Cleanup in progress at ABB site

Final PCB cleanup work at old Westinghouse plant includes removing concrete slab, addressing soil, water

The cleanup at ground zero of Bloomington’s decades-long PCB affair is reaching its end.

The site of the old westside Westinghouse plant, where it all began, is now in the last phase of environmental cleanup. Soil sampling has started.

A removal action plan was negotiated this month among the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, CBS Corp. and the ABB Corp. It calls for breaking up and removing a large concrete slab and some surrounding soil, portions of which are contaminated, and investigating for possible groundwater contamination at the site.

“It’s been a long legacy, source of all the PCBs — glad we’re finishing it up,” said Tom Alcamo, remedial project manager for the EPA in Chicago.

Final cleanup should take about 18 months, and is estimated to cost $5 million — a tab to be picked up by the CBS and ABB corporations.

ABB became sole owner of the site in 1990.

CBS is the successor to Westinghouse Electric Corp., which used PCBs — or polychlorinated biphenyls — at the Bloomington capacitor factory and assumed Westinghouse’s responsibility when it took over the company. The chemicals, banned in the 1970s, are associated with health and environmental problems.

The old manufacturing plant was demolished last spring. Once this final round of cleanup is completed, the site will be slated to be redeveloped for commercial and industrial use, Alcamo said.

The plan for a future building there ushers in a new era for a site that became steeped in local history 50 years ago as the nucleus of the PCB debate, which still continues at other locations.

Westinghouse opened in 1958, churning out electrical capacitors and electrical equipment.

From 1977 through 1988, numerous samplings done near the facility showed elevated PCB levels in a ditch.

Cleanup continued at the site in the 1990s, and ABB began cleaning the inside of the building for redevelopment, according to an EPA action memo.

“Due to a lack of interest in purchasing the former capacitor plant, ABB decided to demolish the building and sell the property. ABB has demolished the facility and only the building concrete slab remains,” the memo states.

“Contaminated soils, contaminated concrete and possible contaminated groundwater are problem areas that require addressing.”

A long-term monitoring plan will also be developed to ensure that groundwater and surface water has not been affected by the former plant. That plan will be reevaluated after five years, Alcamo said.

“They’re doing a good job at ABB. I’m glad to see it happening,” said Mitch Rice, who has been involved with PCB cleanup since the early 1980s, when he helped start a study group dedicated to the issue.

Rice said he wishes that a final negotiation could be reached at the other PCB sites in Bloomington.

The ABB plant is not part of a federal court agreement like the other local sites that fall under the government’s Superfund law for cleaning up toxic dumps. City, county and state governments are also parties to the agreement, called a consent decree.

The EPA did settle on plans last year for completing the cleanup of two sites — Lemon Lane Landfill and Bennett’s Dump — where PCB-laced waste was dumped decades ago.

A “global settlement” is still being negotiated that deals with CBS’ responsibility for what the government has spent on the project and could include payments for damage to natural resources, including fish and wildlife.

The parties are also working to develop final plans for Neal’s Landfill, a PCB site on Ind. 48 west of Bloomington.