Superfund Cleanup Site Joining Part Of Wildlife Refuge

POSTED: 4:13 am MDT August 1, 2006

UPDATED: 4:31 am MDT August 1, 2006

The Associated Press

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Monday removed 7,360 acres of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal from its Superfund list of heavily polluted areas, clearing the way for large part of the former chemical weapons plant property to become a national wildlife refuge.

Cleanup on the 11.5 square miles of land known as the Internal Parcel included the removal or destruction of 196 structures and closure of 27 groundwater wells that posed a risk of contamination, EPA officials said Monday.

Crews also excavated and disposed of contaminated soil and materials, including munitions debris and red ash from mustard gas demilitarization at the arsenal, which is about 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver.

The Army manufactured chemical weapons at the once-classified arsenal during World War II and the 1950s, and Shell Oil manufactured pesticides and other chemicals there until 1982. The facility was designated a Superfund cleanup site, and Congress in 1992 declared that it be turned into a national wildlife refuge.

Once the U.S. Army transfers the property to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, it would more than double its size to approximately 19 square miles, or 12,160 acres.

"Through the hard work of many, the Internal Parcel is ready to become a public asset instead of a polluted liability," Robert E. Roberts, EPA's regional administrator said in a statement. "This deletion makes this land available for future beneficial uses, including open space and wildlife habitat."

Besides mustard gas, sarin nerve agent was manufactured at the site in the 1950s.

In the mid-1990s cleanup crews found a sarin-filled bomb inside the walls of the North Plant that apparently had rolled off a conveyor belt during manufacturing and wedged itself there.

Later while removing industrial waste from a scrap pile in 1999, workers found a M-139 bomblet, a grapefruit-sized sphere filled with 1.3 pounds of sarin, which kills humans the same way pesticides kill bugs.

Crews found least 10 such spheres, some containing sarin, during clean up between 1999 and 2001 that were destroyed with explosives and chemicals.

Some areas within the parcel weren't removed from the list Monday, including former processing areas, waste disposal sites, munitions demolition areas, as well as some structures, roads and drainage areas.

Nearly 80 percent of the 17,000 acre site has been removed from the EPA's Superfund list of heavily polluted areas. Cleanup is expected to be completed in 2011.