Toxic Soil Cleanup Near RDU Could Start Soon

RALEIGH, N.C. — Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency met Tuesday to discuss a plan to clean up an estimated 100,000 tons of toxic soil near Raleigh-Durham International Airport in Morrisville.

Environmental officials say cancer-causing chemicals called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) leaked from transformers at Ward Transformer facility between Interstate 40 and N.C. Highway 70.

Investigators found high levels of (PCBs) on 11 acres of land near the airport in the 1970s.

Since then, the chemical seeped into Lake Crabtree and has moved four miles downstream, causing warnings to go up about eating fish from the water.

Most of the soil will be excavated and heated so that the PCBs are destroyed. That process will begin in about two months.