For sale. Thirty acres. Neighboring parcels vacant too. Owner motivated to sell.

Interested?

The Industrial Excess Landfill, a Superfund site, will soon be for sale, according to a consent degree in the U.S. District Court.

The decree prohibits using the land for building homes or apartments or "extracting groundwater" below the landfill.

It could be greenspace. Over the years, former township trustees and a township led-subcommittee investigated potential uses for the former landfill. Such discussion included tennis courts, soccer fields and hiking trails. The trustees secured a $100,000 grant to explore redevelopment of a landfill known to accept 780,000 tons of solid waste and 1 million gallons of liquid waste.

While the township subcommittee explored land reuse, Goodyear, Bridgestone Firestone, B.F. Goodrich and GenCorp was responsible for monitoring the site. They determined the site was "naturally attenuating."

"The state EPA and federal EPA will meet," said Lake Trustee Galen Stoll. "We don't know anything about restrictions and parameters." 

What about liability?

"We don't know and we're not sure how long before a decision is make by the state and federal governments," said Stoll.

But Stoll is confident before the trustees attempted to purchase the Superfund site, public meetings would be conducted.

No public meetings are necessary, according to Chris Borello, the president of the Concerned Citizens of Lake Township. "It's ludicrous," said Borello.

Borello said issues involving radioactive dumping and toxic waste have not been settled.

The consent degree
In order to recoup Ohio EPA and USEPA for years of testing and determining the nature of the toxins dumped, the consent decree will require the four rubber companies to $17.9 million.

That's in addition to $7 million for a final site plan.

It's far less than the original $32 million clean up USEPA agreed to in 1989. That plan called for installation of a synthetic and earthen cap, expanding the methane gas system and burning off methane and treating contaminated groundwater with a "pump and treat" system.

The plan was scrapped in March 2000. A lesser clean up, natural attenuation, was accepted by USEPA. This calls for allowing rain water to naturally wash toxins through the movement of groundwater into streams. The methane systems that had been stalled during remediation was turned off.

Also in the consent decree, former landfill owner, the late Charles Kittinger, is ordered to pay $954. His wife, Merle, whose name was also on the deed, will pay $46.

IEL owner, Hyman Budoff, has agreed to sell the 30-acre site to help re-pay EPA for its expenses incurred over the three decade investigation. New owners are required to follow the consent decree restrictions and required to provide annual written documentation the decree is being observed.

In the consent decree, USEPA retains oversight of the former landfill.

The consent decree is open for public comment until May 11. Public wishing to comment may email responses to pubcomment-ees.enrd@usjoj.gov. Be sure to reference case number 90-11-3-247/2.

More than five years ago, Springfield Township trustees were presented with a deal to purchase the former Rubber City Sand and Gravel, known as the "sister dump" to Uniontown's IEL. Trustees could have purchased the land for $1. Springfield did not purchase the property because of negative feedback from residents.