DeKALB – With local funding sources strapped so tight, it makes availability of state and federal grants that much more important when trying to remediate blighted and environmentally contaminated areas, such as the former Protano Auto Parts site.
City Attorney Dean Frieders said the city is looking at ownership structures and available grant funding for the city to fully remediate the site at 1151 S. Fourth St. The hope is to present remediation options to the DeKalb City Council sometime this year.
“Different types of environmentally contaminated properties have different funding sources,” Frieders said. “Some [funding] is available for Protano’s, depending on state and federal appropriations.”
The city bought the property in February 2015 from DeKalb County, and the site was partially remediated by the demolition of the auto parts and salvage shop in 2016.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s brief investigation into Protano Auto Parts in 2004 uncovered a large pile of discarded auto parts, indicating that the site had been used to burn cars in the 1960s and ’70s. Environmental studies also showed that the structures had asbestos and the soil was contaminated with lead.
Around the time of the building’s demolition, Dan Kenney, chairman of the Citizens’ Environmental Commission, said he recommended that the city investigate the use of native prairie grasses as a means of providing inexpensive remediation to certain pollutants in the soil.
“There are different types of root systems that can be used for remediation of polluted ground areas,” Kenney said. “What the [city] is going through in terms of taking care of financing could be a long, drawn-out affair, especially in the financial climate of the state, and this is something they could do right away that would be very cost-effective.”
Kenney said the prairie grass technique has been used in other brownfields to remediate chemical waste, and it has proved to be a much more economical way of approaching some level of remediation to a contaminated area.
Fifth Ward Alderwoman Kate Noreiko, whose ward includes the Protano property, said people will be happy if the site can be remediated, but she hasn’t heard any recent discussion from the council or her constituents.
“Sometimes, activity and economic development would really be appreciated,” Noreiko said.
Other aldermen are skeptical of whether the necessary funds might come.
Second Ward Alderman Bill Finucane, whose ward includes another contaminated property on the northwest corner of First Street and Hillcrest Drive, said the state’s fiscal situation might not make such remediation projects a priority.
“I wish we could move forward on Protano’s, but a state budget hasn’t existed in a while, so there may be no available money there, and it might not be a high enough priority for the federal government yet,” Finucane said.
The southeast corner of the intersection, which has been vacant for about 20 years after its own underground storage tanks started leaking, is the approved site of an unattended Mobil self-service gas station.
Once the EPA declared the site safe, Rockford-based Kelley Williamson Co. was granted a special use permit for the station. Although the permit was granted in April, construction has not yet begun.
However, the future of the northwest corner, which holds a vacant gas station, still is uncertain, as the site is in legal limbo, Finucane said.
Frieders said that when it comes to remediating areas with leaking underground tanks, the cost coverage can be up to 100 percent, but depending on the type of contamination, available funding might have to be matched.
“We would be looking at the City Council to give some guidance to where those priorities are so staff directs action at properties the council has the most interest in,” Frieders said.