After more than 25 years of litigation, the Lucas County commissioners Tuesday approved a settlement with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for the final remediation plan to reduce contamination at the former King Road Landfill.
The deal sets in place long-term monitoring and maintenance of the 104-acre former dump, which is west of King Road, between Central and Sylvania avenues, and complies with a 1992 consent agreement with the state EPA.
The commissioners on Tuesday also approved a $318,000 settlement with companies that allegedly sent industrial and hazardous waste during the 23 years the landfill operated. Those funds and nearly $1 million the county previously received from other businesses that allegedly contributed contaminates will help pay for the remediation plan, which is expected to run about $70,000 a year.
The firms were among 59 companies the county named in a federal lawsuit in 1999 to recover clean-up costs at the landfill site. The complaint against the defendants, which included The Toledo Blade Co. and the cities of Toledo, Maumee, and Sylvania, was dismissed without prejudice in 2001 to allow the parties to work out an agreement on financial assistance in the cleanup.
“This has taken a long, long time,” said John Borell, a Lucas County assistant prosecutor.
The state EPA filed a lawsuit in Lucas County Common Pleas Court in 1989 to force the county to seal the dump to prevent leachate from draining into Ten Mile Creek, a tributary of the Ottawa River.
Waste disposal operations at the county-owned landfill began in 1954 and ended in 1976. The dump was never lined with an impermeable barrier or capped.
An out-of-court settlement reached with the state EPA allowed the county to enter into the consent agreement, which stipulated that certain steps needed to be taken to protect the public health and the environment.
Mr. Borell said more than 10 options, including covering the dump with a cap, were investigated for the remediation plan before arriving at the final remediation plans that were accepted by the state EPA.
The plans include additional soils on a one-acre area, developing and implementing long-term monitoring, operation, and maintenance plans for at least 30 years, and extending county water lines to additional residences.
The property, which has been fenced for many years, will remain off limits for public access, Mr. Borell said.
Thomas Hayes, a Cincinnati attorney representing the commissioners in the landfill litigation, said the remediation plan allows for the abandoned rail line at the property’s north side to be developed for possible extensions to the University Parks Trail and the Olander Park trail system.
“People won’t be allowed on the land itself. ... That is set aside for a study area,” Mr. Hayes said.
Dina Pierce, a spokesman for the Ohio EPA, said the agency has signed off on the county’s plan for the site.
“Our priority is that the site will be managed in a way that protects human health and the environment and we believe this plan accomplishes that.
“The extension of the bike path will not interfere with this process, but it will let the property be used in a positive way by the community,” she said.
Contact Mark Reiter at: markreiter@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.
First Published October 14, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
