The United States Environmental Protection Agency held an open house Wednesday Evening, December 7th, in the Danville Area Community College Bremer Center.
The purpose was to offer information and take public input concerning the cleanup effort at the Hegeler Zinc Superfund site, in the midst of farmland in unincorporated Vermilion County, south of Danville near Tilton.
From 1906 to the mid-50s, this 149-acre area was a zinc smelting facility. Much leftover waste contaminated with heavy metals remains, with varieties of slag piled throughout the site. USEPA remedial program manager Colleen Moynihan says there were various uses.
AUDIO: If you look at the history they were producing zinc, which can be used as a building material. Then at one point the government owned a portion of the facility and they were producing items for the war. And at one point later on in the history there was a fireworks place that stored fireworks.
The plans of action the USEPA is proposing include a strategy involving excavating, covering, and monitoring the site on a continual basis. And then there’s the fourth item, rerouting a creek that’s in the area, and comes up against the fenced in site, as Moynihan explains.
AUDIO: If you look at the history of the site, there’s this 50 foot slag pile, which has high metals and concentration, and the creek is right next to that slag pile. So one of the alternatives is to excavate the soil and put it on top of the slag pile and cap it. We don’t watch that contamination to continue to leech into the ground water. And if we do that, we also want to make sure that the stream or the creek is about 100 feet away from that slag pile, just to give it a buffer.
After the public comment period ends December 31st, there’s a long way to go. During 2023 the USEPA will be evaluating the feedback it received, choosing a final plan, and then will begin the design phase, which can finally lead to the construction work.
Moynihan says they are looking at potential reuse of the site for commercial or industrial purposes.
For now, if you would like to provide input during this public comment period, just go to https://www.epa.gov/superfund/hegeler-zinc
