Mayor Mueller opens media availability to address LaSalle Park and Beck's Lake clean up progress
SOUTH BEND, IN -- Beck's Lake in LaSalle Park has been listed as a superfund site on the Environmental Protection Agency's website since December 2013. That could change sometime in the not-so-distant future.
The lake was turned into a toxic dumpsite for decades. ABC57 spoke with Mayor Mueller on Tuesday about a path forward.
"At this point, the city is looking to work with the EPA and IDEM to delist the site," said Mueller.
After decades of toxins lingering in the LaSalle Park neighborhood and after four years of clean up and remediation, the City of South Bend is looking to have Beck's Lake delisted from the EPA's superfund site.
"Really comprehensive testing, over 1,000 samples for about 150 contaminants, everything that was found has been addressed through the EPA and IDEM process."
Accelerated lead removal and expanded lead testing are two of the recommendations from the South Bend Reparatory Justice report. However, the cleanup process was in the works before the report came to light.
Between the city and Honeywell, Mayor Mueller believes there was a 50-50 split of seven million dollars for the remediation.
"I believe it probably came from our general fund, whether that was through a liability fund that's funded. The way the government accounts work; it may have been funded technically out of the liability fund, but ultimately that money gets routed back to either property or income tax. So, property or income tax ultimately," explained Mueller.
Through the remediation process, Mueller says "there are different legal pieces that need to be done" which included the creation of the Environmental Restrictive Covenant.
The Environmental Restrictive Covenant, a contract from earlier this year, lays out what the land can and cannot be used for. One of the restrictions states the land can't be used for residential purposes. This includes daycares and K-12 schools, but the park is still used for gatherings such as the Juneteenth gathering. This has left residents wondering whether the ground is actually safe or not.
"It meets the EPA and IDEM standards. The actions that the remediation took addressed any of those concerns going forward. What we can't do is go and disturb the soil, so that's part of these covenants. Part of the management plan is that we don't go dig up and potentially unearth things that may be there. Although again, when we did the comprehensive testing, none of those things were found. That's part of the delisting process," shared Mueller.
The testing and cleanup may soon be checked off the recommendations list, but where does the city stand with the other recommendations provided in the report?
"It was more than 10 recommendations that we've either already done or are substantially on the way to being completed. This part of the cleanup and the testing, we would we would count that as something that that we've already done."
Mayor Mueller suggests the EPA website not being updated with the most accurate information has caused a bit of confusion in the community. ABC57 reached out to the EPA learn what the next steps are and have not heard back. We will update this story when we get a response.