ST. PAUL — The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is asking Ford Motor Co. to examine a dump site at its former St. Paul plant this month to make sure it is free of troublesome contamination.

If anything is found to be a risk at the site, Ford will have to clean it up before the state agency will approve the land for sale for redevelopment.

Ford “really wants closure from the MPCA and they understand there’s a process to get there,” said Amy Hadiaris, a hydrogeologist who works for the state agency’s voluntary cleanup program.

Officials with Ford Land in Dearborn, Michigan, say the company is voluntarily working with the state agency to investigate and clean up the site. Ford says tests so far show that groundwater and the river have not been impacted.

But members of the Friends of the Mississippi River are concerned. The group wants Ford to sift the entire mound, which sits 65 feet above the river and covers about 4 acres, for industrial waste, and to determine the feasibility and cost of removing the dump and returning the site to its original state.