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Work to Begin This Week on Removal and Replacement of Security Fencing at Carter Carburetor Site in St. Louis, Mo.

Release Date: 11/15/2011
Contact Information: Chris Whitley, 913-551-7394, whitley.christopher@epa.gov

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., Nov. 15, 2011) - A construction crew is expected to begin work this week on removing old security fencing from the Carter Carburetor Site in St. Louis, Mo., so that it can be replaced with a more secure fence designed to keep children, vagrants and vandals off the 10-acre polluted industrial property.

ACF Industries, Inc., (ACF), whose subsidiaries Carter Carburetor Corporation and Carter Automotive Products manufactured carburetors for gasoline- and diesel-powered engines at the site from the 1930s until 1984, has agreed to pay all costs associated with upgrading the fence. Imperial Fence, of St. Louis, will perform the work, which is expected to cost approximately $75,000.

EPA Region 7 is currently negotiating an administrative settlement agreement with ACF to address comprehensive removal or remedial cleanup actions at the site. Separate from that agreement, and in response to complaints from neighborhood residents that the unsecured property was a public nuisance, ACF agreed to replace the site’s aging security fence.

Weather permitting, a crew from Imperial Fence will begin work on Wednesday, November 16, to core-drill or jackhammer existing fence corner posts, remove old sections of fencing and other debris, and prepare the site for installation of new fencing. On Monday, November 21, also weather permitting, the company expects to begin installation of a new galvanized steel chain link fence, which will be at least seven feet high, topped with at least three strands of barbed wire.

When completed, the new fence will run around virtually the entire Carter Carburetor Site, with the exception of a small paved surface parking lot on the northeast corner of the property, at the intersection of Grand Avenue and Dodier Street. The parking lot is used by patrons and visitors of the nearby Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club at 2901 North Grand Avenue.

“EPA promised the community late this summer to get a fence built around that property before the World Series ended,” Regional Administrator Karl Brooks said. “Negotiations and city approvals took a little longer than I thought, but folks who live in that neighborhood can now be assured they and their kids will be safer.”

The primary contaminants of concern remaining at the site are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), trichloroethylene (TCE) and asbestos. EPA’s selected removal action for the site involves thermally-enhanced extraction of PCBs and TCE in subsurface soils, the removal of PCBs in two buildings, the removal of asbestos from various structures, and total or partial demolition of various buildings.