SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Officials are planning a $7.3 million cleanup of a contaminated site in downtown Springfield.
The Springfield News-Leader reports (https://sgfnow.co/1Ko3aHO ) officials have known for years that the land around the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks building on Main Avenue is contaminated. The land, which is owned by City Utilities, is in the Jordan Valley Corridor, a former industrial area that was once home to several factories.
Mike Kromrey, executive director of the Watershed Committee of the Ozarks, says the pollution is likely at least 150 years old.
“We’ve known for a long time that this is a brownfields area,” said Kromrey. “Most of that pollution is legacy pollution from the turn of the century.”
City Utilities spokesman Joel Alexander said testing earlier this year detected petroleum hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, metals and volatile organic compounds.
He says no there are no imminent threats to the environment or health, but CU doesn’t want to prolong the cleanup efforts.
Work on the area is expected to take “about two months” according to a spokesman for City Utilities.
While the city has identified several properties to be cleaned up in the corridor, only the watershed committee property is scheduled for remediation later this year.
The city of Springfield has already done some cleanup in the corridor in the West Meadows area. More is planned to eventually daylight Jordan Creek, which is mostly in underground culverts.
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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, https://www.news-leader.com
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