Environmental Protection Agency announces start date to demolish Penrose funeral home
PENROSE, Colo. (KRDO) - The Penrose funeral home, where almost 200 decomposing bodies were found improperly stored, will be demolished by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in January.
The EPA released details about the demolition plan. They say that work is expected to begin on Jan. 17, 2024, and last approximately 10 days, weather permitting.
The cleanup will be conducted under the direction of EPA’s Emergency Response personnel and its trained hazardous materials contractors.
The EPA says that to prepare the site for demolition, they will continue to work with Fremont County, CDPHE, and the local utility companies to ensure safety control measures are established at the site.
Before and during demolition, the EPA says contractors will spray a disinfectant and odor suppressant into the interior of the building.
A staging area for loading trucks with demolition materials will be located next to the building.
According to the EPA, once demolition begins, excavators will start to break up the building from the top down and remove large pieces of the structure, while working to keep it within the foundation footprint.
During this process, the EPA says they will use water and other liquid solutions for dust suppression, but not in quantities that would cause runoff of contamination from the interior of the building to the ground surface outside.
The EPA's plan states that ground crews will manage demolition materials to ensure the loading process into the dump trucks is efficient and protective. According to the EPA, these materials will be prepared and loaded into trucks following applicable regulations and landfill requirements.
Once the building and concrete foundation slab have been removed, the EPA says that they will conduct a shallow surface scrape of soil on the footprint of the building. The soils will be transported to the landfill through the same process as the building materials.
