Pollution cleanup to cost city $20 million

Aug. 31—In November of last year, Kokomo Mayor Tyler Moore said the remediation of pollution found near the Kokomo Wastewater Treatment Plant left by the defunct Continental Steel would be costly. Now, the City is looking at approving bond issues to cover that cost.

The Kokomo City Council passed on first reading an ordinance that would allow the city to issue bonds not to exceed $20.1 million to go toward paying for remediation of the toxic chemical pollution found below ground near the city's wastewater treatment plant, 1501 W. Markland Ave. during construction of an expansion project. The City Council will vote on the ordinance after a second and final reading on Sept. 12.

The bonds will be paid with revenue from city wastewater revenues no longer than 2048, and their interest rates are not to exceed 5%. The bonds will be paid back with wastewater revenues, though in order to do that wastewater rates are going to have to increase sometime in the near future.

"This, as drafted, will require revenue to pay off the bond," City Councilman Tom Miklik, R-District 6, said during the City Council's meeting. "At some point, the council will address that, but not tonight."

When asked after the meeting if that meant the city will likely increase wastewater rates, Miklik nodded his head yes.

City Controller Wes Reed did not comment on a possible rate hike in the future, bit confirmed to the Tribune Tuesday that the city administration is currently conducting a rate study comparing the city's wastewater rates to other comparable city's rates.

Reed said the city considered modifying the major expansion project, which involves building a new wastewater line from the Highland Park area to the plant as part of the city's long term control plan to eliminate combined sewer overflows, to avoid the contaminated area, but rerouting would have ended up being more expensive than the soil remediation.

"We tried everything we could, but we really don't have a choice," Reed said.

That said, the city is still working on the possibility of receiving grant money or insurance money to help offset the soil remediation costs.

"A lot of those are going to be too slow, so even if we're able to recover some, we would just use that to pay the loans off faster," Reed said.

Currently, there's no timetable for when the City Council will take up the likely wastewater rate increase, and it's also too early to say how much the potential increase will be. If any rate increase is proposed, it will go in front of the City Council for approval.

The city stopped work on the wastewater expansion project after unexpectedly finding arsenic, lead, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, at levels that exceeded the limits set by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management on the northeast end of the facility's property near Wildcat Creek.

The contamination is likely pollution left decades ago by Continental Steel Corp., which had its main plant operations on the east side of Wildcat Creek.

The city is building a smaller treatment facility to process the water from that line before it's sent into the main treatment plant. That facility will be located where the contamination was found.

Earlier this year, the city submitted its cleanup plan to IDEM. The plan calls for all areas contaminated by PCBs to be excavated and the soil removed to a dumpsite approved for hazardous waste. The area would then be backfilled with clean soil.

However, some areas aren't accessible to be excavated because they are deep underneath water and sewage pipes. Those areas would be controlled so as not to allow exposure to the contamination.

The city has also detailed plans to ensure no PCBs become airborne during cleanup and spread to the residential and commercial area just across Markland Avenue.

The city said it will install an air monitoring station along the street with samples analyzed every day to ensure no contaminants are spreading to the neighborhood.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.