All News Releases By Date

EPA Meeting on Kalamazoo River - Allied Paper Landfill cleanup Sept. 10, 6:30 p.m.

Release Date: 09/01/2009
Contact Information: Don de Blasio, 312-886-4360, [email protected]

For Immediate Release
No. 09-OPA162

(Chicago, Ill. - Sept. 1, 2009) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 hosts a meeting to update Kalamazoo area residents on possible cleanup alternatives for the Allied Paper Landfill, Thursday, Sept. 10, at the Radisson Hotel, Prairie Rooms 1-2, 101 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, Mich.

The landfill, which ceased operation in 1988, is part of the Kalamazoo River Superfund site. EPA has tasked Millennium Holdings, which owns and has responsibility for managing contamination at the landfill, with developing a feasibility study and cleanup plan. The landfill lies along Portage Creek in southeast Kalamazoo, between Cork and Alcott streets.

At this meeting, Millennium will introduce a preliminary range of cleanup alternatives that EPA will consider in developing a proposed cleanup plan for the landfill. The process in which this array of alternatives has been developed will be explained, with EPA and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality representatives on hand to answer questions. Following this meeting and consideration of public input, Millennium will submit to EPA a study that includes cleanup alternatives. EPA will evaluate the study this winter and possibly revise it further. EPA will present its proposed plan to the public, with an opportunity for formal comment, in late summer 2010.

The complete Kalamazoo River Superfund area stretches 80 miles from Saugatuck on Lake Michigan to the Morrow Dam. EPA and MDEQ’s cleanup efforts primarily focus on the removal and containment of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs are a group of toxic chemicals that were widely used in carbonless copy paper and as coolants, insulators and lubricants. PCBs are of concern because they concentrate in the food chain resulting in health hazards to people, fish and wildlife. Congress banned the manufacture of PCBs in 1976, and PCBs still in use are strictly regulated.

For more information or special accommodation at the Sept. 10 meeting, contact EPA Community Involvement Coordinator Don de Blasio at 800-621-8431, Ext. 64360, or [email protected]. Site information is also posted on the Internet at https://www.epa.gov/region5/sites/kalproject