"Toxic Cleanup Shifts From Dirt Near RDU To Region’s Streams, Lakes"

"An 8-acre mound of oven-baked dirt -- so sterile that no worms or weeds can live in it -- is all that remains after an $82 million Superfund cleanup at the site of Ward Transformer Co., the Triangle’s nastiest industrial polluter.

But Ward’s half-century legacy of toxic PCB contamination will linger in the Raleigh area for years to come in creeks and lakes from Raleigh-Durham International Airport west of the city to the Neuse River on the east side.

In the next few weeks, environmental scientists will start the most extensive round yet of tests to determine how much more cleanup work will be needed to remove cancer-causing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in 6 miles of stream beds and lake bottoms downstream from the former Ward plant near RDU. And they will check to see whether there are still dangerous PCB levels in the flesh of fish that swim as far as 32 miles downstream in Crabtree Creek and part of the Neuse."

Bruce Siceloff reports for the Raleigh News and Observer July 19, 2014.