Yes! Allen County Healthcare

opinions

October 5, 2010 - 12:00 AM

Q: Are there environmental issues with the site selected for the new hospital?
A: Yes, but the environmental issues can easily be dealt with. Six other new buildings have recently been constructed in the same area and the remedy in every case was to provide a top cover of either concrete or a specific amount of additional soil on top of the present ground.
Citizens Bank, The Family Physicians, Jump Start, Lucky Stop, The Sterling Six Cinema and the Super 8 Motel have all done the required soil testing and, if  necessary, remediation outlined by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment which is the Kansas agency responsible for our environmental protection.
Where did the hazardous materials come from? One hundred years ago in Allen County, factories dotted the landscape in many places, but there were scores from the east edge of Iola to LaHarpe. Because of the abundant natural gas deposits found here, there were dozens of manufacturers — some of which made bricks, produced iron castings and smelted lead and zinc, to name a few industries. Most factories did not harm the environment, but the smelters did produce by-products that were later discovered to be hazardous. The sites where the smelters were located have been the locations where additional top soil or concrete have been used to cover the ground before new buildings have been constructed.
How does applying a cover on the ground solve the
problem? Allen County soils include many with substantial amounts of clay. Brick production was well suited to this area because of the abundant clay in addition to natural gas to provide cheap fuel for the brick kilns. One additional benefit of clay is that materials that are buried with clay — including the hazardous by-products of the smelters — do not tend to leach or wash away when groundwater filters through the soils with clay. As a result, our groundwater and our runoff do not show unhealthy amounts of hazardous materials; the dangerous heavy metals are trapped in the sticky clay soils.
Periodic testing is done on groundwater as well as sites with high concentrations of the heavy metals to be sure they remain encapsulated and do not contaminate our drinking water. The soil cover and concrete insure that dust containing heavy metals is not a risk and that the heavy metals are properly encapsulated to provide a safe environment.

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