Polluted rural village fighting to rescue lake
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| DePue Mayor Eric Bryant talks Dec. 29 about a huge slag pile contaminated with heavy metals that towers over the road leading into the north-central Illinois town. The pile is one section of a former manufacturing operation in De Pue that is among Illinois' 44 Superfund sites. (AP photo) |
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DEPUE – Life is quiet in this northern Illinois village that’s so small it has no stoplights or mail delivery.
Nestled along an oxbow lake where the Illinois River turns south, DePue, population 1,824, is the kind of place where neighbors wave in passing, the men’s club foots the bill for kids’ sports uniforms and the only traffic jams are in July, when thousands of visitors stream into town for the annual lakefront festival and championship powerboat races.
But nobody would call the village idyllic.
It’s almost surrounded by a Superfund site that includes a polluted lake and a huge slag pile that towers over the main road into town, the legacy of a now-closed zinc smelter and fertilizer plant that were the village’s life’s blood for more than 80 years.
More than one-fifth of residents live below the poverty line, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates. And to make matters worse, village officials say, the pollution’s stigma has made it difficult to attract new businesses 23 years after the last plant closed, eliminating the last of the manufacturing jobs that once numbered in the thousands
Now they worry that Lake DePue is becoming so shallow the village could lose its one claim to fame – the American Power Boat Association’s PRO national championship, which generates thousands of dollars a year for the men’s club, which in turn spends it on public service projects the village and schools can’t afford.
The answer to all these problems is the same, they say: cleaning up the Superfund site – and they’ve mounted an all-out offensive to pressure environmental regulators to hasten the work, which they hope will include dredging the lake that’s less than a foot deep in some places.
“We’re just very frustrated that it’s taking so long for this to get done,” said Mayor Eric Bryant, 62, who was born in DePue and lives in a brick bungalow built by his great-grandfather. “It doesn’t seem like they care what happens here.”
The village is urging Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to investigate whether the state Environmental Protection Agency, which has final say over the investigations and remediation undertaken by the companies responsible for the cleanups – ExxonMobil and CBS Corp. – has pushed them hard enough. They’ve produced a documentary about the pollution that airs on local cable TV and they’re gathering signatures on a petition they plan to present to the EPA.
“People are sick of waiting,” said Dennis Feurer, who moved to DePue with his wife, Linda, 30 years ago to raise their five children when it was “a booming little town.”
But environmental officials say the pace of cleanup in DePue is typical of Superfund sites in Illinois and across the country, where it can take years, even decades, to get polluters to pay or find federal money for cleanups – not to mention simply doing the work.
In Illinois, only a handful of Superfund sites – there are 44 now – have ever been cleaned up enough to be dropped from the U.S. EPA’s National Priorities List in the 30 years since the federal fund was established. And some that have been on the list the longest still aren’t finished.
“Most communities accept that there are delays. In DePue, we’ve explained all of these things time and time again and they have refused to acknowledge and accept there is a process that needs to be followed,” said Gary King, who manages the Illinois EPA division that deals with Superfund sites and says it’s gotten good cooperation from the companies in DePue.
The village’s Superfund site encompasses about 950 acres of land and lake bottom contaminated with high levels of metals such as zinc, lead, arsenic, cadmium and chromium. So far, tainted sediment has been excavated from a ditch that drains into the lake. A phosphate and gypsum landfill has been capped. And a water-treatment system was installed to filter surface and ground water at the old manufacturing site, which dates to 1903, when a zinc smelter was built to supply the fledgling automobile and appliance industries.
The companies still must address a quarter-mile-long slag pile with an estimated 750,000 tons of zinc, which is likely to be capped in place. And they probably will remove contaminated sediment in a portion of the lake, but likely won’t dredge nearly as much as the village wants, King said.
The EPA doesn’t have the authority to have the lake dredged, which would cost at least $10 million, he said. But even if it did, that would be a temporary fix at best because the lake is an oxbow – formed when a bend in the river was cut off from the main channel – the kind of lake that always fills with sediment and becomes part of the flood plain.
“We certainly recognize the emotion on this. But from our perspective, sometimes emotion clouds a sense of reason,” King said.
Officials with ExxonMobil and CBS Corp. did not respond directly to questions about possible dredging, but the companies issued a statement saying they “remain committed to working with the IEPA and the DePue community” and are still investigating the remaining sites, including the lake.
Bryant acknowledges that the village’s identity is inextricably tied to the lake, which once was a steamboat landing, where ice houses supplied much of the state and where, since the early 1900s, people have raced boats along its glassy expanse
“We think it’s pretty much economic salvation of our community,” said Bryant, who envisions a marina and docks if only they could reopen a channel to the Illinois River and unclog the springs that he says once fed the lake.
At the very least, the village could keep the APBA Professional Racing Outboards division national championship races that have been hosted by the men’s club for 27 years. Featuring boats that skim the water at more than 100 mph, DePue’s race is regarded as the best in the country.
“Mecca might not be exactly the right word, but ... for this style of boat racing, DePue is THE place you go for the ultimate championships,” said Steve Greaves, of Seattle, chairman of the association’s PRO division.
The spectators – 35,000 to 40,000 over the course of the 3-day event – stake out spots along the shore with blue tarps and lawn chairs up to a week before the races. They come for the kids’ carnival, the beer gardens and the food vendors who serve up hamburgers, tacos and pork chops. Class reunions are organized around the races.
And depending on the weather, the men’s club makes anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to more than $20,000 to provide things local children might otherwise do without: sports uniforms, playground equipment, school field trips.
But the shallower the lake gets, the more dangerous it becomes, with water on the race course oval sometimes as low as 3 1/2 feet, Bryant said.
Racers are strapped inside a capsule that’s designed to open and let them slip out if the boat flips over; but it might not be able to open far enough if the lake bottom is too shallow or mucky, Greaves and Bryant said. So as an added precaution, racers have installed brackets on each side of their boats so that rescuers could attach a line and flip the boat upright.
Greaves said it would be “a great disappointment” if the DePue races ended, though he knows that could be a matter of time.
For the residents of DePue, that’s not an option. Yet.
“We’re scared to death we’re going to lose that lake,” Bryant said.
