Demolition begins on a building in Dallas considered one of the “most polluted sites in the US”.

DALLAS – Residents of East Oak Cliff are ecstatic that a long-closed building that used hazardous chemicals and left the ground polluted is finally collapsing.

Concerned about the potential threat to public health, the government stepped up its plans to demolish the old East Oak Cliff electroplating plant, which has been identified as one of the most polluted sites in the country.

Gloria Barnes works for the Arden Terrace Homeowners Association. A smile lit up her face as she watched the Lane Plating Works Company descend on Thursday.

“It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful today,” she said.

“This demolition has been long overdue,” council member Tennell Atkins said. “It started almost four, five years ago.”

The Environmental Protection Agency calls this place one of the most polluted in the country.

Lane Plating Works was located in this area called Arden Terrace along Bonnie View, south of Loop 12 in East Oak Cliff, for 90 years.

“It stood all these years and no one knew what was going on here,” Barnes said.

A galvanic shop worked there with the installation of fines and investigations. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2015, closing its doors and leaving behind large volumes of liquid coating waste.

“The EPA has been working on this site since 2016 and added it to the list of national priorities in 2018,” said EPA Regional Administrator Dr. Ertie Nance.

The assessments identified five contaminants: hexavalent chromium, arsenic, mercury, lead and chromium.

“We’ve waited so long,” Barnes said. “And we don’t know how many lives he infected, you know.”

But due to what was found inside the building and the ground, and because people were hiding inside, the property was fenced in and sped up as a superfund site.

“The demolition of this building should be completed by the end of February, after which the contaminated soil, which is approximately 11,000 tons of soil, will be excavated and removed,” said Eric Delgado, local EPA coordinator. “It’s a lot. This is more than I have ever done in my career.”

Freshman Representative Jasmine Crockett returned from D.C. and is in the county for demolition.

“As a community, we are taking vital steps to ensure that the people of South Dallas and Arden Terrace live in a cleaner and safer community, which should literally be a basic human right,” she said.

Barnes doesn’t know what will eventually come here, but he knows that things will be much better.

“Something that will benefit the whole neighborhood,” she said.

After all soil is removed, the government will work with a community advisory group to discuss what will be welcome in the community on the five acres where there were EPA warnings.