LOUISVILLE, Ky. — On Thursday, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg and other local and federal authorities announced the hoarder house filled with dangerous chemicals is no longer a threat to the public.
"And the risk of explosion, reaction and fire is over," Greenberg said.
For 10 days, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) crews have led the effort to dismantle the home at 6213 Applegate Lane, piece by piece. Officials discovered hazardous materials and explosives inside the Highview neighborhood house back in August.
The way the EPA handled this biohazard event was a "true testament of how these operations are supposed to go," Jody Meiman, executive director of Louisville Metro EMS, said.
The process began with crews dismantling the home's roof and walls. Then they removed materials inside the home and placed them in a steel tank in the backyard to be processed, allowing for it to be safety taken off-site and to a landfill.
DRONE: Progress continues as Applegate Lane home is demolished
"The EPA has safety remediated the site," Greenberg said in a news conference. "All chemicals and debris have been processed from the site of 6213 Applegate Lane and by the end of the next day or so, all of that material would have been removed from the site."
Authorities said the chemicals are all being shipped off to an MSD facility for temporary storage, until they can find an appropriate place to store and manage the materials long term. The storage containers used to barricade the home for protection will be removed by Thursday night, officials said.
Chuck Berry, federal on-scene coordinator for the EPA, revealed crews ended up discovering more than 100 different chemicals in the home, more than five times what city officials initially estimated. Berry said entire trays and racks of chemicals were even removed from the home.
A controlled burn, initially described by the city as the only safe option, was quickly taken off the table after the EPA first toured the site several weeks ago.
Greenberg said the EPA's solution was less disruptive to the neighborhood and was overall safer.
"This process worked exactly as it's supposed to. This is exactly what should have happened there," Berry said.
Berry told reporters that although the agency has a long history of emergency response work, this home in Louisville has been unique.
"It is pretty common for us to deal with basement chemists, we frequently deal with hoarding situations where chemicals are involved and often deal with explosives but it's pretty rare... where we've dealt with all three of those at once at one site," Berry said.
He said the fact that all these factors were happening at once made cleanup efforts more difficult and more dangerous for all involved.
When asked if crews ever came across any chemicals that would have made a controlled burn a problem, Berry replied, "yes."
According to an affidavit ordering the burn, the home contained "over 20 different chemicals." Berry revealed that crews ended up finding way more chemicals than that.
On Thursday, WHAS11 Senior Reporter Isaiah Kim-Martinez asked what chemicals made the operation so delicate.
"We found additional mercury in the home. We found a couple of poison-inhalation compounds, some Grignard reagents. We found pyrophoric material which reacts on contact with water and air. There are a lot of chemicals in there that probably should not have been stored in a residential environment," Berry said.
According to the EPA, the agency was given a budget of $1.4 million from the federal Superfund program to complete the cleanup. The program is designed to remediate hazardous sites.
Officials don't yet know what the final cost will be, however, they believe it will be close to the budget.
Though there is no longer a risk to neighbors and the general public, officials said there will still be disruptions and road closures while crews work to remove the foundation of concrete and restore the plot of land -- a process they say could take at least a week.
"We're going to remove the foundation concrete, and then we're going to fill the hole in and grate the site down in controlled water -- and get some grass growing on it so it doesn't erode off," Berry said.
On Monday, the Highview home's owner, Marc Hibel, posted a $10,000 bond and was released.
Hibel was ordered to have no contact with chemicals or dangerous substances and has been ordered to receive inpatient treatment.
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