EPA finishes Miami Twp. park cleanup
Layer Park reopens after lead removal; cost far less than projected.
MIAMI TWP. — Preliminary figures for the cost of the U.S. EPA lead contamination cleanup of a Miami Twp. park closed for more than 18 months is much less than projected.
The Superfund cleanup that helped keep Layer Park off limits from April 2016 until early November cost about $1.75 million, far from the $3 million the federal Environmental Protection Agency estimated, according to the agency.
The work did come in under budget, said EPA spokeswoman Rachel Bassler, but specific totals are still undetermined for the project involving the former
shooting-range site.
Crews removed significantly less soil than projected. The EPA’s website indicates 5,725 tons of soil were hauled away, nearly 1,000 tons fewer than initially projected.
The cleanup also included backfilling excavated areas with clean material and topsoil and cleanup at an adjoining residential property where unacceptable levels of lead were detected, according to the EPA’s website.
“The agency has collected air samples around the perimeter of the work zone, and most samples have been non-detect for lead,” according to the EPA website. “Several samples were positive for lead, but below any site action level. EPA has also performed continuous air monitoring at the perimeter of the work zone to measure fugitive dust, and all levels were below the site action levels.”
The park is now open to walkers, although the 7.5acre Cordell Drive site’s gates remain closed with signs posted indicating a spring 2018 opening, according to Miami Twp. Public Works Director Dan Mayberry.
“The gates were left closed to let the parking lot asphalt set up, and all other park system gates will be closed soon for winter maintenance. But visitors are permitted to walk through the entry opening,” Mayberry said.
Renovations have been completed to the basketball court, the parking lot and the swing set, and about 50 trees have been replaced, according to the EPA and the township.
Yet work to restore the park — where the gates have been closed since December 2015 — is needed, according to Mayberry.
“Some of the grounds need maintenance after what happened over the past two seasons,” he said. “Some of the areas aren’t necessarily ‘aesthetically up to our standards’ at this point. That work will happen over the winter.”
The site was cordoned off in April of last year. An Ohio EPA official then said high lead levels in soil at the park were initially discovered three years earlier, but overlooked in what Michael Proffitt, the chief of the Ohio EPA’s division of environmental response and revitalization, called “a big mistake.”
The state asked the federal agency to assist. Soil in the yards of more than two dozen homes surrounding the park were then tested, with only one property showing above-acceptable readings, records show.