Draft:Circle Smelting Corp

Circle Smelting Corp was a company owned by Asarco that operated out of Beckemeyer, Illinois from 1904 to 1994 before it was shut down by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in October 1994 and declared a superfund site in 1996.

Operational history
Circle Smelting Corp was built in 1904, in the town of Beckemeyer, Illinois along the Ohio & Mississippi line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The facility began operation in 1904 when its primary zinc smelting plant was built. In 1920 a secondary zinc smelting facility was built with about 20 people working. In 1930, the facility was acquired by Federated Metals, a subsidiary of ASARCO. By 1937 it had a production capacity of 15,000 tons and mainly made Spelter. The facility didn't just smelt zinc however many other metals were smelted including aluminum, lead, zinc, zinc oxides, magnesium oxide, copper oxide, borates, and iron. The plant produced zinc metal, zinc compounds, fertilizer additives, and animal feed additives.

Waste the facility produced including coal and coke cinders were deposited on-site or used around Beckemeyer as backfill. This led to large ground contamination in and around the area of Circle Smelting. In July 1986 a fire broke out at the Circle Smelting Corp facility, the fire burned for over five hours and destroyed the central building of the smelter, the fire required the combined help of four neighboring fire departments to put out. Due to the potential of contamination from the facility Deputy Joe Muehlhausen alerted the EPA in Springfield. The EPA ordered the evacuation of downwind homes due to the possibility of wind bourn contaminants and as a result, four homes were evacuated. After the fire, the EPA conducted an inspection in the fall of 1994. The EPA declared Circle Smelting Corp a superfund site in 1996.

Inspection
After the fire in 1986, EPA inspectors arrived at the facility and set up an air monitoring station for particulate emissions. In 1988 inspectors tested on-site contaminates in the soil and wastes produced by the facility. In February and March 1992, an expanded inspection was completed and as a result of this inspection in April 1993 the Illinois Department of Public Health(IDHP) ordered blood testing from the surrounding population. The tests were held at the Beckemeyer grade school, and 248 willing participants were tested for lead concentration, however, the tests which were conducted in the fall of that year did not show any danger to public health from lead contamination. In May 1993, the EPA conducted a week-long study of the site and found that some areas had 1,000-30,0000 parts per million with the safe concentration being 500 PPM. This study caused the suspension of a local water project.

The EPA nominated the site for superfund status in 1996. Off-site soil sampling began in April 1999 and went on until the spring of 2000, it revealed that contamination had spread into the surrounding wetlands from decades of runoff. The highest concentration sampled was 65,930 mg/kg with the natural concentration of lead in the area being around 7-20 mg/kg.

Cleanup
In June 1999 Circle Smelting Corp was demolished. The clean-up of the site began in 2001 with contractors removing about 35,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil from 300 properties in the town and depositing it in a mound where the former facility used to lay. In 2002 the EPA took over the clean-up operations from the contractors. The EPA erected a fence around the former facility and built settling ponds to clean out contaminated groundwater. By a 2006 lead contamination study performed by the Environmental Working Group on the water supply of Beckemeyer found that the lead contamination was at 1.82 PPB, which is still elevated from the recommended health limit of 0.20 PPB, but below the legal limit of 15 PPB.

On 9 August 2005, ASARCO filed for bankruptcy, in the settlement made on 13 March 2009, ASARCO settled with the EPA to pay 1.79 billion for the environmental cleanup of their facilities, including Circle Smelting Corp. The clean up for circle smelting amounted to $6,052,390 with $200,000 available for future clean-up.