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Winston-Thomas

Winston-Thomas Sewage Treatment Facility

The Winston-Thomas Treatment Plant (WTTP) was the City of Bloomington's wastewater treatment plant until the early 1980s, when it was permanently closed due to PCB contamination. Westinghouse had been discharging PCBs from their manufacturing plant to the WTTP since the late 1950s. Every component of the wastewater treatment plant was contaminated, and everywhere that sludge was deposited was also contaminated. Sludge was pumped into the ground, spread on the surface of soil at the plant, and it was given to local farmers and backyard gardeners for use as organic soil amendments.

A temporary structure called the Interim Storage Facility was built on the property of the WTTP to house contaminated material removed from other locations in Bloomington: the Anderson Road Landfill, stream sediments that were dredged from Clear Creek and Richland Creek, and capacitors taken from various locations.

Twenty-three years after the PCB contamination was first discovered, the WTTP was finally cleaned up. Most of the material was excavated and taken to off-site TSCA or special waste landfills.

Related to the work at WTTP was the cleaning up the Westside of Clear Creek (this was not part of the original plan, but PCBs were found there) Read the comments and EPA's responses released on May 12, 1998. At the same time, the EPA published an Action Memorandum detailing the cleanup procedures for this site. The Statement of Work plan was also included. There are several attachments and figures associated with both the Action Memorandum and Work Plan and many are in pdf file format.

Weekly Reports on Cleanup Work done at Winston Thomas:


Warning! Eat no fish from Clear Creek, Pleasant Run, Salt or Richland Creeks.

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