Crawford County has contracted with Triad Environmental Services to explore potential contamination at its maintenance building in Girard.
Commissioners acknowledged on Friday that Triad, based out of Pittsburg, was conducting soil surveys at the building located at 510 E. Antelope in Girard as well as their other maintenance building located at 20th St. and the U.S. 69 Hwy. bypass in Pittsburg.
The investigation came after commissioners were anonymously sent photos of the Girard location. The photos show a damaged storage tank as well as two photos of what appears to be pooling oil on the ground.
The Morning Sun also obtained the photos anonymously on Friday.
“I think this is the safe thing to do,” said Commissioner Ralph McGeorge. “We started looking into this a few months ago.”
The investigation comes on the heels of an advertisement put out in the July 14, 2010 issue of The Morning Sun, where Larry Brunetti, Democrat candidate for County Commission and current county employee, stated that contaminated oil was discharged into a ditch behind the county maintenance building in Girard. The ad stated that the dumping was reported to the Environmental Protection Agency, however no record of a report could be found and County Counselor Jim Emerson said that he was not aware of any reports made to the EPA.
Commissioners said that they are working in conjunction with Triad Environmental and will await their official report before determining whether the EPA will be called.
“They (Triad) are going to do a site review, take soil samples and work from there,” Emerson said. “We’re working with Triad and we will take whatever steps are necessary.”
In addition to conducting a site study of both locations, Triad will also create a protocol list for the county to use with disposing waste products. Commissioners said that the county has not had such protocols in place before.
“These things, when they come to light, have protocols established,” McGeorge said. “We just want to fix any situation as soon as we can.”
The addition of the county building in Pittsburg was made to ensure that all facilities that applied would be tested, commissioners said.
“It’s just a good time to really look into this now,” said Commissioner Linda Grilz. “As soon as this came to our attention we started looking into it and we got in contact with Triad.”
She said that, if there is contamination found, the county will take care of it “as soon as we find out.”
