FORT SMITH : Water cleanup begins at plant
Posted on Saturday, May 24, 2008
FORT SMITH — A government contractor on Friday began removing chemically tainted water from an abandoned electroplating plant that caught fire the day before.
The cleanup will take at least a week.
U. S. Environmental Services LLC of North Little Rock is removing the water from around the plant and from a large drainage ditch that contains some of the 100, 000 gallons of contaminated water, said Althea Foster, the on-scene coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA was called to the site Thursday after Fort Smith firefighters extinguished a fire at the former Arkansas Plating plant at 3021 N. Albert Pike Ave. Officials believe the plant contained cyanide and various acids stored in vats that overflowed when firefighters extinguished the fire.
The water leaked into the street and drainage ditch, where city employees have created dikes as far as 1. 3 miles away to contain the water, Foster said.
Tonya Roberts, deputy coordinator of the Sebastian County Office of Emergency Management, said officials would monitor the ditch to keep people from being exposed, although she said exposure would result only in minor skin irritation.
The plant is in a residential and commercial district. Nobody has reported being affected by the contaminated water.
Foster could not give an estimate Friday on how much it will cost to clean up the site.
Water dammed along North Albert Pike Avenue was being removed Friday, allowing the stretch of the street blocked off to traffic to shrink from two blocks to one. Removal of water from the ditch has been delayed while samples sent to a laboratory are analyzed, Foster said. Officials then can turn their attention to the chemicals inside the plant, Foster said.
Assistant Fire Chief Mike Richards said fire officials entered the plant briefly Friday morning to inspect what was left of the structure. He said he observed about 10 55-gallon plastic drums that were sealed but not leaking. He didn’t know what the barrels contained.
Officials have been hampered in identifying the chemicals in the plant because the owner, Thomas Mikus, 56, has been in state prison since May 2007. He is scheduled to be released in October 2009, according to the Arkansas Department of Correction.
Mikus was sentenced in Sebastian County Circuit Court to 10 years after pleading guilty to delivery of methamphetamine, possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana. He previously served a term in state prison in 2005 on methamphetamine convictions, prison records show.
Mikus has a history of violating state hazardous materials regulations, according to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
In an emergency order signed by then-director Randall Mathis, Arkansas Plating was ordered closed in September 2000 because Mikus failed to follow department orders to set up and to follow a plan to identify, sample, handle and dispose of wastes, which included cyanide, at the plant.
Records state that Arkansas Plating mainly was in the business of repairing and refinishing car bumpers.
In 1992, Arkansas Plating and Mikus were charged in state court with violating the Arkansas Hazardous Waste Management Act. The charges were reduced in a plea agreement, and the $ 75, 000 fine against company was suspended on condition Mikus adhere to regulations. The company never met any of the requirements.
Mathis’ 2000 emergency order said in addition to the vats of chemicals inside the plant, inspectors found an additional underground tank that contained “hazardous sludge material.” “The existence of the tank creates an imminent and substantial threat of a release to the soil,” Mathis wrote.
The inspectors also found 300 gallons of a pooled green liquid on the floor of the plant that had a high pH, which makes it alkaline, and containers and vats with low pH, or acids.
“The high and low pH mixture creates an imminent and substantial threat to human health and the environment of hydrogen cyanide and cyanide gases,” Mathis wrote.
Doug Szenher, spokesman for the Environmental Quality Department, said department officials inspected the plant in 2004 and found copper cyanide, copper acid, boric acid, chrome rinse and nickel rinse.
The department has been trying for years to get Mikus to comply with state regulations, he said.
“When you get a judgment against someone with no assets that you can attach, there’s not much you can do,” Szenher said.
The department conducted a preliminary assessment of the plant last August as part of an effort to turn the case over to the EPA, he said.
Roberts said Thursday that efforts have been made for the last two years to include the plant on an EPA Superfund list, which would make federal funds available for its cleanup.
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