Few toxins found at Pillsbury Mills 'manageable;' group presses forward to fund demolition

A Phase 2 environmental site assessment of the former Pillsbury Mills was more about "what we didn't find," said the principal geologist at a public presentation at Wanless Elementary School last week.

The sprawling 18-acre site at 15th and Phillips streets, the bane of its neighbors, politicians and seemingly everyone in between since operations ceased there in 2001, came into the hands of Pillsbury Project LLC, which is owned by the nonprofit Moving Pillsbury Forward, in March.

The group contracted with Fehr Graham, a Midwestern engineering and environmental firm which has an office in Springfield, to conduct the assessment prior to demolition of the buildings, which could take years.

While there is a presence of asbestos, lead-based paint and arsenic, "nobody is getting exposed to anything that's at a level unacceptable walking across the site," said Joel Zirkle of the findings detailed in a 1,500-page report.

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The assessment gives Moving Pillsbury Forward, which is headed by former Springfield fire marshal Chris Richmond, a roadmap on how to deal with the remediation and tear-down activities moving ahead.

The demolition of the buildings could lead to some development, possibly light industry, on the site.

Structures such as the warehouse next to the grocery mix building and the bakery mix complex are immediate priorities for the wrecking ball. Richmond said they pose significant risks, especially with the impending winter weather.

Richmond's group will seek funding from the city of Springfield and Sangamon County to get those demolitions addressed.

Zirkle, who has been in the business for three-plus decades, said the reports take away a lot of the guesswork about the site.

"A lot of what we do is replace fear of the unknown with facts," he said. "Whenever you have a large industrial facility that operated for decades and decades back in a time when environmental laws and regulations didn't exist, there's always that fear of what got left behind and we wanted to know that."

Built in the 1920s and expanded several times over the years, the plant's main product was Pillsbury Best flour. According to SangamonLink, some 1,215 people worked there as of 1958, but other reports indicated the number of workers may have reached 1,500 to 1,800 earlier in the 1950s.

Cargill Inc. bought the operation in 1991 and operated it for the next decade, eventually selling it off in 2008.

The fact that there were no PCBs, no heavy metals and no chlorinated pesticides, Zirkle said, was welcome news.

During the handover of the property deed earlier this year, Richmond pointed out that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2017 removed bulk asbestos from all of the buildings, asbestos wrap on pipes and boilers and asbestos that was loosened during previous demolition activities.

Of 154 samples collected on the site recently, 18 tested positive for asbestos, Zirkle said, "meaning U.S. EPA did what it was asked to do."

Only one soil sample in 15 locations where it had groundwater monitoring wells (in the upper three to six inches of the soil) detected asbestos and that sample was well below the EPA standard, he said.

Using hand-held XRF (X-ray fluorescence units), Zirkle said lead-based paint tested positive in 337 of the 1,000 samples collected, "which is a relatively low percentage."

Zirkle said lead, a common contaminant during the heyday of the mill, was found in just one location from 140 samples.

More prevalent was arsenic, Zirkle said, another common constituent in some early pesticides probably used to control the rodent population.

Railroad ties, soaked in creosote, would have had arsenic in them as well, Richmond added.

"It's manageable, but we still have to address it," Zirkle said, noting that it could be remediated on-site.

Crews used ground-penetrating radar found one spot, he said, where an underground tank still might be present.

Zirkle added that there was some documentation, including maps, that the mill used and stored more highly volatile solvents and compounds on the site.

"We tested in those spots," he said. "If someone had dumped a 55-gallon barrel of (something dangerous), I think we would have found it. That's good news because some of those solvents are really bad news."

John Keller, president of the Pillsbury Mills Neighborhood Association, said he was relieved for the neighbors after hearing the report.

"It's a whole lot better and safer than it used to be," said Keller of the site. "We check in a couple of days a week (with Chris). We call when we see (trespassers) in there.

"(Moving Pillsbury Forward is) open with everything. They put a lot of sweat and time in there, trying to do their part."

Zirkle said asbestos and lead-based paint will have to be remediated at the site.

A U.S. EPA grant through the brownfield program in the $500,000 to $1 million range is being applied for, Richmond said, to specifically help with that remediation.

"We don't have a ton of (asbestos and lead-based paint), but we can't turn a blind eye to it," Zirkle said. "We have to address it prior to demolition or in conjunction with the demolition process. We want to make sure it's done right. We want to make sure it's done safely."

Richmond said a $2 million congressionally-directed request through Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin's office for remediation and demolition efforts passed the appropriations committee and now is part of the budget to be considered by the U.S. House and Senate.

The U.S. EPA is also providing technical assistance to Moving Pillsbury Forward that includes best re-use of the site based on the Phase 2 study. A private contractor which specializes in Brownfield sites and hired by and paid for by the U.S. EPA will give advice and support to the group.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Geologist's report noted absence of harmful toxins at Pillsbury site