KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — A compromise to reconfigure the Allied Paper Landfill could get a boost from City Hall tonight.
The plan is to push all of the contaminated soil into a pile, and return about half of the area to commercial or light industrial use. It will be presented to Kalamazoo City Commissioners on Monday for a formal resolution endorsing the proposal.
The Environmental Protection Agency is moving closer to issuing a record of decision on the remedial action they plan to take at the 90-acre site off Alcott Street. The city had been campaigning to have the contaminated soil trucked to a landfill in Wayne County, but the EPA insisted the option wasn’t cost-effective.
Mayor Bobby Hopewell says it’s not perfect, but it is better than the plan the EPA was considering.
“It’s much more acceptable or more about what our community wants than what the original plan was, which was to just cap it and leave it in place,” Hopewell said.
The dump site is contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls, a byproduct of the paper-recycling business.
Most of the money that will be used to clean it up has been recovered from the parties responsible for putting it there in the first place.
– John McNeill
