GE continues to work with IEPA on Morrison plant site

MORRISON – While GE continues to work with state regulators to remedy environmental concerns surrounding its closed plant, the city’s one consolation is cheap storage.

The city renewed a storage agreement with the company Jan. 9, which allows it to use one of the buildings at GE’s sprawling site on West Wall Street. Known as Building 17, it once was home to a Carnation milk factory.

The city first entered into the pact with GE in 2013, and the amended version extends the arrangement until March 21, 2021. Use of the building through that period will cost the city $1.

The extra storage space allows the city to delay a pressing capital project – a new public works building that could cost up to $500,000. A new sewer plant under construction at an estimated cost of $19 million, and several pricey road projects are higher priorities.

“We have a public works building, but we’re still cramped for space, and it’s in a flood plain,” City Administrator Barry Dykhuizen said. “It’s getting toward the end of its useful life, but until then, the GE space tides us over.”

The need for space was also partly created by the upheaval to the city’s water system brought on after allegations of groundwater contamination from the GE plant.

“The city tore down a well house on Winfield Street in 2010, when one of the wells was closed,” Dykhuizen said. “We abandoned that site and drilled a new well, and without the well house, a lot of items in storage didn’t have a home.”

While the storage space comes in handy, the long-term future of the site is a much larger issue. The city has fielded inquiries about reuse of the buildings, but serious conversations can’t begin until the IEPA signs off on the environmental situation.

“As best we know, it’s pretty much just the groundwater that is an issue, but they will be checking floors and other concerns inside the buildings,” said Mayor Everett Pannier, a former GE employee.

The plant closed in 2010, and in 2011 a consent order came down from the IEPA. Although there was no admission of guilt, the company agreed to deal with any groundwater contamination problems. The company paid the city $650,000, and set up a testing system.

“They put in quite a few monitoring wells – there are at least a dozen between the golf course and near the dump site north of town,” Pannier said.

The former owner of Prairie Ridge Golf Course, Lowell Beggs, filed a lawsuit against GE for alleged contamination at the business and his home that was adjacent to the golf course.

Beggs died of cancer in May 2016, but the lawsuit is still making its way through the court system. Pannier said he expects it to be resolved soon.

The environmental concerns centered around various cleaning solvents the company used prior to 1994. Of particular concern was trichloroethylene, which was used until the mid-1970s. The plant started operations in 1949, making controls for appliances and vehicles.

The year the plant closed, the city passed an ordinance prohibiting the use of groundwater for drinking. It also banned the installation of new wells in the city.

Progress with IEPA has been slow, as GE is dealing with similar situations at many other of its closed plants.

IEPA spokeswoman Kim Biggs on Thursday said GE is working to get its Remediation Objectives Report approved.

Biggs said conditional approval, with some agency comments, was given Nov. 10, but some parts of the report still need work. The report will be made available to the public once final approval is given.

The ROR report is an official determination of which contaminants are an agency concern, and it includes exposure routes and remediation target levels, Biggs said.

When the report receives final IEPA approval, GE must then submit a Remedial Action Plan to regulators. The plan must provide details on how the company will address target levels of contamination.

The city also recently was asked to amend its groundwater ordinance to correct an error.

Pannier said there is a template for redevelopment success at a GE plant site in Carroll, Iowa. That site, however, was much smaller than the Morrison plant, that in its 1960s heyday had up to 2,600 workers.

The Carroll plant was designated a Superfund site, so it was handled by the U.S. EPA. The remediation process there took 5 years from the time assessment began.