De Soto ? The environmental cleanup of the defunct Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant will resume later this spring and proceed at a relatively quick pace, said the man who is heading the effort for the plant’s new owners.

Mikkel Anderson, chief technical officer and founding partner of International Risk Group, said the guarantee of federal and private money dedicated to the cleanup – including $110 million from the Army – means the end to the incremental, start-and-stop cleanup that characterized past remediation as the Army spent money allotted for portions of the job and then waited for Congress to provide more.

The goal is to complete the cleanup in seven years, Anderson said. To that end, large-scale remediation work would start at the plant in May with the resumption of work to rid the plant of explosive residue.

“There’s a little preparation work going on, but not anything as visible as having heavy machinery moving stuff or a plume of smoke if you’re burning something,” he said. “Explosives and explosive issues will be given priority. Some of that does require burning; all of that will be done in three years.”

Anderson’s International Risk Group is partnering with the Kansas City real estate company Kessinger/Hunter and Co. in Sunflower Redevelopment LLC, which will turn the plant and its environs into a major commercial-industrial-residential development that could dominate the K-10 corridor in coming years.

But first, there’s the cleanup.

How it works

Federal funding for the cleanup is allotted in two separate pots: one to restore soil polluted with nonexplosive contaminants, and a second to rid the plant of explosive hazards. Because it is more time-consuming – and the soil decontamination can’t be safely conducted otherwise – the explosive cleanup will be given priority, Anderson said.

The 3,000 acres that will be transferred to the city of De Soto, Johnson County parks and recreation, and Kansas and Kansas State universities will be cleaned before the remaining 6,000 acres that Sunflower Redevelopment will develop. Because of the location of a majority of those public benefit properties, the plant will be generally cleaned from the outside in and from the north to the south.

The “explosive remediation” includes burning those structures potentially contaminated with nitroglycerin during the manufacture of munitions at the plant, removal of sewer lines possibly containing explosive residue, and removal of soil with a high enough concentration of explosive pollution to be dangerous, Anderson said.

That effort would include the burning of about 110 structures, Anderson said.

Under regulations, Sunflower Redevelopment can burn only when weather conditions are favorable and will surround burning structures with an umbrella of water to prevent large pieces of debris from being carried off in hot rising air.

To safely remove the contaminated sewers, detonation cord would be threaded through parts of the line and set off to trigger the blast of any remaining nitroglycerin, Anderson said.

“It’s not the kind of explosives one would associate with the quarry next door,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll have a daily booming activity out there.”

Finally, soil polluted with nonexplosive materials will be dug up, encased in concrete-like pellets and hauled to landfills.

“Pretty much the intent of the job right now is to dig and haul,” Anderson said. “It’s the least costly and controversial way to deal with the site with minor exceptions.”