Columbus Parks and Recreation Board members will have a special meeting today to consider buying an environmentally-contaminated industrial building on Jackson Street which is owned by Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop’s aunt.
The board will convene for a special meeting at 2 p.m. today at Columbus City Hall’s council chambers to consider the purchase agreement with Norma Lienhoop, an agreement which has been in negotiations since last year.
Columbus Parks and Recreation Department has been hoping to buy the vacant former Machinery Moving building at 1360 Jackson St. for months. Mayor Jim Lienhoop has recused himself from all negotiations or decisions about the building and has repeatedly referred all questions about the transaction to parks officials handling the negotiations.
Parks board members said in March they would not purchase the property unless environmental issues from underground storage tanks were cleaned up without using any local tax dollars. The contamination on the property, revealed in two environmental evaluations from an outside contractor, includes benzene and other petroleum-related chemicals that were found in soil and groundwater on the property.
The city began searching for grants to pay for the chemical contamination cleanup this spring, parks officials said in March. A state grant from Indiana Brownfields, a statewide program that assists in the redevelopment of brownfield properties, agreed to pay for remediation of the site, but only if the property is in the city’s ownership — not owned by a private citizen such as Norma Lienhoop.
Columbus Parks Director Mark Jones said the city is purchasing the property on Indiana Brownfield’s timeline to ensure no local tax money is used to pay for any remediation. Indiana Brownfields gave the city a July deadline to complete the purchase of the Norma Lienhoop property.
Parks officials and Norma Lienhoop reached a purchase agreement price of $205,000 for the property after a final appraisal and environmental study were completed, according to the purchase documents provided to parks board members. The previous asking price would have cost the city $250,000 in city capital funds and one $50,000 payment from its cash reserve.
The price was reduced because of the newly-determined cleanup efforts, meaning the current property owner will get less money for the property because of the necessary remediation, said Mary Ferdon, executive director of administration and community development for the city.
If the parks board agrees to make the purchase today during the special meeting, the city will make payments in the amount of $34,166.67 for six years to pay for it.
Jones said the parks department wants to use the property as a storage facility because of its proximity to downtown Columbus and other city buildings. It would be used to store mowers and other equipment closer to park property around the downtown area.
Soil borings at the property of the former Machinery Moving Inc. property indicated the chemical contamination may have come from underground storage tanks. The property had three underground fuel storage tanks installed between 1972 and 1976. While state records indicate those tanks were removed in 1989, Jones said engineers could find no local documentation that confirmed their removal.
In an executive summary provided by Indianapolis-based Ark Engineering Service in Phase I and Phase II environmental reports, company officials said they did six soil borings to collect soil and groundwater samples. The company also collected wipe samples within the interior of the buildings to “evaluate for the presence and/or absence of chemical impacts to building surfaces associated with historic site maintenance and storage operations.”
Machinery Moving Inc., an industrial rigging facility, set up small and large heavy machinery at off-site factories and manufacturing facilities. Operations included transportation and storage of various types of machinery until early 2018, according to Ark.
The former Machinery Moving Inc. site consists of two, single-story vacant office and warehouse buildings, with an asphalt and gravel parking lot and landscaping on three parcels of land, taking up just over 2 acres.
Ark reported that the soil showed chemical impacts exceeding the Indiana Department of Environmental Management Remediation Closure Guide, Residential Migration to Groundwater Screening Levels and Residential Direct Contact Screening Levels for several petroleum hydrocarbon constituents. These included benzene, ethylbenzene, 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene, xylenes, 1-methylnaphthalene, 2-methylnaphthalene and naphthalene.
Petroleum hydrocarbon substances in the form of benzene, 1-methylnaphthalene, 2-methylnaphthalene and naphthalene were found in groundwater in amounts that exceeded IDEM’s Residential Screening Levels, the report stated. Benzene was also found exceeding IDEM Residential Vapor Exposure Screening Levels, the report stated.
The wipe samples did not reveal chemical contamination that exceeded applicable IDEM screening parameters, the company said.
Ark officials said the soil contamination was found in two soil borings, and the groundwater contamination in one soil boring in the presumed area where the company may have had the underground storage tanks, the document states.
“Based on the results of this limited investigation, both soil and groundwater impacts do not appear to be widespread and appear to be limited to the area of the historic USTs, (underground storage tanks),” the report states.
“Although this area of impact is not widespread, additional investigation will be necessary to fully characterize the nature and horizontal extent” of the contamination, the report states.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”About the property” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
The vacant former machinery moving building at 1360 Jackson St. is owned by Norma Lienhoop, aunt of Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop.
Soil borings at the property of the former Machinery Moving Inc. indicated the chemical contamination may have come from underground storage tanks. The property had three underground fuel storage tanks installed between 1972 and 1976. While state records indicate those tanks were removed in 1989, Jones said engineers could find no local documentation that confirmed their removal from the property.
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
What: Columbus Parks and Recreation Board special meeting
When: 2 p.m. today
Where: Columbus City Hall, 123 Washington St., in the city council chambers
[sc:pullout-text-end]
