updated at 1:45 p.m.
ST. LOUIS • A ceremony Monday morning formally marked a new chapter in the life of the old carburetor factory in the 2800 block of North Grand Boulevard.
Two decades after the Carter Carburetor property was referred to the federal Superfund program, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the $30 million cleanup is set to begin.
Karl Brooks, EPA regional administrator for a four-state area including Missouri, said initial work — removal of debris from buildings — will begin within a month.Â
But the entire project should take three to five years, perhaps longer. The work won't be easy, and involves excavation of cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other pollutants.
Jeff Weatherford, EPA project manager for the site, said PCB contamination below part of the 10-acre site reaches bedrock, 20 to 25 feet below ground.
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U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay, ºüÀêÊÓƵ Mayor Francis Slay and other officials on hand Monday acknowledged that it took longer than anticipated to secure agreements to clean up the industrial eyesore.Â
"What happened here at Carter Carburetor is really just a symptom of a much larger problem that we see all over this country," Clay said.
"Far too often, older, urban neighborhoods like this one with mostly minority populations are turned into toxic dumping grounds. That kind of environmental racism is shameful, and it has been going on for decades."
But, after years of complex negotiations, legal agreements are in place and the future of one of the city's most-polluted industrial properties will finally be rewritten.
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Our earlier story, published midnight July 29:
Flint Fowler has long looked forward to the day when children didn’t have to pass an industrial eyesore each time they visited the Herbert Hoover site of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Now, after years of environmental testing and complex negotiations, that day may finally be near.
Separate agreements are in place between current and former owners of the former Carter Carburetor plant site and the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the entire 10-acre property near the intersection of North Grand Boulevard and Dodier Street. The federal Superfund site is among the most polluted industrial properties in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
For Fowler, president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater ºüÀêÊÓƵ, and the 3,000 children who use the Herbert Hoover location on Grand, the news may be even better — room to expand.
The organization, officials plan to announce today, will have the option to acquire a large part of the Carter Carburetor property where the main manufacturing building — a four-story, 480,000-square-foot structure — now stands.
Fowler said the price to exercise the option on the now-polluted property is “not substantial.â€
The Boys & Girls Clubs has not determined how the space would be used. Possibilities include a soccer field, baseball diamond or some other recreational space. Fowler said children and parents will be invited to propose ideas.
The club will only take on the additional property if it’s sufficiently cleaned up, he added.
“The trigger will be the EPA giving us a clean bill of health,†he said.
That part of the Carter Carburetor property may wind up in the hands of the Boys & Girls Clubs isn’t surprising. But exactly how it happened is still a mystery steeped in politics and the complexity of real estate and environmental law.
And while some of the parties involved in the drama may ultimately get what they want, the outcome is a bittersweet one for another key player.
The story starts in 1984 when the former carburetor factory, a plant that operated for more than half a century and once employed 3,000 people, shut its doors.
It wasn’t long after that when pollution was first detected, ultimately leading to referral to the federal government’s Superfund program in 1993.
Subsequent tests showed the site was deeply polluted with PCBs and trichloroethylene (TCE), a suspected carcinogen linked to a wide variety of other adverse health effects. The buildings left standing — some were razed in the 1990s — contain asbestos.
Carter Carburetor was owned by ACF Industries Inc., which changed its name to ACF Industries LLC in 2003. The St. Charles-based company, a manufacturer of railcars and railcar components that is controlled by billionaire Carl Icahn, is responsible for most of the $27 million cleanup, as stipulated in a 144-page agreement with the EPA.
The agreement includes the cleanup of the main manufacturing building even though the structure is owned by Tom and Kathleen Kerr, doing business as Carter Building Inc.
The Kerrs, who also own a smaller two-story building on the site, acquired the Carter Carburetor property through a foreclosure more than two decades ago when the previous owners didn’t pay the mortgage and taxes.
It’s a decision they look back on with a mix of emotions, including frustration, and some regret.
For years, they leased areas of the buildings to various businesses, including a metal fabrication shop, auto repair shop and plastics and storage companies. But they had bigger plans.
Even though the couple had no part in polluting the Carter Carburetor site, they were named one of two parties responsible for cleaning it up.
Tom Kerr said he had a buyer lined up for the main Carter building, a nonprofit that would create needed jobs in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ. But the EPA determined the structure was too polluted and must be razed, he said.
The Kerrs have long asserted that political pressure, not science, drove the decision.
“The EPA and the city wanted it to go to the Boys & Girls Club,†Tom Kerr said.
Kerr said he threw in the towel and quit paying property taxes on the building several years ago, a step that led the city to initiate tax auction proceedings this spring.
Finally, the Kerrs decided this year to donate the main manufacturing building to the city of ºüÀêÊÓƵ Development Corp.’s Land Reutilization Authority with the understanding it would later go to the Boys & Girls Clubs. The couple, which has turned its focus to developing Crystal City Underground in Jefferson County, will keep a smaller two-acre property on the Carter Carburetor site.
They plan to demolish the two-story structure now standing and redevelop the property, but say they may have to wait as long as eight years for completion of the ACF Industries cleanup.
Maggie Crane, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said the donation of the Carter Carburetor property was negotiated, and Kerr was not forced to give up the property.
The cleanup agreements and future plans for the Carter Carburetor property will be the focus of a news conference this morning in front of the Boys & Girls Clubs with U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay, Mayor Francis Slay and Mathy Stanislaus, head of the EPA’s Superfund program in Washington.
Fowler, and others from the Boys & Girls Clubs, also will be on hand.
For two decades, the cleanup of the Carter Carburetor site remained an elusive goal for the organization, which hosts 300 children a day at the Grand location.
Even after plans for the $27 million cleanup were approved than two years ago, neighbors watched the main Carter Carburetor building continue to decay. The site drew vagrants and thieves. Complaints finally prompted the EPA to put up a new fence.
All the while, hundreds of children came and went every week in the shadows of the old factory, the most polluted parts of which were razed in the 1990s.
The Boys & Girls Clubs was even required by its insurer to have around-the-clock security at a cost of $100,000 a year because of repeated thefts and vandalism at the plant site.
Fowler said removing the eyesore across the street will send a positive message to children and help redefine the neighborhood.
“When that’s what you look at, that’s what you walk by every day. It doesn’t do a lot to engender any thought of hope or aspiration,†he said.
The Kerrs, who were not planning to attend today’s news conference, feel the same way even if things didn’t unfold the way they had planned.
“Our motivation is really to help communities,†Tom Kerr said. “The reality is what is happening will be really good.â€