City Council members hope Monday to clear up any questions they have about the environmental makeup of the Pilgrim’s Pride property they plan to buy.

When the city agreed to buy the former Pilgrim’s Pride property off Pryor Street in Athens, City Council members needed to know the cost of environmental cleanup and asbestos removal.

The contract the council approved allows them to do that. Should the cost be prohibitive, the council can cancel cancel the contract.

Since then, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has tested the soil and groundwater in search of pollutants. ADEM found no substantive environmental issues at the property, which it detailed in a scientific report. Fearing the report would be to complicated, Mayor Ronnie Marks asked Bert Bradford of the city’s Building Department to summarize the report in plain language for the council. Bradford did that Nov. 9. However, the summary is brief, and council members may still have questions.

District 4 Councilman Joseph Cannon said the original report is available to council members who want more detail.

City Clerk Annette Barnes-Threet said an ADEM engineer is expected to attend Monday’s council meeting to answer questions, which the council had requested.

Overview

In his overview, Bradford wrote that the results of the assessment of the Pilgrim’s Pride site “were very good” and “no site remediation is necessary.”

He wrote that there were chemicals detected at the site that exceed the regional screening levels but they are at levels that require no action. He did not list the names of the chemicals in question.

“It may be necessary to restrict the use of groundwater (no wells for consumption), and (to use) methods to control vapor intrusion (such as placing a vapor barrier in sub-flooring), which if redeveloped into a residential area would already be required by current building codes,” he wrote.

He said, in closing, the report, “seems to indicate the raised levels of metals/chemicals to be regionally based and not necessarily the result of activity on this site.”

The city hopes to not only clean up the site but create a mixed-use development there, which would include housing and retail development.

Cannon said it is not secret he is not a fan of the city being in “the land business.” He hopes the city can clean it up and sell it to a developer. He also hopes that land at the site that is unsuitable for development could be used for a park or green space or some other purpose.

He said he wished a developer was buying the property instead of the city because then the developer would be paying the property tax instead of the city.

The contract calls for the city to pay $550,000 for the land. The cost of asbestos removal, if any, has not been determined.