Show must go on: Crews move big, white tent in Belleville

The big, white tent on the edge of downtown Belleville is being disassembled.

But that doesn’t mean Ameren’s coal tar cleanup project off South Sixth Street is finished. Crews are just taking down the tent so they can put it back up over another part of the contaminated site along Richland Creek.

They will repeat this process several times until the middle of 2018 when the cleanup is expected to be finished. The work began last year.

Ameren is spending $35 million to remove the soil contaminated with coal tar and then haul the soil to the Milam landfill in East St. Louis.

Coal tar is a byproduct from the late 1800s and early 1900s when the Belleville Gas Light and Coke Co. produced gas from coal. The gas was used to light the city’s street lights. The fuel was stored in brick or concrete containers and some of coal tar that accumulated at the bottom of the container leaked into the ground.

Ameren assumed the liability for the cleanup when it purchased Illinois Power Co. in 2004. The land is owned by the city.

The tent, which is 132 feet wide, 300 feet long and 48 feet high, covers the area being excavated to prevent contaminants from being released into the air.

“The project is going well,” said Brian Martin, supervisor of environmental compliance for Ameren. “We had some difficulties dealing with the heavy rains this spring and summer but we’ve gotten past them.”

Martin said contractors for Ameren have excavated to a depth of 45 feet in some spots.

“That’s a huge undertaking,” Martin said. “A lot of engineering goes into the design of the sheet piling and all the safety precautions we have to take to brace the excavation so it doesn’t collapse. It’s quite a process.”

A big step in the three-year cleanup is yet to come:

Ameren contractors will temporarily divert Richland Creek around the site and then later channel the water back to the original creek bed. This phase will begin next year.

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 3:18 PM with the headline "Show must go on: Crews move big, white tent in Belleville."