Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com, February 2, 2015
By: Teresa Auch Schultz
The Gary/Chicago International Airport Authority wants the former owners of annexed land to pay almost $2 million and possibly more to clean up the property.
The authority filed a lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond against Anthony Zaleski Jr. and a land trust that oversaw the 83-acre property at the center of the dispute.
The authority took over the property in 2012 through eminent domain as part of the airport’s runway extension project.
Zaleski could not be reached for comment.
The property originally belonged to Cities Service Oil Co., which used the land as a dump site for storage tanks that held hazardous material.
The company sold the land to a land trust that was owned by Zaleski, Ted Peters and Jack Slaboski.
The lawsuit claims that a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment of the land in 1991 found that Zaleski had also dumped hazardous waste on the site, and the lawsuit contends he continued to do so through the 1990s.
The authority says it has already spent $1.2 million to clean the site and has since been told by the EPA that it owes $600,000 to the government to stop release of an oily sheen into a nearby ditch, which leads to the Grand Calumet River.
The authority is asking that Zaleski and the land trust pay for all costs the authority has already spent to clean up the site and for any future costs.