FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio -- City Council on Aug. 1 approved an $81,805 remediation-of-soil expenditure related to petroleum leaks discovered during the removal of three underground fuel tanks from the city's service garage area.

"We were authorized to spend $75,000 to complete the project, but the final cost came in at an additional $6,805," Fairview Park Director of Public Service & Development Shawn Leininger said.

"We had a decent idea of where we thought the contaminant soil was, but we didn't know exactly until we actually excavated down to the bottom of where the tanks were. Once we got down there, we discovered we actually had to excavate 30 percent more soil than estimated. That's where the cost increase came from."

City Council President Michael P. Kilbane said the additional costs weren't expected.

"The abatement of this contaminated soil should have taken place years ago when the old fuel tanks were removed," Kilbane said. "Unfortunately, the administration was not honest with council about what had taken place back there.

"After some investigative work by some members of council, it was found that after the tanks were removed, the administration instructed our Service Department to backfill the excavation with the same contaminated soil that had just come out.

"This is why we are still incurring expenses years down the road for something that should have been a simple case of removing old tanks and soil and backfilling with clean fill. As a matter of fact, it would've been half as expensive if this was done properly in the first place," Kilbane said.



Mayor Eileen Ann Patton dismissed Kilbane's comments, noting that the city was working with the Bureau of Underground Storage Tank Regulations (BUSTR) on the issue.

"We've had leaking tanks two mayors before me," Patton said. "And what this administration did was cleaned it up. Now, it's all clean."

The tanks in question were originally installed in 1986. The remediation timeline began in the spring of 2014, when studies by BUSTR determined that water had leaked into the underground tanks.

Just over a year later, three tanks -- two with gasoline, one with diesel -- were removed, with cement poured over the opening and aboveground tanks added in the late summer of 2015.

A few months later, the city received a closure report review from BUSTR noting that the soil placed in the hole contained petroleum. Over the next two and a half years, the city worked with BUSTR to conduct site analysis to determine the extent of contamination and if any corrective action was needed.

During the spring of 2016, the city paid Chemtron Corp. $19,700 for two separate soil investigations, with an additional $18,000 needed for more soil borings and analysis regarding groundwater impact.

In early 2018, BUSTR determined that corrective actions were necessary. At that point, the city submitted a remedial action plan, which was approved by BUSTR.

"We've have gone through and removed contaminated soil from the site, so we'll get a no further action (needed) from the state of Ohio," Leininger said. "So, all of the work is done and now city crews will fill the hole and put our aboveground tanks where they were. We don't have to worry about this moving forward."