Published: March 01, 2008 04:43 pm            

Make it a park

Thirteen days ago, Auditor Ann Wells told county commissioners that Howard County might have trouble paying its bills in the coming months. Gov. Mitch Daniels had ordered the state Department of Local Government Finance to hold off approving the 2008 budgets of local governmental entities and setting their tax rates.

Tax payments might be delayed. The commissioners ordered all county spending to be limited, except for emergencies.

Eight days later, the Howard County Council threw economic development income tax funds into hazardous waste – literally. Councilmen appropriated $15,000 for a reuse study of the former Continental Steel site.

They should rescind the vote. Once identified as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency, the 80-acre tract will never be more than park.

Commissioner Dave Trine and his brother, Tom, believe otherwise. They say it can be developed for commercial and retail businesses. It can be the new home of the Kokomo Family YMCA and PAL Club, they say.

They point to a study from 2002 that includes commercial and retail development as a possible option for the site.

Even if the local economy were humming like steel-belted tires on a freeway, commercial development is out of the question. It has been since 2003. That’s when state and federal officials decided to leave all of the site’s contaminated soil in place, “capping” it with 2 feet of clean topsoil.

Officials nixed the idea of spending $60 million to build a hazardous waste landfill in the middle of Kokomo, excavating 139,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and dumping it there. The decision saved the federal government $30 million.

Pat Likins, a project manager for the state Department of Environmental Management, said last week building on the site is possible.

“It can be done, but it’s not free,” he said. “If you do excavate, you have to do it with the appropriate protections, and you may have to remove contaminated soil and dispose of it in an approved landfill. And then you would have to restore the soil cover.”

Do we need to spend $15,000 for a consultant to tell us that would be costly?

Studying potential uses for the Continental Steel site is a fool’s errand. The county should give the land to the City of Kokomo, and let Mayor Greg Goodnight’s administration make it a park.

        

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