Franklin Park pushes for land clean-up

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Updated: March 24, 2012 8:04AM

Franklin Park officials would like to speed up the clean-up of a large and polluted industrial site that’s been going on since 2002.

In the 1920s, the Joslyn Corp. began treating railroad ties and telephone poles with creosote, pentachlorophenol and copperchromium-arsenic on a 30-acre site bordered by Grand and Franklin avenues and Willow and Martens streets.

Over the decades chemicals seeped mostly into the soil and partially into the groundwater, said Greg Dunn, manager of the voluntary site remediation unit at the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

Joslyn ceased operations on the site in 1970, according to a chronology supplied by the village of Franklin Park. In 1986, the IEPA became interested in the site.

The IEPA and Joslyn went back and forth regarding clean-up. In 1989, Joslyn cleaned up more than half the ground to a depth of 5 or 8 feet, Dunn said.

In the early 2000s, state and federal funds paid for the clean up of about 3.5 acres in connection with the Grand Avenue underpass project.

Still, that’s left a large portion of 30 acres unusable. And, lately, Village Economic Development Director Jeff Eder has gotten queries about the property from industrial real estate brokers. The site is an attractive one with two railroad spurs, close proximity to O’Hare Airport and easy access to highways.

“The interest is to see (the property) put back into productive use, where it is back on the tax rolls, employing people,” Eder said.

In 2002, Joslyn enrolled in a voluntary remediation (clean-up) program with the IEPA. The company can take as much time as it wants to meet the state clean-up objectives, Dunn said, although it has to supply quarterly progress reports to the IEPA. That lack of a deadline doesn’t sit well with Franklin Park Village President Barrett Pedersen, who has been considering the village’s options.

“We allow (Joslyn) to proceed with the voluntary clean-up without litigation,” Pedersen said. “That’s always the preferable way.

“Or we proceed to litigation. The challenge with litigation is while both sides are lawyering up, it often results in a delay in the clean-up.”

Pedersen said the village has also been in contact with John Kim, the interim director of the IEPA, and has urged him to urge Joslyn to clean up the property.