City land where illegal dumping occurred to get security upgrade

Security will be increased on West Carrollton land where illegal dumping has prompted a criminal investigation.

City records show surveillance upgrades will consume the vast majority of the $45,260 earmarked to clean up the portion of nearly 30 acres designated for recreation use near the Great Miami River.

West Carrollton documents indicate plans to install fixed and portable camera surveillance systems as part of the beefed up measures around the site at 4000 Hydraulic Road. Plans for the site that is seen as a potential location for a $12 million regional sports complex also will include installing a barrier gate with swipe cards.

“We’ll be able to monitor 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” West Carrollton City Manager Brad Townsend said. “From a computer, you’ll be able to see who is on site.”

The city has been working to redevelop the former site of the Appvion waste water treatment facility it acquired about two years ago. That involved accepting “clean hard fill” – asphalt, concrete, stone, brick, tile or block — that health officials said can be dumped and buried at the site.

However, it has been closed since early February after item such as electric conduits, wood and several mattresses were discovered, officials said.

The site has been secured since then to conduct the criminal investigation that has stalled the cleanup. Because of that delay, West Carrollton is now in its second 30-day extension of the cleanup deadline, said Thomas Hut, supervisor of the bureau of special services for Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County.

Townsend said the city is nearly ready to start the cleanup.

“It’s my understanding we’re at a point in the investigation where we can start to clean up, and we have obviously deadlines that the health department has graciously worked with us to extend,” he said.

“But we need to start meeting those deadlines,” Townsend added. “They’re not going to wait around forever for us to clean this up.”

The city projected cleanup costs ranging from $350,000 to $700,000. But it will contract with Ohio Operating Engineers, which has a West Carrollton location that provides training for that industry and can perform the work for about $6,600, the cost of its diesel fuel, Townsend said.

OOE wants to start later this month, he said.

“We want to open the site back up and start accepting fill from other contractors,” Townsend said, noting that the security measures will “be a way that we can keep track of whose coming in and out. We can see we can see what’s being dumped.”

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