INDIANAPOLIS — Starting this month, crews will begin construction on a new cleanup system at the Reilly Tar Superfund site in West Indianapolis.

The 120-acre site at 1500 S. Tibbs Ave. has a long history of contamination.

It operated as a specialty chemicals production facility since the 1950s. Until 1972, a coal-tar refining and wood treatment facility that used creosote operated at the site. Creosote is a substance considered a likely contributor to cancer. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, site operators used a trench, a landfill and several pits to dispose of waste. Those waste handling practices contaminated the groundwater and soil.

The EPA placed it on the Superfund program’s National Priorities List in 1984.

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