The Columbia Board of Alderman will have an environmental study done before making a decision about accepting the proposed donation of the former Reichhold Chemical Plant property.
Aldermen voted 4-1 to do the study Tuesday after meeting with environmental consultant Trey Hess.
Businessman Bob Buchanan is offering to donate the 81 acres and said previously he thinks it could be a potential location for a proposed sportsplex.
Hess, a former employee with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, discussed the history of the property, including the 1977 chemical explosion that made the land an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site.
The EPA cleaned the property up in 1987 and again in 1994. The site was cleared for redevelopment by the EPA on May 22, 2013.
“For anybody who is interested in this property public sector, private sector whomever, they are going to be doing a Phase 1,” Hess said. Phase 1 is an environmental study of the property.
“What that all appropriate inquiry gives to you is federal protection because you do the appropriate inquiry. The feds cannot come back on you,” he said.
Hess said the study would help for any further development if interest is sparked in the land.
Once the study is completed, Hess recommended city officials meet with MDEQ to make sure it would not be a problem.
Hess said the next thing the board needs to do is determine what they are going to do with the property.
“Until you know the use of that property, any clean up if any you will not know that,” he said. “If housing, then it is going to be a different clean up than a big manufacturing facility.”
City officials have been debating where to put a youth sports baseball and softball complex that will be funded by a 3 percent sales tax on restaurants and hotels that began in July after voters approved it in May. The city is also doing an environmental study on city-owned land on R.A. Johnson Drive, and discussions have also been made about potentially using county-owned land at the Marion County BusinessPlex.
Hess also said if after the Phase I study it is determined additional clean-up is needed, the city could apply for a Brownsville Grant, which could pay for cleaning the property and possibly even doing a Phase II, which would include boring into the land.
The cost of doing a Phase I study is $10,000. On a vote of 4-1, the board approved doing the study. Aldermen Jason Stringer, Mike Smith, Wendell Hammond and Anna Evans voted for the study, and Alderman Edward Hough voted against it.
Stringer said he felt like it was “more public perception of the land than anything.”
Hough asked has the land has been sitting there for 20 years. Stringer, again, said he thinks it is public perception. Hough was also concerned with the amount of concrete and whether it was contaminated.
Hess explained the concrete could also be fine and the city might even be able to bring in some money by recycling it.
Pictured Above: Environmental consultant Trey Hess meets with Columbia aldermen Tuesday. The board voted 4-1 to do a $10,000 environmental study on the 81-acre former Reichhold Chemical Plant property, which businessman Bob Buchanan has offered to donate to the city as a possible sportsplex location. | Photo by Susan Amundson
