An access agreement with a property owner adjacent to the city’s maintenance shop remains the final piece before crews can begin installing a trench to divert ground water away from polluted soil.

The city’s maintenance department plans to dig a trench to prevent ground water from absorbing the toxins from soils saturated with unleaded and diesel fuel that leaked from the city’s three underground fuel tanks years ago.

According to Glenn Boettcher, the maintenance director, the city is eager to begin the clean-up but it must reach an access agreement with the owner of the Honeywell property located to the west of the maintenance building.

“We have a contract ready that isn’t signed yet and are in the phase of getting the required approvals,” Boettcher said, “ and we are still working on getting the access agreement with the property owners approved.”

According to a weekly bulletin from the city’s development services group dated Jan. 8, the city has applied for the permits to dig an interceptor trench with site monitoring and treatment facilities. The bulletin also states the proposal will not have a probable significant adverse impact on the environment.

In 1991 the contamination on the Honeywell property was first detected and a few years later devices were installed that could remove the polluting fuel vapors from the soil. However, some of the paperwork was lost at city hall and the device was never activated.

Over ten years later, the problem resurfaced when the Honeywell property was inspected as a condition of a potential sale in 2004. Then, inspectors found contaminated soil and ground water.

In March of 2005 City Council authorized $200,000 for the clean up and appropriated another $200,000 in case it was needed.

The purpose of the narrow trench is to prevent future contamination of the soil and ground water, Boettcher said. He hopes things will be ready to go in March.

“The pieces are falling into place and we are probably a month or two from starting the work,” Boettcher said.