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FMC's drills poised to tap samples
for new cleanup investigation
BY DAN BOYD dboyd@journalnet.com
Idaho State Journal May 31, 2007
POCATELLO — A new round of underground testing at a largely barren industrial site just outside the Gate City is expected to begin during the second week of June.
Drill rigs will extract 20-foot deep core samples in order to determine the best future course of action at the now defunct FMC site, said Paul Yochum, a consultant and former plant manager for the Philadelphia-based corporation.
Although FMC and Simplot, its neighbor to the east, spent more than $30 million on an initial feasibility study to investigate cleanup options published in 1994, that study didn't focus on those areas of the plant still in operation.
After the FMC plant — which first opened in Pocatello in 1949 and processed 2 million tons of raw material annually during its heyday — closed in December 2001 and was demolished, another round of testing was deemed necessary.
The official go-ahead for that test, called a supplemental remedial investigation, was recently approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and FMC has hired the experts who will conduct the tests.
"Ultimately what you're doing is saying, 'What can we do for remediation?'" Yochum said.
Yochum said a timeline of the drilling depends on the findings but is expected to last until November. In addition to random underground sampling, FMC's slag piles are also expected to be tested.
The majority of the FMC site lies on the Fort Hall Reservation, but a large chunk of non-reservation land on site is slated for a 520-megawatt coal gasification plant.
Plans for the gasification plant were announced in March 2005, but months of silence have led to speculation that plans might be changing, or be scrapped completely.
At least one former FMC official has cited the Old Works golf course in Anaconda, Mont., located near the site of a defunct copper smelting operation, as another possible future model for the site.
While EPA officials have worked closely with FMC since the Eastern Michaud Flats was declared a Superfund site in 1990, the relationship hasn't always been a pacific one.
Last September, the now defunct local phosphorous giant agreed to an $85,000 settlement for Clean Air Act violations committed three years after the company shut down its primary operations.
While local EPA officials couldn't be reached Tuesday, Yochum said he wasn't sure why the agency waited for more than five years after the plant's closure to OK the supplemental testing.
JOURNAL FILE PHOTO The old FMC plant was shut down and demolished in late 2001 and early 2002. Corporate officials announced Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new round of underground testing at the site to determine a course of action for the area.
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