Ottawa will receive $90 million to clean up last radium site along Route 71

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday an additional $90 million in funding is coming to clean up Ottawa’s last remaining radium site, known as NPL-8.

Ottawa Economic Development Director Dave Noble said NPL-8 is located along Route 71/U.S. 6 in Ottawa, north of the former Bill Walsh Saturn facility and behind the Grand Rapid Enterprises property. Some cleanup activities took place there a couple of years ago until funding ran out.

Noble said the cleanup work has been taking place over the past two decades, at least. He knows of workers who started their career working on the radium cleanup sites and retired working on the sites.

“They scanned the whole city for radium, found where the hotspots were and immediately started setting them aside, protecting them and cleaning them up.”

Noble said the vast majority of the sites have been dug up over the years, with the radium removed, and the soil dug out to a certain depth. Sites were then covered with clean fill and a deed restriction was placed on the property.

Mayor Dan Aussem said one such site was owned by the Diocese of Peoria and acquired by the city of Ottawa last year in a land swap. This allowed the city to place a deed restriction on the land, as is required by the EPA.

“Radium is unique because it sticks to the dirt,” Noble said. “When it rains, it doesn’t wash into the groundwater. It doesn’t move and it sticks where it’s at. Once it’s encapsulated, it sticks where it’s at and it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

NPL-8 is the last remaining radium site in Ottawa that’s in need of a clean up.

“Illinois EPA is pleased to see these funds being directed to the Ottawa Radiation Site to address the historic contamination,” said Illinois EPA Director John J. Kim in a Friday press release. “We will continue to work with U.S. EPA and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to address environmental concerns at this and other Superfund sites in Illinois.”

The announcement of this cleanup arrives with a second wave of about $1 billion in funding from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This funding should expedite more than 100 other ongoing cleanups across the country.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, said Ottawa has been threatened by the public health and environmental effects of radium poisoning for far too long.

“Over a century after the Radium Girls began working in Ottawa, I’m proud to see this new funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law coming to the 14th District, where it will help ensure our community is clean and safe for current and future residents to call home,” Underwood said.

It is not yet known when work on NPL-8 will begin.