May 02--A 75-acre site where Andrew Corp. made wireless communications equipment for decades in Orland Park will likely soon receive a clean bill of health after years of environmental cleanup.
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency officials said a consultant hired to remove contaminated soil at the site, 10500 W. 153rd St., submitted a report a few weeks ago, indicating that it believes the cleanup is complete.
The IEPA still needs to review the report and the results of post-treatment soil testing, but Keith Fetzner, of Environmental Resources Management, the consulting firm, said he's confident they're "essentially done."
If the IEPA agrees, the property would be ready for sale, according to Fetzner and Joyce Munie, manager of the IEPA's Remedial Project Management Section.
Andrew voluntarily participated in the environmental remediation program, which will certify that the site is suitable for either industrial or commercial use, Munie said.
Rick Aspan, a spokesman for North Carolina-based CommScope, which bought Andrew in 2007, said the property isn't yet for sale as the company focuses on completing the remediation work.
Andrew left Orland Park in 2006, moving its headquarters to Westchester and building a plant in Joliet. It planned to sell the Orland Park land to a developer, but the sale fell through.
Testing uncovered the soil contamination in 2008, and Andrew took the property off the market, Aspan said previously.
Those tests found volatile organic compounds and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, Munie said. It's not clear where the contamination came from, but PCBs typically come from oils and are often found in transformers, she said.
If people come into contact with those chemicals, it can increase their risk of cancer, Munie said, but there's no reason to think that the public was at risk because of the polluted soil.
"It was all below ground, so there's no reason to think John Q. Public is going to come into contact with it," she said, adding that tests of soil near the property's outer edges came back clean.
The cleanup has been going on for about five years, Fetzner said. Munie said some contaminated soil was removed from the site, while other areas were treated.
Initially, Environmental Resources Management mixed iron and clay into the soil so it would react with contaminants and degrade them, Fetzner said.
More recently, he said, the company has been using a method that doesn't disrupt the soil as much, one in which 20-foot-long electrodes are inserted into the ground and heat is then used to break down contaminants.
"We'll just hopefully hear back from [the IEPA] in a month or so," Fetzner said. "The sooner, the better."
lzumbach@tribpub.com
