CLINTON - A state lawmaker said Tuesday he will continue to investigate the application process involving a controversial effort to store additional chemical waste at Clinton Landfill.

State Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, hosted an informational forum Tuesday night at the Vespasian Warner Public Library in Clinton. About 20 people, including representatives from the landfill, attended.

"I've had some calls on this from the Clinton area, as well as from other parts of DeWitt County in addition to Logan County and Macon County," Mitchell said. "People are concerned that the landfill sits on top of the Mahomet Aquifer, which provides drinking water for several communities around the area."

Area Disposal Service Inc. has started the process of applying for a permit to convert a portion of the landfill to a chemical waste landfill.

While the DeWitt County Board has gone on record in support of the plan, Clinton-based We're Against Toxic Chemicals, or WATCH, has organized to oppose it.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will make the decision on issuing the permit, and that is not expected for several months.

Mitchell arranged for representatives from the IEPA to address the audience. Phil Child, a representative of the IEPA Land Division addressed the main issue: the potential storage of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a category of now-banned toxic compounds used chiefly as coolants and insulation in electrical equipment.

"PCBs are manmade and can be solids or liquids and they have no taste," Child said.

"They can be in the food you eat or the liquids you drink," he said. "They are in the steaks you eat as well as the fish you eat. PCBs like soil and is not easily mixed into water unless it is mixed with chemicals."

Child said there are no 100 percent guarantees that a problem wouldn't arise from a landfill that stores PCBs, but he expressed confidence that the landfill has enough checks and balances to ensure public safety.

"What I told Representative Mitchell was that if you are going to have me live near a landfill, put me near one that stores PCBs," he said. "Because the PCBs would go into the soil and would be stored there."

Mitchell said he has not made a decision on whether or not he would support the plan for the permit at the landfill.