FREDERICKTOWN, Mo. (KMOX) -- One of the nation's 50 most polluted sites sits an hour and a half south of St. Louis. But after years of delays, clean-up is back underway.
The Old Lead Belt of Madison County, Missouri was home to heavy metal mining for three centuries and left a legacy of lead saturated ground and huge mounds of dangerous by-products, called tailings. 800 properties were part of a previous clean-up, but another thousand homes sat in contaminated soil.
Now, with nearly $10-million in federal stimulus funds promised from earlier this year, work is underway to dig it up. KMOX News asked the EPA's Gene Gunn where the dirt will go. "These large mine waste piles will have to have institutional controls into the future," Gunn said. "So we'll use this residential soil, which is good for growing grass, as capping material."
Gunn says those piles will never be used for a residential site. Removal of soil around homes is expected to cost nearly $25-million.
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