after legal wrangling and protests from local residents, the company agreed to remove it and ship it to a Clive, Utah, desert.
Cleanup of the waterways, individual residential properties, Reed-Keppler Park and a sewage treatment plant has been ongoing ever since. All is complete, except for one remaining residential property and a portion of the old factory site, according to West Chicago City Administrator Michael Guttman.
Cleanup of the residential property will be finished this year, but completion of work at the factory site depends upon receiving the additional federal funds, Guttman said.
City officials maintain there's no longer a threat posed by the trace amounts of thorium still around.