KINGSLEY -- The removal of decades-old contamination from a former gas station along Kingsley's Main Street will alleviate potential environmental hazards and pave the way for a new business at the site.
Dozens of workers spent the past two weeks removing about 4,000 tons of soil and 1.5 million gallons of water contaminated by fuels that seeped from storage tanks at the former Hoeflin's Service Station at 413 West Main Street.
Tanks were removed from the site in 1990, but kerosine, diesel and gasoline left behind saturated the soil and posed a potential health risk and threatened nearby Swainston Creek, said Ann Emington, senior geologist with the state Department of Environmental Quality.
"The contamination was pretty hot. We needed to get it out of there because it is a direct-contact hazard to utility workers," Emington said, adding that sewer and gas lines run through the site.
"When you have concentrations as high as there was ... you can't rely on Mother Nature to clean that up. It was ... within a 10-year travel time to their municipal wells," she said.
The $350,000 project, funded through the state's Refined Petroleum Fund, consisted of digging a roughly 180-by-60-foot hole, 10-feet deep on M-113 and removing the soil and water.
Workers then hauled the soil to the landfill and pumped the water through carbon filters to extract the contaminants before releasing it into the creek. Workers planned to pave the road this week and re-open the road by this weekend.
Kingsley resident and business owner Rod Bogart said he wasn't worried about the toxic soil when he purchased the property through foreclosure in 2005. But Bogart, who grew up across the street from the former gas station, is waiting on the contamination cleanup and other road work scheduled for M-113 to wrap up before he builds The Village Ice Cream Shoppe there this year.
"It is going to depend on everyone else's schedule," Bogart said. "I am probably not going to sell much ice cream to the dozer operators. It will be built before the summer is over."
Village officials worked with the DEQ to coordinate the cleanup with several other efforts, including the relocation of overhead electricity lines, the installation of lighting, road work and other projects along the main strip. But the cleanup of the toxic plume was a welcomed addition to an already busy summer season, said Adam Umbrasas, village manager.
"Some residents in that general area have been concerned with it," Umbrasas said. "The way it was moving, it was moving toward the creek that runs through town."
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