A major ditch project related to the former Kerr-McGee plant should be underway by the end of the month.
Lauri Gorton, director of environmental programs/senior strategist and project manager for Columbus with the Greenfield Environmental Multistate Trust, said the project will address a ditch on Seventh Avenue North that flows from the site of the old Kerr-McGee site on 14th Avenue North.
J5 Broaddus Senior Project Manager Robyn Eastman said the project will address 935 feet of ditch from a box culvert near Maranatha Faith Center to a separate culvert were Seventh Avenue North connects to Propst Park. He said the project calls for installing a box culvert along the ditch.
“That big, ugly open ditch will completely go away,” Eastman said. “That box culvert will fill it in, and we’ll cover it with grass.”
Columbus Mayor Robert Smith told members of the Columbus Rotary Club last week the project should cost about $2.3 million. Gorton was hesitant to confirm that number because she said project costs could change depending on how much contamination is discovered as site remediation progresses.
Kerr-McGee Chemical Corporation and its successor, Tronox Inc., operated a chemical manufacturing facility at the site near the intersection of Martin Luther King Drive and 14th Avenue from 1928 to 2003.
The facility produced railroad cross ties. Since its close, the site has been discovered as the source of environmental contamination — primarily from creosote — and sealed off.
Creosote is a chemical used to preserve wood. According to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, it can cause skin and eye irritation, stomach pains, liver or kidney problems and possibly cancer.
The Trust manages more than 400 former Kerr-McGee sites in 24 states. It’s responsible for using $5.5 billion from the settlement of a federal lawsuit against the company to address high-priority environmental issues at the former sites. Columbus received $68 million for environmental action around its former Kerr-McGee location.
Gorton said the trust has looked at a series of storm drainage basins flowing from the Kerr-McGee site and found areas with residual creosote. The Seventh Avenue ditch is one such site.
“We did find creosote in some spots,” Gorton said. “We have been working with the city and Columbus Light and Water because the ditches are part of the city’s storm drainage conveyance system.”
Because the Seventh Avenue ditch is in poor condition, Gorton said the Trust likely could not not just go in and remove the creosote, which has been found primarily in the center of the ditch. So, she said Greenfield asked the city to design a culvert, which will be installed as the final part of the process to bring the ditch to properly-functioning condition.
Gorton said the Trust hopes to start the project in the coming weeks and complete it before the worst of the winter rainy season arrives. The project is awaiting final approval from the Environmental Protection Agency and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
“We’re going to be very careful to do small pieces at a time,” Gorton said. “It would be very hard to keep the workplace clean and safe with heavy rain. Our intention is to complete it this year, by November. If it starts raining a lot in October, it’s possible we could interrupt work and start again in the spring.”
Columbus Ward 4 Councilman Marty Turner, whose ward includes both the plant site and the ditch, said he’s happy to see more work being done to fix the site’s environmental problems.
“Now I feel like it’s time to get it cleaned up,” Turner said. “Some of the sicknesses should stop. We’ve had a lot of people that got cancer and lung disease and multiple things in the Memphis Town and surrounding areas. It’s been so long that a lot of people lost hope, but we’ve got the right people in place to push this on through.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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