Source: http://weartv.com, June 1, 2016
By: Jackalyn Kovac
PENSACOLA, Fla. (WEAR) — The city of Pensacola wants Escambia County to pay for a contamination issue that is affecting a city park.
In the last few months, the playground at Corrine Jones Park has been ripped up and replaced with construction. The city is adding a retention pond to the park to help with flooding in that neighborhood. Now they are asking the county to pay for water remediating after a contamination issue was discovered months into the $2.8 million project.
Escambia County Natural Resource Management Director, Taylor ‘Chips’ Kirschenfield, told Channel Three News the county was aware of the problem and has been working to correct the issue for the last ten years. However they were unsure of the extent of the problem.
“The monitoring that they were doing, of that de-watering, showed that the pesticides were in the ground waters as we already knew,” Kirschenfield said.
The recommendation is for Escambia County to pay $316,646.78 to the city for the remediating process.
Kirschenfield hopes that the county commissioners approve the request to the issue can be quickly resolved.
“During this de-watering process, because there will be so much water that is removed and cleaned, that is going to speed up that decontamination, remediating processes that will reduce the likelihood that any other properties will be affected,” Kirschenfield said.
The contamination is not linked to any health issue and there is not currently any concern one will arise.
The park is being paid for with funds from the B.P. settlement the city received. Kirschenfield said the funds from the county would come from tax credit that has been set aside for future projects.
The item is on the agenda for the Board of County Commissioners meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday.
Channel Three News has learned a city engineer will be present at the meeting.