Title
Environmental Contamination Screening Assessment of Former Tackle Box Property (B)
Explanation
The former Tackle Box site is contaminated with petroleum and has been listed with the State Petroleum Clean up program, administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). At one time, the site cleanup score made it eligible for priority funding. In April 2006, Water and Air Research, the CRA's consultant working on the site, informed CRA staff that the FDEP changed the scoring process which resulted in the site receiving lowered funding priority. Water and Air Research proceeded to develop technical information that would raise the funding score; however, the information gathered did not yield data that would typically merit a scoring increase. As a result, a timeframe for when the remediation will take place is unknown. As an initial step, the CRA requested the City Commission to send a letter to the Petroleum Cleanup Manager at the Alachua County Department of Environmental Protection, requesting that the site be rescored in order to be given priority for clean up and redevelopment of the site. The letter was sent, and a response back from the Alachua County Department of Environmental Protection indicated that the site cannot be rescored at this time. The Tackle Box site received a score of 30, and currently funding is available for sites with a priority score of 37or higher.
At this time, staff cannot determine how long it will take to increase the priority ranking or to completely clean up the site. In order to proceed with designing a gateway feature for the site that takes into account future environmental remediation staff recommends hiring Water and Air Research to prepare a risk assessment. The purpose of this assessment would be to locate contaminated soil and groundwater. In so doing, areas can be identified for which either: 1) modification to land surfaces could impede future site remediation or 2) proposed features at or near land surface could be impacted by remediation. Staff has received a proposal from Water and Air to complete an assessment for $7,500, and it is included in the backup.
Once an assessment is complete the CRA will be able to proceed with finalizing design options that take into account the overall scope of the cleanup needed, the potential remedial actions, and what likelihood of disruption is possible if the CRA moved ahead with the entry feature in advance of taking remedial action
This proposal was brought to the Eastside Redevelopment Advisory Board at their September meeting; however there was not a quorum of the members. Staff reviewed the proposal with the members present and they were supportive of the proposal.
Fiscal Note
The assessment can be completed at an amount not to exceed $7,500. There is approximately $94,000 left in the Tackle Box account.
Recommendation
Executive Director to the CRA: recommend entering into a contract with Water and Air to provide this assessment at an amount not to exceed $7,500 from the Tackle Box account.