EPA Stops Burning Toxic Chemicals at Cleanup Site
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MAYWOOD — In response to complaints from neighbors, the Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it has stopped using an incinerator to clean up a former chemical mixing plant that has become a Superfund site.
The incinerator had been used since April 1998 to burn hazardous solvents in the soil of the former Pemaco plant site. Last month residents and environmental activists charged that the incinerator was emitting cancer-causing chemicals.
EPA officials have said that the incinerator produced about 5 1/2 pounds of pollution a day, including trace amounts of dioxin and other substances that can be found in car exhaust. The toxic levels did not pose a threat, officials said.
In the past 11 months, the incinerator has burned more than 144,000 pounds of chemicals, completing about 70% of the site cleanup, EPA officials said. The remaining toxins in the soil will be removed through other cleanup systems that have yet to be installed.
Once the cleanup is completed, local officials plan to turn the four-acre property into a park.
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