The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has entered into a consent agreement with Pharmacia LLC on a cleanup plan to address dioxin contamination at the Kanawha River Superfund Site in Putnam and Kanawha counties.
The cleanup work focuses on a 14-mile stretch within the Kanawha River beginning at the confluence of the Kanawha and Coal Rivers.
Cleanup work will include constructing a cap over more than nine acres of contaminated river sediments. This capping will reduce the mobility and concentrations of dioxin in the sediments.
EPA’s selection of the cleanup plan was done in consultation with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was preceded by a years-long engineering evaluation and cost analysis performed by Monsanto Company and Pharmacia under a 2004 EPA Consent Order.
This settlement announcement follows the July 25 announcement when EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt accepted recommendations from the Superfund Task Force to revitalize the Superfund program.