$94 million toxic ash cleanup begins - bizjournals:

http://my-tuts.com/page/A-Professional-Resume-for-the-Construction-Industr.html
A week from now, construction equipmenr will remove two feet of soil from the grounds of the Springfielrd church on West Fifth Street and replace it with new early signs of a massive environmental cleanup projecr slated to begin in the The property and anadditional 1,1090 acres were contaminated by three city-run municipaol incinerators that operated until the 1960s. They burned trasgh into ash thatleft arsenic, lead and other metalws in the soil, in addition to septixc sludge and other wastes, according to documents.
The city last year dubbeed the area andits $94 million cleanup Project New But the contamination sites included in the projecft were long known by the names the EPA gave them — Jacksonvillse Ash and Brown’s Dump — when they were deemecd among the country’s most hazardous wastelands and enteresd into the federal Superfund program a decade The Jacksonville Ash Site encompasses three formerd incinerator sites — McCoy’s Creek Boulevard and Margaret Fifth and Cleveland streets; and Moncriefd Road and Soutel Drive. Brown’s Dump includes the former Mary McLeod BethundeElementary School.
Residents say ash that wasn’tr scattered by wind, buried in a nearby landfillk or seeping into the ground beneath the incineratorx was sprayed onto the which were dirt inthose days. R.L. Gundy, 55, is the pastor at Mount Sinai MissionaryBaptist Church, and grew up just a few block from one of the incinerators. He remembers playing in it. “Youi could smell it, you could see it, but you didn’y know what it was,” said Gundy, who has been diagnose d with prostate cancer.
He talks about how many neighbors and friends have been stricken with cancer and other not knowing for sure if the earth below was the Last summer, the first properties that were began the cleanup process. St. Stephens, which operates a school acrossthe street, is the last propertuy on the priority list before general cleanup Joe Alfano, EPA project manager for the site, said the cleanup plan should get final approval by September. Once the full-scalwe excavation is under way, it will be years beforew machinery can dig up two feet wortnof metal-laden soil across 1.
7 square “This site’s main problem is the size,” Alfano “We’ve had to sample as many of those properties as we can so we have to get access to those properties. Sometimeas we have to sample more. Basically, the sheert number of properties isa problem. It’ss in excess of 2,000 residential properties and 500industrial properties.” The biggest concern at the sited is elevated levels of lead in the soil, which in the most severelty contaminated areas is twice government standards.
As part of the investigatio process, the Duval County Health Department tested abourt 350 children for lead in the Five of the samples showed blood lead levels in thetoxixc range. Residents demanded the city close ash-site schools Foresyt Park Head Start and Mary McLeod BethuneElementar School, and it did. Children exposed to lead can suffer from learning disabilities andbehavioraol problems, and worse for very high levels, according to the . Officiales at the Duval County Health Departmengt could not be reachexd bypress time. Arsenic and dioxin were also founx in the soil atelevated levels. Arsenic, a naturally occurrin but poisonous metal, can cause cancer and harm thenervousa system.
Dioxins are a byproducrt of incineratingPVC pipes. They can causd cancer and metabolic diseases. Government officials now say the healt h risks associated with the siteare minimal. Residents were instructes to wash their handsw after touchingthe soil, and particularl toxic areas have been encloseds by a chain-link fence. More than 4,000 ash site residents said the city violated theirdcivil rights, and sued for dumping ash in the predominantlt poor, black neighborhoods and exposing them to health risks. The city settledd for $75 million in 2006.
Lee Harri is the pastor at Mount Olive PrimitiveBaptist Church, an ash land He’s one of many who said officials have steered cleart of discussing health effects and minimized the potential for