Beginning later in March, radioactively contaminated soil will be removed from residential properties in Hazelwood, near Coldwater Creek.
An exact date for remediation activities to begin has not been identified, according to Amanda Kruse, a spokesperson for the ºüÀêÊÓƵ District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which will conduct the cleanup.
About 5,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with thorium will be removed from six different properties on or near Palm Drive. Four properties are residential homes, one is an apartment complex and one is a creekside property owned by the Metropolitan ºüÀêÊÓƵ Sewer District.
Cleanup efforts at those properties are projected to wrap by late fall. Kruse said the contaminated soil in question was buried at least six to 12 inches below ground and did not pose a public health risk in its current configuration or level of toxicity.
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“It’s a low-level contamination, and it’s just slightly above what our remediation goals are,†Kruse said.
Though remediation activities associated with contamination along Coldwater Creek have been happening for years, this is the first work to be done on residential properties. Until now, the Corps has worked on commercial sites as well as parks in recent years.
“This is the first time it’s been in backyards,†Kruse said.
Kruse said that the contamination at the residential sites was thought to have been transported years ago from runoff and flooding along the creek, before cleanup work had been conducted at hazardous waste sites near ºüÀêÊÓƵ Lambert International Airport and Latty Avenue in Hazelwood.
Those sites were cleaned up in 2007 and 2013, and Kruse said the Corps had been “systematically sampling downstream†since then. The contamination in residential areas .
Kruse said there was no evidence of the radioactivity contaminating groundwater. During the cleanup process, air monitoring will be done at the sites and the soil will be watered for dust control.
Similar remediation work is also slated for two other residential properties on Foxmont Drive, just a few hundred yards to the southwest. That work is set to begin in either late 2017 or early 2018, depending on the completion of waste removal at the Palm Drive locations.
A report from the Corps indicates that additional sampling is being conducted at the Foxmont Drive properties to delineate the extent of contamination.