City says Sinclair site doesn't have 'sufficient contaminants' to warrant EPA cleanup grant

There is insufficient soil contamination at the city-owned, former Sinclair meatpacking plant site to warrant a need for a cleanup grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, city officials said Monday.

The city made the announcement in response to a letter last week to the city from the EPA notifying the city that the federal agency was withdrawing an offer made in March 2008 to fund cleanup at the Sinclair site.

The offer in 2008 came with a requirement that the city file a former application for federal assistance, an application that first required the city to develop a work plan to identify contamination on the site and detail how it was to be cleaned up.

The flood of June 2008 and the subsequent demolition and cleanup of most the flood-damaged buildings on the Sinclair site forced the city to put off any environmental assessment work required for an EPA grant. The assessment work eventually was done in February and April of 2011 and documented “cleaner” conditions than assessments done before the flood and post-flood demolition and cleanup of the site, the city reported on Monday.

The city said that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources informed the city in September that there was “an unlikely chance of hazardous soil conditions” on the Sinclair site and “no follow-up action was required.”

The city has done additional testing at the site, and Christine Butterfield, the city's director of community development, said Monday that the testing supports the conclusion that “insufficient soil contamination” is present to require cleanup.

In its letter to the city last week, the EPA informed the city that it could reapply for EPA cleanup funds for the Sinclair site should it find a need for the funds upon further investigation of the site.

Butterfield noted that some 60 percent of the Sinclair site is expected to become part of the city's flood-protection system and so will not be redeveloped.

Over the last several years, the city has obtained $690,000 in EPA grants to help provide environmental assessments at former industrial sites near the Sinclair site, including the former Iowa Steel, Iowa Iron and Quality Chef Foods plants, the city noted on Monday.