Ottawa superfund site to begin cleanup with $90 million from infrastructure bill

The last of the Ottawa radium disposal Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites will start cleanup soon thanks to $90 million from the infrastructure bill.

Representatives from the EPA, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood (D- Naperville) and Commissioner Wayne Eichelkraut spoke at the former location of Bill Walsh Automotive Group east of Ottawa on Thursday morning, celebrating the beginning of the cleanup.

“The 17-acre parcel contains the last remaining contamination from the radium dial painting that took place in the early part of the 20th century,” said Tom Short, the deputy division director for the Superfund program and EPA Region Five.

Short said this last bit of the parcel has been languishing for a long time given the costs associated with the project, but it can move forward thanks to the funding.

He said the cleanup will allow the city of Ottawa to reclaim the land and transform it into a community asset for generations to come.

“I’m proud to help pass the bipartisan infrastructure law, a once in a generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure, which tackles the climate crisis, gets pollution out of our communities and ensures our neighborhoods are safe and healthy,” Underwood said. “In fact, the law invests $3.5 billion in environmental remediation at Superfund sites, making it one of the largest investments in American history to address the legacy of pollution that harms public health and cleaned up decontaminated sites.”

No community should have to face the health and environmental impacts of radiation poisoning.

—  U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville

Underwood said these Superfund sites are making a difference across the country and having access to a clean, safe environment for families to live, work and grow up in is essential for public health.

“No community should have to face the health and environmental impacts of radiation poisoning, yet radiation exposure and these sites has had a history of leading to long-term health effects on our residents,” Underwood said. “That’s why it’s so urgent that these sites receive the necessary funding to clean them up for good.”

The project will see about 200,000 tons of contaminated material removed from the site, according to Remedial Project Manager Nabil Fayoumi.

Fayoumi said any buildings moving forward will have to be above ground, as part of the remediation involves replacing the contaminated fill with 10 feet of clean fill. The property will be zoned for recreation along the riverfront.

Eichelkraut said the contamination originated from the Radium Dial company that operated in Ottawa from 1918 to 1930, a company that painted the face of clocks manufactured at Westclox in La Salle.

He said losses threatened the company and it closed in 1938, but the president of the Radium Dial company opened a new company doing the same thing called Luminous Processes.

“It’s hard to believe that Luminous Processes was open for business way up until 1978,” Eichelkraut said. “Today, it might be hard to imagine how a company cared so little for the workers. They not only put their personal profits above the worker’s life, even when they knew exactly what was happening. They saw their employees dying.”

Eichelkraut said Luminous Processes exploited every loophole it could to keep going. He’s thankful for agencies, such as the EPA, the Illinois EPA, the Illinois Emergency Management Association and OSHA to put a stop to practices like that.

“The Radium Dial building was demolished in 1968 with debris not tightly regulated,” Eichelkraut said. “Luminous Processes was demolished in 1985 under strict EPA supervision for safety.”

Eichelkraut said the cleanup started in the late 1980s, and the process has taken more than 35 years and cost millions and millions of dollars.