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Elkhart
gets $40,000
to revamp waste site
South Bend
Tribune - 8/12
ELKHART -- The
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently gave Elkhart $40,000
to start planning redevelopment of a former hazardous waste site
on the city's northwest side.
The money will
help fund a reuse plan for the 60-acre Himco Dump site, off John
Weaver Parkway, something that 10 years ago didn't look possible.
The site was used
as a landfill for commercial, industrial, medical and general
waste from 1960 to 1976. Ground-water pollution was found on it in
the early 1970s. In the early 1990s, the EPA ordered Himco to
remove 71 55-gallon drums that were leaking chemicals and 50 cubic
yards of contaminated soil.
At the time, the
EPA said the land could never be used again.
But new
technologies and reports showing the cleanup had been successful
meant that most of it could be redeveloped, said Gwendolyn
Massenburg, remedial project manager for the site.
EPA scientists
are still studying ground water in the area and may change the
cleanup plan adopted in 1993. But that should have no major impact
on its redevelopment, said Mick Hans, a spokesman for the agency.
The dump is part
of a larger 411-acre site near the city's airport that is being
developed as a business park. In May, the Common Council voted to
spend $1.07 million to extend a sewer line to the area.
City officials
are still deciding how to use the dump site itself and will talk
with developers and the public and the EPA about different
possibilities, said Craig Hodgson, Elkhart's brownfield project
manager.
"We're going
to use most of that money for a feasibility study, and we'll be
looking at all the options," Hodgson said.
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