Further options for a court-ordered clean-up at a contaminated site on the edge of northeast Carbondale are being examined by the Illnois Environmental Protection Agency, EPA officials say.

Gary Steele, an Illinois EPA manager said land at the former Koppers Inc. railroad tie factory is tainted with creosote, a toxic petroleum-based substance, often derived from coal tar. Creosote has been used to treat wood products for more than a century, Steele said.

Short term exposure to the substance can result in dizziness, lowered body temperature and mild convulsions, according to EPA information. Ingestion of creosote has been reported to cause death by cardiovascular collapse. Skin contact could cause intense burning, itching and increased susceptibility to sunburn. Eye contact could cause permanent scarring of the cornea.

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Even though Steele said the contamination is not severe near the surface of the of the property, the area should be avoided because of contamination below the ground surface. Steele said he did not have data pertaining to the severity of the contamination, but said the fact there is a clean-up should speak for itself.

We’re doing a clean-up there, so you can draw your own inferences from that, he said.

Steele also said that extensive monitoring of ground water near the site has shown it contains petroleum from the creosote. No contamination has been found in wells near the site, he said.

The contamination is not near Cedar Lake, the source of drinking water for Carbondale and SIUC, Steele said.

Carbondale City Manager Jeff Doherty said when the city was examining a bypass around the northeast side of Carbondale the EPA instructed the city to avoid the site.

The EPA has already taken steps to contain the contamination. A liner was placed along a creek near the old factory to keep creosote from getting in the water as groundwater levels rise, Steele said. He said the sides of the creek were also lined with concrete.

Stan Black, a community relations coordinator at the Illinois EPA office in Springfield, said the EPA has already completed a remedial investigation that resulted in a court-ordered clean-up of the area.

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He said officials are now in the second step of the procedure, a feasibility study, which looks at different methods of remedying the situation.

After the feasibilty study is completed, the EPA will decide if the reccomended clean-up method is acceptable, Black said. After approval of a method, clean-up operations would finally begin.

Steele said several options including incineration, taking the contaminated soil to a secured landfill and introducing microorganisms to the site are being examined. He said it was too early to tell which method might be selected and when the clean-up would actually begin. He said the clean-up would be expensive.

I haven’t seen any estimate that was under $1 million, he said.

The clean-up will be funded by Beazer Materials Inc., a Pittsburgh-based company that purchased Koppers Inc., Steele said. Contracting for the clean-up will also be done by Beazer. Steele said the EPA will oversee the project to make sure it is done properly.

The contamination resulted from a combination of several factors. The plant opened around 1930 when creosote was not recognized as a hazardous waste substance. Steele said before 1980, when creosote was identified as a hazardous substance, the factory used creosote in ways that would not be acceptable by today’s standards.

Steele said creosote dripped off freshly treated wood into soil at the site. Today’s regulations, he said, would have prevented that by requiring a containment system.

Steele said a fire during the 1940s also played a big part in the contamination. During the fire workers drained holding ponds in the center of the site that had creosote on their surface into other holding ponds on the east side of the site. This was done to divert the creosote, a highly flammable substance, away from the fire.

The ponds on the east side started to overflow as a result, and creosote was released into the soil.

Steele said the EPA became involved with the situation in the early 1980s, when creosote was recognized as a hazardous substance. He said the nature of the old factory and concerns raised by landowners near the site led to an investigation of the area.