Ohio EPA may oversee riverfront cleanup

FINDLAY — Findlay may get help with oversight of the cleanup of the downtown riverfront directly from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. In a letter to Findlay City Council, dated Sept. 6, City Law Director Robert Feighner Jr. said the offer was made by the Ohio EPA in a conference call held Aug. 14. The letter is included on council's agenda for its regular meeting on Tuesday. Council will meet in regular session at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Findlay Municipal Building, 318 Dorney Plaza. All council meetings are open to the public and are livestreamed on the city's YouTube channel: FindlayOhio. Feighner said Mike Coonfare, a representative of Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc., Toledo (CEC), two representatives of the Ohio EPA Division of Response and Revitalization, and Matt Cordonnier, director of the Hancock Regional Planning Commission, participated in the call. In the letter, Feighner said the EPA contacted city officials as "a result of citizens reaching out to the Ohio EPA over the soil remediation project being organized downtown for possible future use as a park." Earlier this month, Findlay Counciwoman Holly Frische, R-1, said she received a similar phone call from the Ohio EPA on Aug. 7, asking about information she had gathered on the demolition of the Ra-Nik building, 119 Clinton Court, in 2021 by the Hancock County Board of Commissioners. Frische told the Ohio EPA that she has proof that the debris from the building was taken to the Hancock County Landfill, 3763 County Road 140. On Aug. 14, the same day as the conference call with other city officials, Frische said she received another phone call from the Ohio EPA. At the Sept. 2 regular meeting of council, Frische publicly described the second call. "I asked if everything was okay with the landfill with the building going in there, since they did know hexavalent chromium was very high. And we did a brownfield grant. They said everything was fine," she said. "They did not want to provide any records or anything. And so I just wanted to give the public that update because I don't know who you folks were that were filing complaints and how my name got in there. But that is the information I have," Frische said. Hexavalent chromium is a toxic form of chromium produced during industrial processes like chrome plating, stainless steel production, and welding, and it is a human carcinogen that can cause lung, nasal and gastrointestinal cancers. Exposure occurs through inhalation, skin contact, or ingestion of contaminated food and water. Health effects include damage to the nose, lungs, liver, and kidneys, as well as skin ulcers. The former Superior Plating Company, a hard chrome plating facility, operated on the site from the early 1960s through 1981, according to county records. The 1.2-acre property is located on the north side of the Blanchard River in downtown Findlay and is owned by the city. The land is part of the property that will be used for the construction of a second set of river benches in Findlay's downtown. The benches will be built along the north side of the river, from the Main Street bridge to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway overpass at East Main Cross Street. The site was excavated and remediated for environmental pollutants in 2023, with the use of a $492,800 grant awarded to the Hancock County commissioners by the Ohio Department of Development's Brownfield Remediation Program. Most of the benching property will be part of the proposed "Downtown North River Development Project." The recreational area is being designed to exist within the Blanchard River's flood zone. It includes public properties on North Main Street, Clinton Court, Jefferson Street, Taylor Street, Meeks Avenue, Meeks Court and North Cory Street. In all, the recreational area would cover about 19 acres on the north side of the river. Cory Street will be the westernmost boundary of the park, and to the east, the park will end at the railroad tracks. It will stretch from the Blanchard River north to Clinton Court. The park is expected to cost between $30.4 and $37.8 million in "2027 dollars," with an additional $4.5 million in engineering fees. Construction could begin in 2027. Frische has been pressing city officials to elevate environmental remediation along the next set of river benching to a "residential, high child-exposure standard," which would come with nearly twice the price tag as the commercial standard now being pursued. In his letter to council, Feighner said, "The EPA indicated the proper standard of remediation for future use of this property as a park is the 'commercial, high child exposures.' That it makes no sense to do anything different given the intended use." "The EPA offered their own grant-funded (no city funds) technical assistant to monitor and assist in the course of the remediation," he said. Feighner said EPA officials "indicated the biggest problem in their eyes is when a municipality holds onto property like this and does nothing: that remediation and development are proper." Feighner also said the Ra-Nik cleanup was discussed. "The Ra-Nik property remediation was brought up since that was a prior undertaking of the city, and the EPA took no issue with its cleanup," he said. Environmental records held by the city show that property along the river is riddled with abandoned/orphaned tanks, drums, and household hazardous waste associated with debris from the flood of August 2007. There is also the potential for contamination from businesses once located in the area, including a dry cleaner, junkyard, gas station and machine shop. Historically, riverfront property was used as a dumping ground, even by the city. For example, Civitan Park, 100 Taylor St., was backfilled with "municipal waste" in the 1930s, after the Blanchard River was rerouted through the city, according to the records.