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Old scrap yard site in Crab Orchard looking greener

July 03, 2012|By Ben Kleppinger | ben@theinteriorjournal.com

Ben Kleppinger / ben@theinteriorjournal.com

CRAB ORCHARD — After seven years of dealing with contaminated land left behind by a scrap yard along Crab Orchard's main thoroughfare, the scenery across from city hall is looking a little greener.

But the city's mayor isn't saying anything about it — at least not yet.

The former salvage yard property, previously prohibited from use by the EPA, has been transformed into the beginnings of a park, with young plants growing in landscaped areas, a walking path and a basketball court.

Records from the EPA show Crab Orchard received a $200,000 grant in 2010 for clean-up of a former scrap metal site, but Mayor Billy Shelton declined to discuss the changes, how they were made possible or what role the grant played.

Shelton told a Crab Orchard city hall employee to tell the Interior Journal he wanted to wait until an official ribbon-cutting ceremony before he talked about the park.

No date has been set for the ribbon-cutting.

In 2005, Cecil King closed his scrap yard business, a decades-old mainstay of downtown Crab Orchard, and gifted the land to the city.

King received a $400,000 tax-deductible write-off for the donation, and the city got a piece of property it had eyed for a while.

But after Crab Orchard took ownership, the Kentucky Department of Environmental Regulation and the Environmental Protection Agency determined that the soil on the property was contaminated with many different toxic and dangerous chemicals, including polycyclic hydrocarbon chemicals, known as PAHs, that are often produced by motor vehicle components.

The EPA ruled the site could not be used until the contamination was cleaned up through the removal of several feet of topsoil and covering of the land with fresh, safe soil or pavement.

Without money for the expensive clean-up, Crab Orchard couldn't fulfill the requirements to make the land usable again, but the site was made part of the EPA's Brownfields Program, according to newspaper archives.

The EPA Brownfields Program identifies and works to restore contaminated sites so they can be used again, and provides various grants to make that restoration possible.

Crab Orchard had applied for but failed to receive a Brownfields grant in 2009, but was applying again that year, according to newspaper archives. The $200,000 Brownfields grant for cleanup was awarded in 2010.

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