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The 22nd Street Station Site (Site) is located at 2200 South Racine, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, in a mixed residential, commercial, and industrial area. The site is bordered to the north by Cermak Road, to the east by an electrical substation owned by Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), and to the south by the South Branch of the Chicago River. The Site is approximately 7.2 acres in size and is occupied by ComEd.
The Site is a former manufactured gas plant (MGP) that operated as an MGP facility from approximately 1862 to 1958. The Site was initially developed by Peoples Gas to produce coal gas. In 1934 it was modified to produce carbureted water gas and oil gas. In 1944, two production sets were modified to produce reformed natural gas. Peoples Gas began leasing portions of the site to ComEd in 1931 and sold the last portion to ComEd in 1959. The MGP facility at the Site stopped operating in 1958 and the plant was entirely dismantled by 1960.
A preliminary assessment of the Site was conducted by Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) in 1988. Peoples Gas performed site investigations between 2000 and 2002. A Remedial Objectives Report (ROR) was developed that recommended the removal of impacted material from several on-site locations.
Remediation activities, consisting of excavation and disposal of contaminated soils, were begun by Peoples Gas in April 2006 under the IEPA Site Remediation Program. Peoples Gas is the potentially responsible party (PRP) for this site. The PRP contractor remediating the Site is Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, Inc. (BMcD) along with their subcontractors.
Site activities by the PRP include excavation to depths ranging from 3 feet to 30 feet below ground surface (bgs). Other site activities by the PRP include daily air monitoring, continuous 24-hour perimeter air monitoring and sampling, confirmation soil sampling, and water treatment and discharge to sanitary sewer.
Site features at the 22nd Street Station include active utility lines that must be supported during excavation work. One area of the site is considered a High Risk Evolution (HRE) area by ComEd. ComEd has placed restrictions on excavation in this area.
Prior to the U.S. EPA oversight at the Site, BMcD excavated impacted material in the east gas holder (to a depth of approximately 20 feet bgs) and portions of the former Throop’s Canal (to a depth of approximately 30 feet bgs). Please see the BMcD map of excavation areas under "documents" on OSC website. An Administrative Order on Consent was signed by Peoples Gas in early June 2007, prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) to begin PRP oversight activities at the Site.
On June 12, 2007, a kick-off meeting was held at the 22nd Street Site between U.S. EPA, START, Peoples Gas, and BMcD, to discuss future oversight activities, documents required, and logistics for transmitting data and documents. The meeting addressed three MGP sites that U.S. EPA would be overseeing that are located within one mile of each other: 22nd Street Station, Hough Place, and Pitney Court. Note that one START member is to cover oversight of these three sites and will rotate being at a different site each day. Both Hough Place and Pitney Court remediations are expected to be completed by end of 2007 while the 22nd Street Station Site remediation is expected to be completed by the end of 2008.
On June 18, 2007, U.S. EPA began PRP oversight activities at the three Peoples Gas MGP sites: Hough Place Station, Pitney Court, and 22nd Street Station. The U.S. EPA Superfund Technical and Response Team (START) contractor is performing PRP oversight during the removal activities at the sites. As part of the removal activities, START collects confirmation samples of soil to confirm that the PRP cleanup objectives are being met. Samples are being collected to identify the potential presence of the following site contaminants of concern:
• Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX);
• Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH);
• Synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP) lead, manganese, and selenium;
• Carbon disulfide [a volatile organic compound (VOC)];
• 2-Methylnaphthalene and 4-chloroanaline [semivolatile organic compounds (SVOC)]; and
• Total lead, manganese, and selenium.
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