A longtime watchdog group has filed a complaint with the state Environmental Protection Agency claiming that a Superfund cleanup effort at Illinois Beach State Park is allowing asbestos and other toxic chemicals to enter the park.
The Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society, which has monitored the park since it was created in 1950, filed the complaint last week against Denver-based Johns Manville Corp., which owns an asbestos-contaminated industrial site on the park’s southern boundary, officials said.
Preservation Society President Paul Kakuris said that in the process of dismantling the site, the company has allowed water runoff contaminated with asbestos dust and other chemicals to run into the park.
The park and the plant are along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
“Many endangered species at the preserve are imperiled by these toxic chemicals leaking like a sieve into Lake Michigan and the southern boundary of the park,” Kakuris said. The Illinois EPA “needs to be motivated to get out there and measure the levels of toxic substances in the runoff.”
Johns Manville spokeswoman Peggy Mackinnon said Monday that the cleanup is “totally in compliance” with the Superfund consent decree.
“We’ve gone out of our way to be environmentally responsible,” Mackinnon said. The plant is being dismantled under a mist of water to ensure that asbestos dust doesn’t become airborne, she said.
The water runoff, which flows into Lake Michigan, is filtered “to drinking-water status” via an industrial canal, Mackinnon said.
Bruce Ray, an environmental attorney for Johns Manville, said any runoff is coming from the park, not the canal.
“There’s a geographic rise to the north of the plant that causes water runoff from the park to run into the canal,” Ray said. “Under the consent decree, we were to build a dike to prevent this, but the state asked us not to do it.”
A spokeswoman for the IEPA said the agency is reviewing the complaint.
“We are looking at this as a citizen complaint that requires further research,” Tammy Mitchell said. “To this point, the cleanup effort has been in compliance.”
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