Anniston, AL, June 23--Solutia officials said Monday that the company was on track to resume residential PCBs cleanup in mid-July. The company also plans to begin cleanup of the 11th Street ditch at that time, according to the Anniston Star.
Cleanup of residential property containing PCB levels of 10 parts per billion or greater is complete, but the cleanup of properties containing PCB levels at one part per billion had been held up by the company's bankruptcy proceedings.
At Monday's meeting of the Community Advisory Group, Craig Branchfield, remedial projects manager for Solutia, assured the group the court-ordered cleanup would move forward soon.
Solutia is cleaning up properties in Anniston that are contaminated with PCBs, which were manufactured here by Monsanto until the 1970s. Solutia is a spin-off of Monsanto.
"I'm very confident it's going to be mid-July," said Branchfield. "Knowing that next time I'm up here, I'm going to be crucified if it's not."
Branchfield said Solutia was close to reaching an agreement with a new contractor to perform the cleanup, since the company's last contractor was "burnt pretty bad by the bankruptcy."
Solutia filed for bankruptcy last summer.
The new contractor, however, should be able to clean at a rate of 20 properties per month, Branchfield said. The last contractor would have cleaned 15 properties per month.
Branchfield said many of the properties left to be cleaned are next door to each other. As a result, the contractor may clean between one and three blocks at a time rather than just one property.
Also discussed at Monday's meeting was the $3.2 million Education Foundation, which Monsanto will fund over twelve years.
"There is a lot of work to be done as to where this money will go," said Special Master Doug Jones. "All we're putting in place is an organizational structure."
Jones said there would be a board and a resource advisory group, and he hopes they would work with other foundations in the area rather than compete against them.
Members of the CAG's outreach committee informed the group of open houses planned to provide the public with information on lead and PCBs clean-up from Solutia, the Environmental Protection Agency and the CAG in one place.
The open houses will be held 4-8 p.m. July 12 at the Oxford Civic Center and July 13 at the Carver Community Center in Anniston.
