Council Concerned Over Reports of Land Contamination from Oklahoma Incinerator

-  by Josh New­town, April 23, 2014, Tahle­quah Dai­ly Press

TAHLEQUAH — Nego­ti­a­tions involv­ing the pur­chase of near­ly 20 homes on 7 acres of land near Basin Avenue hit a snag Mon­day night when con­cerns sur­faced over poten­tial con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the area.

Tahle­quah May­or Jason Nichols had pro­posed the city pur­chase the homes and duplex­es as a large step in a green­belt project, which would estab­lish a sol­id park and trail sys­tem from the down­town area to the site of the city’s old sol­id waste trans­fer sta­tion.

Until Mon­day, details of the nego­ti­a­tions had been most­ly dis­cussed behind closed doors, though Nichols con­firmed the list price for the prop­er­ty to be $480,000.

After an exec­u­tive ses­sion Mon­day night, coun­cilors emerged and announced they had con­cerns that soil in the area might be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. Coun­cilors then vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to deny the pur­chase of the prop­er­ty.

“Of fore­most con­cern is the ques­tion­able qual­i­ty of the soil in the area,” West­on said in an email to the Dai­ly Press. “We were informed [Mon­day] night that back in the ‘60s, the land where the homes sit now was a dump site from an incin­er­a­tor. Waste was alleged­ly burned in an incin­er­a­tor and then dumped on Basin as land­fill. Know­ing that young chil­dren would like­ly be exposed to any pos­si­ble haz­ards, the coun­cilors want to ensure the safe­ty of our cit­i­zens and have the soil test­ed.”
West­on said the sto­ry of the waste being dumped in the area needs to be inves­ti­gat­ed for both the well-being of any park that might be built there in the future, as well as the cit­i­zens who are already liv­ing there.

“Before we con­sid­er any pur­chase, we have to make sure soil and water sam­ples are OK,” said West­on.

West­on also has asked for the land to be appraised, and cites the cost of the prop­er­ty as a sec­ond con­cern.

“The prop­er­ty con­sists of approx­i­mate­ly 7 acres and appears to be ele­vat­ed in price con­sid­er­ing the con­di­tion of the cur­rent struc­tures and the fact that the land itself is lim­it­ed in use,” said West­on. “We also have to con­sid­er pur­chas­ing the oth­er five homes in that area, the costs of demo­li­tion, reme­di­a­tion of the land itself and even­tu­al­ly build­ing an entire park. We have to be pru­dent and ful­ly informed before mak­ing a deci­sion using tax­pay­er mon­ey.”

Ward 2 Coun­cilor Charles Car­roll said the city, some­time in the 1960s and 1970s, oper­at­ed the incin­er­a­tor and burned the city’s sol­id waste at that site.

“So the con­tents of what­ev­er the ash may have been is unknown, and the con­tents and who-knows-what were dumped where the hous­es are now,” said Car­roll.

Car­roll was told the ash­es from the incin­er­a­tor were once used as fill to reroute the near­by creek.

“Right now, we’re look­ing at buy­ing it for cos­met­ic pur­pos­es,” said Car­roll. “Who knows what was there? I can only say if I was buy­ing a piece of prop­er­ty, I would expect a Real­tor to give us a cer­tifi­cate show­ing the land is clean. I would not want to buy a piece of prop­er­ty and then find out for some unknown rea­son the city would be stuck with who-knows-what. I’m not say­ing there’s any­thing in there, but I’d much rather it be test­ed and be sure.”

Nichols on Tues­day said he hopes to meet the requests of coun­cilors so the nego­ti­a­tions can con­tin­ue.

“I’m doing every­thing I can to get the coun­cilors to take some action on this,” said Nichols. “I con­tact­ed the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­i­ty [Tues­day], and it looks like we’ll have to use a third-par­ty con­sul­tant, and it wouldn’t be DEQ doing the soil test­ing. I think that we’re chas­ing ghosts with this pur­chase, doing things we wouldn’t do with oth­er pur­chas­es. We don’t have any records that any­thing was dumped there; we’re just going on the con­cerns of a coun­cilor, try­ing to sat­is­fy the con­cerns that 50-year-old mem­o­ry has brought up. But I’m aggres­sive­ly try­ing to make sure this hap­pens.”

Nichols said he is also work­ing to have the prop­er­ty appraised this week.

“We’ll talk about who’s going to pay for all of this and hope­ful­ly get that straight­ened out lat­er this week,” said Nichols.

Cen­tu­ry 21 Wright Real Estate is han­dling the prop­er­ty list­ing, Nichols said.

Nichols has pre­vi­ous­ly said the city would demol­ish the homes and duplex­es if purchased.

jnewton@tahlequahdailypress.com