by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Before the Clara White Mission is able to build low-income apartment homes on the two parcels of land located across from their building on Ashley Street, contaminated soil has to be removed from the site.
To help with the cost of the removal, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved funding of more than $250,000 to help the Clara White Mission with the assessment and cleanup of the brownfields site. A brownfields site is property that’s being considered for redevelopment or reuse that may be complicated through the existence of environmental pollution. The funding for the cleanup was provided to the DEP by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields State Response Program.
Work has already begun on the land the Mission owns and the contaminated soil has already been removed and is being replaced with new soil. DEP’s contractor, MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc. excavated the contaminated soil and transported it to a landfill, said Craig Parke, brownfields coordinator for the northeast district of the DEP.
“It is an urban lot and over the past 100-plus years the soil got contaminated,” said Parke. “There could have been multiple property owners and different operations were probably on the property.
“It is not possible to pinpoint exactly what contaminated the soil.”
Parke added that during an assessment of the site, results showed it had Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons and Tetrachloroethane.
“There may have been a dry cleaning operation there at one point, because there was a source of chlorinated solvents (in the soil),” said Parke. “That is common at a lot of sites (that have been reused).”
An old gas station, underground tanks or small industries can all cause a site to be contaminated.
“It (brownfields sites) is not uncommon, but they are more common in urban areas,” he said.
The cleanup of the contaminated soil should be complete by mid-April.
Ju’Coby Pittman-Peele, CEO and president of the Clara White Mission, said they knew the site needed to be cleaned before the low-income housing was built on the property.
“We had to address those environmental needs and the amount of money that was made available to us was something we didn’t have in the budget,” she said. “For them to come to the table to help us like that shows their commitment.”
Pittman-Peele said the construction of the 50-unit apartment building will begin in 2008. However, if the federal funds were not available to decontaminate the site, it would have taken much longer.
“Those funds really helped,” she said. “It would have been a setback if we didn’t receive those funds.”
Over a year ago a Phase 1 assessment showed the soil was contaminated. Pittman-Peele said the City of Jacksonville told the Clara White Mission about the State’s Brownfields Program and encouraged them to apply for the grant.
“This is helping us continue to go from our dormatory-type living to people having their own apartments,” she said. “These new apartments will help give people a second chance and it is allowing us to be a part of the economic development of Downtown.”