[CPEO-BIF] Ameren groundwater, Champaign, Illinois

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Champaign group wants groundwater ordinance repealed

By Patrick Wade
News-Gazette (East Central Illinois)
October 10, 2010

CHAMPAIGN - A neighborhood group is calling for the repeal of a city 
ordinance that they say gives Ameren a "free pass" on a portion of the 
decontamination process at the former site of a manufactured-gas plant 
near the intersection of Fifth and Hill streets.

Ameren officials, on the other hand, say there is no risk to begin with.

On the city books is a "groundwater restriction ordinance," which the 
city council passed in 2007, that bars residents from drilling wells 
where there may be groundwater contamination. The property just east of 
Fifth and Hill streets used to be the home of a manufactured-gas plant, 
which extracted combustible gas from coal. The process left behind 
toxins like coal tar and benzene.

But the ordinance is not functional, and instead allows corporations 
like Ameren to claim it as part of the cleanup process, said Claudia 
Lennhoff, executive director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers, 
a watchdog group that has voiced dissatisfaction with the remediation of 
the Fifth and Hill site.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/environment/2010-10-10/champaign-group-wants-groundwater-ordinance-repealed.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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