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Chemical companies to pay $15 million to clean up Sauget Superfund site

The location of the Sauget Area 1 Superfund site.
MAPBOX, OPENSTREETMAP
The location of the Sauget Area 1 Superfund site.

Four chemical companies could have to pay $14.8 million to clean up a federal Superfund site in Sauget.

The settlement, which needs court approval, would address groundwater contamination, cap some of the waste and install a well monitoring system. 

Industrial waste has been dumped in six sites within the Sauget Area 1 Superfund from the 1930s until the 1980s. The Environmental Protection Agency has been investigating the site since the early 1980s.

Cerro Flow Products, ExxonMobil, Pharmacia and Solutia would have to pay for cleanup efforts. Pharmacia and Solutia both spun off of Monsanto.

 

The location of the Sauget Area 1 Superfund site.
Credit MAPBOX, OPENSTREETMAP
The location of the Sauget Area 1 Superfund site.

In the late 2000s, local residents filed several lawsuits against the four companies.

The suits allege that the dumping of industrial chemicals, such as PCBs and dioxins, caused health problems. 

The public can comment on the settlement for 30 days.

Follow Eli Chen on Twitter: @StoriesByEli

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Eli Chen is the science and environment reporter at St. Louis Public Radio. She comes to St. Louis after covering the eroding Delaware coast, bat-friendly wind turbine technology, mouse love songs and various science stories for Delaware Public Media/WDDE-FM. Before that, she corralled robots and citizen scientists for the World Science Festival in New York City and spent a brief stint booking guests for Science Friday’s live events in 2013. Eli grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, where a mixture of teen angst, a love for Ray Bradbury novels and the growing awareness about climate change propelled her to become the science storyteller she is today. When not working, Eli enjoys a solid bike ride, collects classic disco, watches standup comedy and is often found cuddling other people’s dogs. She has a bachelor’s in environmental sustainability and creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has a master’s degree in journalism, with a focus on science reporting, from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.