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Brooksville to move forward with environmental assessments of three Brownfields sites

 
Published March 5, 2015

BROOKSVILLE — For two years, city officials have been identifying and whittling down a list of properties in the city suspected of harboring pollutants.

To date, much of the work has included researching the history of the sites, talking to property owners about why they should allow an assessment and doing a cursory look at a few of the locations.

In the coming weeks, actual testing will begin at three sites that have been identified as top priorities by the city's Brownfields Task Force.

Those sites are the two former Brooksville Housing Authority apartment complexes — Summit Villas and Hillside Estates — and the former citrus juice plant at Main Street and Dr. M.L. King Jr. Boulevard.

The assessment work was made possible by a $400,000 grant awarded to the city by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2012. Such grants are designed to identify sites historically linked to contaminants such as petroleum, cleaning chemicals and solvents, pesticides, and industrial waste products.

The plan is to scope out the level of contamination and potentially seek additional grant funding to broaden the number of sites getting a fuller examination and to pay for some of the required cleanup, explained Bill Geiger, Brooksville's community development director.

The ultimate goal of the program is to provide enough information that those interested in potentially redeveloping the sites would have full disclosure on the extent of the cleanup that would be required.

"All three of these properties are prime for redevelopment,'' Geiger said. By having detailed information about the actual contamination, "it gives environmental certainty to the scope of any mediation that might be needed.''

The city and its consultants first must develop a plan for assessment of the three properties, and, once that is approved, they can move forward with soil sampling and other testing. The first of the sites will be the abandoned Hillside Estates. The former Summit Villas will be second, and finally the juice plant, with work there completed by June, Geiger said.

At the former housing sites, the concern is the presence of lead-based paint and asbestos. According to Geiger, the future for those areas is under discussion between the housing authority and a potential development partner. That could include razing the buildings, as has been discussed previously, or using portions of the buildings for some future development.

In 2010, the City Council voted to tear down the structures.

The juice plant site has already had a quick look by the city's team. They used ground-penetrating radar to determine if there were barrels of potential contaminants underground, like some found above ground, Geiger said. They found that the area with drums was not that extensive, but there is still concern about petroleum on the property, he noted.

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While the plant is considered an eyesore, there has been some development interest by various parties, Geiger said.

The 2012 grant must be wrapped up by September, and the consultants and the city are already talking about whether to seek additional money to continue the project. Originally, 90 sites in the city were identified as possibly having contamination.

Geiger is upbeat about how the Brownfields program has worked to Brooksville's benefit.

"I think we have three great candidates for redevelopment right now,'' he said.

Contact Barbara Behrendt at bbehrendt@tampabay.com or (352) 848-1434.