State-led efforts to clean up an environmentally-contaminated property that the Columbus Parks Board purchased from Mayor Jim Lienhoop’s aunt are continuing after recent soil samples revealed two new contaminants on the site.
Tests completed in November found concentrations of suspected cancer-causing compounds benzo(a)pyrene and dibenz(a,h)anthracene in soil removed from the former Machinery Moving Inc. facility, 1360 Jackson St.
The amounts “slightly” exceeded state residential screening levels, according to a report by Heartland Environmental Associates Inc., a contractor hired by the Indiana Finance Authority’s Brownfields Program to oversee the property remediation.
While environmental testing over the past year has detected several contaminants that experts believe were likely caused by leaking underground fuel storage tanks installed on the site in the 1970s, the newly detected compounds are thought to have come from another source, said Stephanie McFarland, spokeswoman for the Indiana Finance Authority’s Brownfields Program. The results, however, did not exceed state thresholds for commercial and industrial screening levels.
“These two new contaminants are suspected to be related to a fill layer of refinery (foundry) sand that may have been placed on the site,” she said.
The property, which the parks board agreed to purchase from Norma Lienhoop in July in six annual installments of $34,166.67, or a $205,000, was sought by the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department for at least the past 15 months in hopes of using two vacant single-story buildings on the site for storage.
Lienhoop recused himself from all negotiations and decisions about the building and has referred all questions about the transaction to parks officials.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
