A light at the end of the tunnel?

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DEPUE – DePue residents should check their mail around July 24 for a letter from Illinois Environmental Protection Agency which highlights findings in a three-year study of sediment contamination in Lake DePue.

The letter summarizes the impact the former New Jersey Zinc Superfund site has had on the lake, IEPA officials said this week. The Superfund, an abandoned, former zinc smelting facility in DePue, is owned by Exxon/Mobil Corp. and CBS Operations Inc.    

“There’s no doubt the lake’s got contamination in it from the (Superfund) site,” IEPA spokesman Kurt Neibergall told the BCR.

Neibergall’s comment came after he and IEPA project manager Rich Lange briefed DePue Village Board on a timeline for the Lake DePue study’s release — and about IEPA’s plans to find a remedy for contamination in and around DePue.   

Along with the letter, Neibergall told DePue trustees the IEPA plans to make public a slew of maps and data on Lake DePue and surrounding areas. He said the maps show the footprint of contamination left by heavy metals and other by-products from operations at the former zinc smelting plant.

Lange, who has managed the Superfund site since 1993, said he tells residents the site is like a snake whose head IEPA officials are trying to grab. The Lake DePue report is a “milestone step” in that battle, he said.

“This ... is a report of the length of that snake,” Lange said. “The next step will be, ‘What are we going to do with that snake?’”

DePue’s Superfund is a big snake – spanning about 1,000 acres, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. It bisects the village of DePue and is adjacent to floodplains which feed into Lake DePue and the Illinois River, officials say.  

According to Lange, the Lake DePue area is tied ecologically to nearly every wild game species in the Midwest.

He said calculating risks the Superfund site could pose to wildlife at Lake DePue has been one of the most complex studies the IEPA has ever undertaken.

It gets more complex, though. Lange said to find the best remedy for contamination in and around Lake DePue, the IEPA has to comply with federal public health and environmental law, as well as regulations set by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He said that will be a long, meandering process.

“You don’t get it done in one afternoon with one phone call,” Lange said.

But by Fall 2011, IEPA officials could have a formal opinion on what should be done about contamination in and around Lake DePue, Lange told DePue trustees Monday. Ultimately, Lange said the EPA could register a final decision on cleanup of the lake by Spring or Summer 2012.

Village President Eric Bryant told Lange he’s worried state and federal officials will decide the best remedy is to do nothing about contamination in Lake DePue.

Lange told Bryant he’s “90 percent certain” government officials would not suggest a no-action remedy for contamination in the lake.

“I can’t say it’s impossible, but I can say with a strong certainty it’s unlikely,” Lange said.

Bryant told the BCR he considers a 10 percent chance the lake could be left contaminated a risk for the village. He added that until the EPA reaches a final decision on the future of Lake DePue, village officials will remain “very uptight.”

“We’re going to know whether it’s a light at the end of the tunnel, or a freight train coming right at us,” Bryant said.

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