Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Documents bring Cincinnati closer to redevelopment of Center Hill Landfill

Cincinnati City Council has authorized the grant of an Environmental Covenant and an Operation and Maintenance Agreement with the State of Ohio over the 60-acre Center Hill Landfill property at Center Hill Road and Este Avenue in Winton Hills, property the City has maintained and monitored for 20 years.

In addition to a No Further Action letter submitted on June 24, the two documents are a requirement under the Ohio Revised Code to receive a Covenant Not to Sue from the Ohio EPA.

The Environmental Covenant provides limitations to the City that would prevent them from accessing the site's groundwater or disturbing any hazardous substances in the solid waste material underlying the site during construction, while the Operation and Maintenance Agreement commits the City to proper funding and oversight of the site's remediation.

Both the City's Department of Community Development (DCD) and the Office of Environmental Quality say that redevelopment would be severely hindered without the Covenant Not to Sue.

DCD estimates that the site could support 500 new jobs as a commercial/light industrial park.