MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - Residents are relieved this week to see dump trucks rollling in and out of an abandoned bumper plant in their south Mobile neighborhood. It's a sign that a hazardous chemical threat will soon be removed.
The trucks are clearing initial debris in the US. Environmental Protection Agency's $1 million cleanup of a 7-acre plant site that contains hazardous materials. Those threats include cyanide, nickel solution, sodium hydroxide, chromic acid and other unknown materials.
Michael Sparks is EPA's on-scene coordinator and says he can "only imagine" what it was like for workers in the former Mobile American Bumper Plating plant that operated for 40 years. The chemical wastes were abandoned in 85 barrels and 18 vats in a long shed-like metal building that has to be demolished.
Sparks said evaporation from the acid solutions used in the plant had turned the building's girders into "Swiss cheese."
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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