KALAMAZOO, MI -- What if the polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, buried on the Allied Paper landfill site in Kalamazoo could be rendered completely harmless, broken down into inert substances: chloride salt, carbon dioxide and water?

What if that process could be undertaken for $15 million less than a plan to simply cover up the hazardous waste there?

Kalamazoo city staff, staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and representatives from a North Carolina company are planning to meet soon to hash out the possibility of an alternative cleanup plan for the Allied Paper Superfund landfill.

City commissioners had been ready Monday night, Dec. 7, to adopt resolution of support for a $63 million EPA plan to seal 1.6 million cubic yards of contaminated soil under an impermeable cap and call it done. It is a proposal the EPA fashioned when it was faced with the estimated $189 million cost of completely removing contaminants from the old landfill site.

But instead, they were persuaded to take a closer look at a

BioPath Solutions. The company's representative said they propose to enable native micro-organisms already in the soil to break down the polychlorinated biphenyls at the site.

The Allied Paper landfill is located on Kalamazoo's south side, bounded roughly by Cork, Burdick and Alcott streets and Portage Creek to the east.

That clean-up alternative, using a process called enzymatic dechlorination, eliminates the pollution instead of burying it.

The company has proposed to handle the job at a cost of $48 million, about $15 million less than the EPA's capping plan. If the alternative doesn't completely do the job, the firm will cap the site in accordance with the EPA plan within the same $48 million price tag.

"Either by enzymatic dechlorination or by consolidating and capping, we can remediate the site," said Anne Lerums, vice president of business development for BioPath Solutions, which is based in Denver, North Carolina.

BioPath is confident the bacteria can get the job done.

The technology of using micro-organisms to break down contaminants isn't new, said Bruce Merchant, the city's consultant for the cleaning up the site. But it is far more complicated than simply boosting the populations of native bacteria on the landfill surface and watching them go to work.

The reason chlorinated compounds such as PCBs are so persistent in the environment is that their chlorine shuts down the enzyme that bacteria normally use to decompose material.

BioPath holds an exclusive license on a product that allows the bacteria to resume natural production of the enzyme they need, and to break down pollutants such as PCBs just as they break down other organic matter found in nature, Lerums said.

Moisture, oxygen, nutrient supplements, and BioPath's product are the components needed to allow contaminated paper wastes to be reduced to harmless parts. After the enzyme enabler is added, the process is akin to working a compost pile or farm field, with the contaminated landfill wastes dug up and arranged into windrows, then stirred by machinery.

Each application cycle can reduce PCBs by 90 percent, and each cycle takes 10-12 weeks to complete, Lerums said. Some areas may need more than one cycle but BioPath believes it can clean up the entire site in the same time frame proposed for the EPA's original capping plan of about two to four years.

Upon completion, the land will be a clean field, returned to the city (or another party identified by the city) at no cost.

Merchant said he has questions. One logistics problem: There is not enough space on the site to spread out the entire landfill volume at once, so it would likely be done in stages, the city's consultant said.

Another possible obstacle -- the clay that the PCBs at this site are bound to may make it more difficult than usual for the microorganisms to do their work.

Also, BioPath has never done a project of this volume, with such a high concentration of PCBs, Merchant said.

"Its one thing to take a couple of thousand cubic yards, it's another to take 1.6 million cubic yards," he said. "There's a lot of material handling associated with the process, and it needs a lot of machinery, and also some time."

From the EPA's point of view, Merchant said, there needs to be controlled scientific studies that show PCBs actually being reduced by these organisms to make sure the results are reproducible and that BioPath can get the reductions it promises.

"I think it's worth study, and EPA has offered to do some study in the lab from this actual site," he said.

Rachel Bassler, a spokeswoman for EPA's Region 5, which includes Michigan, said EPA staff are willing to work with BioPath to facilitate a study to determine whether its technology could work for the wastes at Allied Landfill.

"EPA is always interested in exploring treatment technologies," Bassler said. "Superfund seeks to treat waste whenever possible."

There are some concerns, however, that the Allied site presents obstacles that might be too difficult to overcome with bioremediation.

"The nature of waste at Allied Landfill makes any kind of treatment very difficult," Bassler said. "The PCBs are tightly bound to clay and wood pulp that make up the former paper waste," she said. "EPA previously reviewed the known treatment technologies and their potential applicability to Allied Landfill."

The EPA's conclusion?

"Our evaluation of technologies concluded that none of the technologies (including bioremediation) were a match for the waste at Allied Landfill," Bassler said. (Click here to see these studies.)

Whether BioPath's approach might work "can only be determined with a bench-scale study that meets rigorous standards," she continued. "Our understanding of the BioPath technology to-date factored into our past conclusions that bioremediation would not be effective at the site."

Lerums said the company is currently collecting samples of PCB laden soils from downstream of the landfill for its treatability studies and would document its success on those samples.

If BioPath Solutions is given the go-ahead, its plan calls for title and the environmental liability for the site to transfer from the trust company with which it currently rests to Commercial Liability Partners, BioPath's team member.

The $48 million available for the cleanup would go into an escrow account, Lerums said, to be paid out in increments to BioPath as cleanup goals are reached. The on-site work will be performed by Catskill Remedial Contracting Services, an Otsego-based environmental contractor that has operated successfully for 20 years and has worked on about 200 landfills in the Midwest, Lerums said.

If the technology is not fully successful and a cap is necessary, $15 million of the $48 million will be left in escrow for long-term operations and maintenance of the capped area, she said.

The BioPath vice president said structuring the transfer of the site and its liabilities to the BioPath group allows the company to manage the cleanup, all in accordance with laws and regulations of the EPA.

"In response to feedback that we've received, we have developed a plan that benefits and protects all stakeholders, including the city and its residents," Lerums said.

Rosemary Parker is a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette and MLive.com. Contact her at rparker3@mlive.com.