The 31-acre cleanup site is next to Jaxport. | Greenfield Environmental Multistate Trust LLC
Published on January 15, 2025 at 4:37 pm
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Eastside residents who live or work near a former pesticide plant in Jacksonville can expect more backhoes and trucks, as remediation of the Kerr-McGee Superfund site starts in the next eight weeks.
The 31-acre cleanup site between the St. John’s River and Talleyrand Avenue abuts Jaxport property to the north and Deer Creek to the south. Kerr-McGee (and its predecessors) made fertilizers and pesticides there from 1893 to 1978.
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The cleanup is expected to take two years at a cost of $53 million in federal funds.
Remediation will include covering the entire site with a low-permeability cap to protect the groundwater and installing a bulkhead to keep any contaminated soil out of the river.
As part of the project, a newer remedial investigation began in October to collect samples from adjacent Deer Creek to see if contamination has spread. If it has, the cleanup will address that too.
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Representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Multistate Trust response team have been communicating with residents about how dust and traffic will be managed around the site.
Dee Harris and her family are longtime residents of the eastside area, and she has been keeping up with the remediation plans for years. She came to one of the community meetings Tuesday near the cleanup site.
Harris is concerned about what crews are removing and hopes that air checks will be made to be sure it’s safe for nearby residents. She hopes there’s oversight from “cleanup to redevelopment so that no investor could scoop it up and decide to do something they shouldn’t do on it.”
Charles King, project manager for the EPA, assured residents at recent community meetings that “any future operations are monitored by different branches of the EPA and Florida to make sure any future operations do not cause any additional pollution.”
Multistate Trust Project Manager Peter Cornais said, “Requirements at a Superfund site call for the EPA to look at our plans and make sure that future residents are safe.”
Cornais said the property in the predominantly industrial area is under contract to be sold to Certainteed, a large wallboard-making company that is a subsidiary of Paris-based Saint-Gobain, a manufacturer of light and sustainable construction materials.
Cleanup officials are continuing to address any concerns that residential and industrial neighbors may have about managing the cleanup. More information about project can be found at multistatetrust.org.
