KALAMAZOO — Be patient: That’s the message from federal regulators to advocates and stakeholders pressing for the cleanup of hundreds of thousands of pounds of sediment and soil in the Kalamazoo River. The river is contaminated with harmful polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a remnant of the papermaking industry that flourished along the river for most of the 20th century.

And even though an 80-mile stretch of the river from east of Kalamazoo to Lake Michigan was declared a Superfund site in 1990 — one of “the biggest and most complex Superfund sites in the region,” according to Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Mick Hans — cleanup work has slowed in 2009 after two years of the most progress seen since the Superfund declaration.

The reason?

The U.S. arm of chemical giant LyondellBasell Industries — Millennium Holdings LLC, which, along with Georgia-Pacific Corp., has been financing the cleanup projects — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this year.

And while Georgia-Pacific is keeping up its end of the deal, Millennium has said that it won’t emerge from bankruptcy until January 2010. The company has also said it doesn’t have to finance cleanup projects at sites it does not own while it is in bankruptcy.

“It’s a difficult situation, and the bankruptcy has not uncomplicated matters,” said Jim Saric, the EPA’s remedial project manager for the project. “Georgia-Pacific’s commitment has been strong. They’ve gone above and beyond.”

But the company said it is willing to go only so far.

“We have let (the EPA) know that we will continue to meet the requirements of our company’s existing agreements,” said Georgia-Pacific spokeswoman Gail Smith.

“It’s too soon to say what may happen with the overall river cleanup project. We don’t believe Georgia-Pacific should have to finance the cleanup on our own. We will pay our share, but we believe there are other companies that are responsible for some of the contamination in the Kalamazoo River that should be contributing to the cleanup costs.”

Smith said that the company had provided information to the EPA on other potential sources of PCBs to the river but added, “It is up to the agency to follow up.”

EPA attorneys are also working to identify other companies that might have added PCBs to the river, Hans said.

“The longer a site sits unaddressed, the greater chance some economic factor like a bankruptcy can happen,” said James Clift, policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council.

“Unfortunately, the Kalamazoo site was known about for decades, but action was slow. If something had been done earlier, there might have been more money on the table.”

Stalling saves money

It took nearly three years of closed-door negotiations among the EPA and the two companies before an agreement was reached in early 2007 to pay for the cleanup of PCBs from a 1.5-mile stretch of the river near Plainwell, about 10 miles north of Kalamazoo. In June of that year, work began. The $25 million project wrapped up in December.

A second agreement totaling $15 million was also reached two years ago to pay for investigative work along the river to look for PCB hot spots in floodplains and river banks from Plainwell to the Morrow Dam, just east of Kalamazoo.

But the momentum seems to have slowed.

Some small-scale work removing PCBs from near a dam about three miles upstream from Plainwell could take place this year, along with other smaller projects, like planting native vegetation along newly remediated areas.

“We’d like to build on the momentum we’ve got,” Saric said. “We’ve got to do the best we can with the resources we’ve got.”

The EPA relies heavily on identifying “potentially responsible parties” to finance cleanup projects of contaminated areas nationwide.

“Time is money,” the Michigan Environmental Council’s Clift said. “The longer [a corporation] waits, the less money it spends on projects [up front] so costs to the company are reduced.” He explained that when the costs of a phased-in clean up are spread out over a number of years, the financial burden for polluters is eased.

“Even when there is recognized liability, the strategy is to go slow,” Clift said. “That’s why the government should apply more pressure” to quicken the remediation and limit the long-term environmental damage.

Still, in spite of what some feel is a tortuously slow process, Hans said the current model for getting contaminated sites like the Kalamazoo River remediated remains viable.

“There is not a better model in the world,” he said. “It’s a process. It’s not always as quick or efficient as some would like, but if you stick with it, you see results.

“The questions and concerns we’ve heard are legitimate.”

Since the change in administrations in Washington, D.C., the EPA has taken new action dealing with toxic dioxin contamination in the Saginaw River watershed, calling off negotiations with Midland-based Dow Chemical Co., the source of the toxic substance. But don’t take that as a sign the agency will be moving faster on Kalamazoo River cleanup.

“They are two completely different (projects),” Hans said.

“I understand the frustration and how things haven’t moved as quickly as some would like,” Saric said. “But we’re looking ahead. It’s going to take time. It’s a long, complicated process.”

Chris Killian is a freelance journalist based in Kalamazoo and writes regularly for the Kalamazoo Gazette.