Southgate City Manager Dustin Lent told the Southgate City Council during its online Feb. 17 meeting that the state of Michigan will help with the cleanup of a federally-funded brownfield site that proved to be more extensively contaminated than originally thought.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
SOUTHGATE – State contingency remediation funds will help clean up a federally-funded brownfield site which recently was found to have spread from the original business location to a nearby residential property.
City Administrator Dustin Lent said in a Jan. 26 memo to the City Council that during the cleanup of the former M&D Mowers, at the corner of Balsam and Fort streets, it was discovered that contamination had spilled over into a nearby residential property at 12805 Balsam.
Lent said Dan Gough, the brownfield coordinator for the Remediation and Redevelopment Division of the Michigan Department of Environmental, Great Lakes and Energy, said the state has enough money in its contingency fund to help out the homeowner and rid the residential property of contaminants.
The site is being cleaned to prepare the property for the development of the Downriver Heart and Vascular Institute, a medical office building with an outpatient surgical center.
Lent’s memo notes that the redevelopment will likely provide 10 new jobs, and will represent $2.5 million in private investment.
At the Feb. 17 City Council meeting, Mayor Joseph Kuspa thanked those who worked on the project, especially Lent, whom he said met with the parties and discovered that the state had extra funds available to help complete the cleanup.
“This project expanding its scope is very exciting for the city, in the opportunity to clean up not only the site that we originally intended, but the adjourning residential site,” he said. “It is really a testimony to the city working with the resident, as well, to make sure that the site is not only clean for the commercial use, but also the surrounding residential area.”