The landscape near old Route 66 north of Galena, Kan., probably will see a significant change by fall of 2013 — a 40-foot-tall hill in the wake of the cleanup of a closed smelting plant.
According to a plan by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment unveiled Aug. 3, the agency will clean up 68 acres of contaminated land at the site of the Eagle-Picher smelter, which operated from 1878 until it closed in 2004. The cleanup will be paid with $6.5 million from an Eagle-Picher bankruptcy settlement from 2005.
The smelter site lies north of Galena, just off an older alignment of Route 66 less than a half-mile northeast of the much-photographed Front Street Bridge.
The smelter site needs cleanup because toxic levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, chromium, and zinc have been found in soil and surface water there — a byproduct from more than a century of zinc, cadmium, and lead processing.
In short, the cleanup aims will:
- Gather contaminated soil and waste into a big pile and topping it with a liner, drainage layer, and two feet of topsoil. The pile will be 40 feet tall when finished, then seeded and fenced.
- Six inches of new gravel around the fenced smelter area.
- Excavating mercury-contaminated areas around nearby Short Creek.
- Build mercury-settling ponds that eventually will be covered with soil.
- Grading and planting vegetation on 26 acres.
- Monitoring of the site.
This partial map from the agency shows the smelter plant area, with the completed hill. Front Street (aka Route 66) is to the right:
According to a Joplin Globe report, the project should begin in June or July 2013, and be finished in two to three months. After it’s done, a state official said the area could be redeveloped for commercial use, but not residential.
Several people — including Renee Charles of 4 Women on the Route in Galena — expressed concern to the state months ago that the hill would detract from Galena’s improved downtown area. However, it appears the hill now is far enough away from the city to not be readily visible.
Westbound travelers coming from Missouri would encounter it, but the hill probably would be no more unsightly than the smelter plant.
The biggest concern, it appears, is keeping big trucks and heavy equipment off the historic Front Street Bridge while the cleanup is occurring. The bridge has been repaired in recent years, but it’s too old and fragile for that kind of punishment.
UPDATE 8/19/2012: Renee Charles at 4 Women on the Route provided this small update of the smelter remediation plan:
We recently had a meeting and they plan to move the site to the east side of the plant and that will make the west side available for economic growth, plus it is hidden from the view of the travelers.