The cost of remediation required to transform Burke Airport into accessible green space may be minimal, according to a first round of research.
Cleveland-based Osborn Engineering used public records to conduct early environmental and geotechnical surveys of the site. These surveys show much of the property abides by standards set by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Engineer Gary Hribar said.
"The residual contamination that they found in soil samples was basically minimal and contained," Hribar said. "So, there's nothing out there at this point in time based on what we reviewed that would indicate that any kind of major remediation would be required to redevelop the site."
Hiking trails, campgrounds and a lakefront golf course are all possible developments on the property if the City of Cleveland is able to decommission the airport. But since a final use for the site hasn't been determined by the city and the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation, it鈥檚 too soon to say what remediation could cost.
The land under Burke has similar makeup to land at the nearby Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Great Lakes Science Center and current Browns stadium, NCWDC Executive Director Scott Skinner said, and Burke's use as an airport may reduce remediation costs overall.
"Will there be environmental remediation required to do on that site? Of course there will. There is in pretty much every site in Northeast Ohio," Skinner said. "But based off of the initial work we've done, and I should be clear, there's still a lot of work to be done ... the conclusion is development of the site would not require unusually high costs."
This initial round of environmental and geotechnical surveying didn't involve sampling or testing soil on the site directly. Instead, Hribar and other engineers relied on public records submitted by Burke to the Ohio and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ensure its projects were in compliance with environmental regulations.
"In most of those cases .... most of the contamination was either documented or remediated to the point of compliance and dealt with," Hribar said. "At one point in time, the airport commissioned a health risk assessment that was conducted by an environmental consultant, and basically, the health risk was submitted to the EPA, and the EPA accepted the findings."
The NCWDC will conduct its own health and human risk assessment on the site, Skinner said, to better understand current contamination risks on the site.
"If a toddler sticks his hand in the dirt and then puts it in his mouth, is he or she going to be safe?" Skinner said. "That's the process we're going through right now, to make sure the general public has enough information, enough clarity that, it's not just that we're legally allowed to build these things on the site, but we've actually done the work to ensure that there's no risk to folks and kids and families who are coming to this site."
