Granville Township to pay $50,000, remove lead-contaminated soil caused by McPeek Lodge
Granville Township will pay a resident $50,000 and remove lead-contaminated soil at their property adjacent to McPeek Lodge after settling a lawsuit.
According to the settlement agreement, effective Sept. 27, the township will arrange for the removal of all lead-contaminated soil at 3351 Raccoon Valley Road by Dec. 31 in accordance with a plan approved by the U.S. and Ohio Environmental Protection Agencies.
Granville Township Trustee Rob Schaadt said preparation work is happening now, and the contaminated soil should hopefully be removed in the next few weeks. It will be replaced with top soil the township is bringing in.
"We are following what the EPA is telling us we need to do," he said.
Within seven days of providing proof of the EPA's approval of the completed clean up, the township will pay $50,000 to Mary Flynn, of Granville, and her businesses, 3351 Raccoon Valley Road LLC and Raccoon Creek Farms LLC.
Flynn filed a lawsuit April 21 in Licking County Common Pleas Court alleging fraud, negligence, private and public nuisance and other claims related to underground lead contamination at 3351 Raccoon Valley Road caused by bullets used by shooting range that previously operated from the 1940s until 2015 at the neighboring McPeek Lodge.
Granville Township bought the property in 2005. The shooting range company is now defunct, leaving the township as the party responsible for cleaning up the contamination.
Granville Township Trustee Bryn Bird told The Advocate in September 2022 that the township has monitored the lead, testing the soil each year since 2018.
About 4 acres of McPeek Lodge's contaminated soil has been fenced off, except for along the eastern property line that abuts Flynn's property, as they were waiting until a plan for Flynn's property was determined.
As part of the EPA-approved plan, contaminated soil from Flynn's property will be moved onto the McPeek Lodge property, Schaadt said. Then it will be covered with top soil so it is not exposed and the fencing will be completed to totally surrounds the impacted soil.
Schaadt said it was "significantly less expensive" to take the contaminated soil from Flynn's property and move in onto McPeek Lodge's property than moving it off-site.
The township's plan is to eventually remove the contaminated soil at the lodge. Schaadt said the township is trying to obtain grants to do that and doesn't yet have a timeframe of when the work will be done.
mdevito@gannett.com
740-607-2175
Twitter: @MariaDeVito13
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Granville Twp. to pay resident $50,000, remove lead-contaminated soil
