Description: AGENDAHED.JPG

Item No:                   

 

Meeting Date:           April 23, 2012

 

From:                          Fred Morrison, City Attorney 

 

Subject:                      Ellis Road Site Cleanup

 

 


Staff Recommendation:

 

Staff recommends adoption of a resolution authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to execute the Consent Decree with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the cleanup of the Ellis Road site in Jacksonville.

 

Analysis:

 

For quite some time, the City has been involved in the process of cleaning up the Ellis Road site in Jacksonville, a location to which the City and numerous other electrical utilities sent old transformers. The operators of the site permitted the contents of the transformers to leak thus contaminating the property, and the EPA has been seeking to hold responsible those who sent any contaminated materials to the site.

 

Recently the Commission authorized the City Manager to execute what was presented to Leesburg and other minor participants as an agreement to which the EPA had consented, limiting the City’s liability to $6,484.08 and shielding the City from any liability for cleanup costs already incurred by the EPA. It now turns out that either EPA has changed its position, or did not make its position clear earlier. EPA is requiring all participants to execute the actual Consent Decree, not the side agreement allocating liability among the cleanup participants. Although the side agreement would still limit the City’s liability for current expenses, EPA says it will not release any party to the side agreement from liability for past cleanup costs, unless all parties also sign the Consent Decree itself, and EPA has set a May 1 deadline for that to happen.

 

The resolution before you would authorize execution of the Consent Decree. The staff recommendation for approval is based on the fact that signing the Consent Decree will not increase the liability of the City for cleanup costs, and will provide the safe harbor from previously incurred cleanup costs the City was told it would have under the side agreement approved earlier. Essentially approval of the resolution will net the City the benefits it was to have incurred by entering into the earlier agreement, but for the more recent edict from EPA that it requires all parties to sign the actual consent decree, not a small group designated for that purpose by the side agreement.

 

 

 

 

Options:

 

1.  Approve the resolution authorizing execution of the Consent Decree.

 

2.  Such alternative action as the Commission may deem appropriate

 

Fiscal Impact: 

 

The fiscal impact will be $6,484.08, the same as under the agreement previously approved.

 

 

Submission Date and Time:    4/23/2012 9:19 AM____

 

Department: ____City Attorney_______

Prepared by:  ____Fred Morrison_____                     

Attachments:         Yes_X__   No ______

Advertised:   ____Not Required ______                     

Dates:   __________________________                     

Attorney Review :       Yes___  No ____

                                                

_________________________________           

Revised 6/10/04

 

Reviewed by: Dept. Head ________

 

Finance  Dept. __________________                                     

                              

Deputy C.M. ___________________                                                                         

Submitted by:

City Manager ___________________

 

Account No. _________________

 

Project No. ___________________

 

WF No. ______________________

 

Budget  ______________________

 

Available _____________________

 

 

 

 

RESOLUTION NO.                       

 

A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF LEESBURG, FLORIDA, AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE MAYOR AND CITY CLERK TO EXECUTE A CONSENT DECREE WITH THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY FOR THE PURPOSE OF AGREEING TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CLEANUP OF CONTAMINATION AT THE ELLIS ROAD SITE PREVIOUSLY USED BY THE CITY TO DISPOSE OF USED TRANSFORMERS, AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

 

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF LEESBURG, FLORIDA:

 

            THAT the Mayor and City Clerk are hereby authorized and directed to execute a Consent Decree between the City of Leesburg and Environmental Protection Agency, for the purpose of agreeing to participate in the cleanup of contamination at the Ellis Road site previously used by the City to dispose of used transformers.

 

            THIS RESOLUTION shall take effect upon its passage and adoption according to law.

 

            PASSED AND ADOPTED at the regular meeting of the City Commission of the City of Leesburg, Florida, held on the      23rd    day of  April, 2012.

 

                                                                                    THE CITY OF LEESBURG, FLORIDA

 

 

 

                                                                                    BY:                                                                 

                                                                                                MAYOR

 

 

 

Attest:                                                                        

            CITY CLERK