The site of a former auto equipment company in northeast Arkansas has been removed from a national list of one of the most environmentally dangerous places in the country. On Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency removed the former Monroe Auto Equipment Company site near Paragould from a list of Superfund sites.
EPA spokesperson Jennah Durant said the plant stopped using the area to dispose of waste in 1978 and the site was hazardous for decades.
“The contamination that resulted was about 10,000 cubic yards of sludge from wastewater that was held in a sand and gravel pit at the site. Fortunately it was not in a very heavily populated area. The main concern was to prevent the pollutants that were being held in these sludge pits from migrating into groundwater in the area,” said Durant.
Even though the site is off the Superfund list that does not mean it will be cleared for any type of development. Durant said in her experience similar sites have never been cleared for residential use and that typically these sites are only cleared for future industrial development.
The EPA finished major clean-up operations in 1999, deemed levels safe in 2003, and has been monitoring the site since then. The removal from the Superfund site means the federal agency determined no further action is required to protect human health or the environment.
