110 W. New York Ave., DeLand, FL
386-734-4622
BEACON FILE PHOTO
Area of concern — The gas station on the left, behind the elementary-school sign, may be the origin of years-old gasoline contamination in DeLeon Springs.
Designation could bring revitalization $$
By Pat Andrews
posted Jan 25, 2012 - 7:40:54am
The DeLeon Springs Community Association may go for the brown to get the green. The community group plans to explore creating a brownfield district to draw down federal dollars to revive the town.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created a brownfields program in 1995, and provides grants to revitalize areas contaminated by hazardous substances. Brownfield districts are also sometimes called economic-enhancement districts.
The program sounds tailor-made for DeLeon Springs, which has an 8-acre underground plume of gasoline contamination stretching westward from the Valero station on U.S. Highway 17, just south of Louise S. McInnis Elementary School.
The plume, believed to have come from a leak at the gasoline station before it was a Valero, is moving slowly westward toward DeLeon Springs State Park, and has contaminated much of the soil in the area.
The Community Association has put together an informational meeting on economic-enhancement districts, at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30, at DeLeon Springs United Methodist Church, 265 Ponce de Leon Blvd.
Such districts, also known as brownfields districts and projects, sound tailor-made for DeLeon Springs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started a brownfields program in 1995.
Amy Munizzi, who heads the DeLeon Springs Community Association’s Utilities Task Force, said the brownfield program could give DeLeon Springs “the opportunity to access funds so developers and businesses can come in and clean up, and revitalize areas.”
Attorneys Mark Watts and Chris Challis of the Cobb Cole law firm in DeLand and Daytona Beach will make a presentation during the Jan. 30 meeting. Both are experienced land-use attorneys, and Challis is also a partner in the White Challis Redevelopment Co., which developed a brownfield in Daytona Beach into an urban subdivision with 15 lots designed for two- and three-story townhomes. It was Daytona Beach’s first brownfields project, according to the firm’s website.
White Challis is involved in a number of projects around Central Florida, including a combination residential/commercial development on the north side of Downtown DeLand.
Challis said his company has done quite a bit of brownfields work.
“It is very much an economic-development tool to create economic-enhancement districts, from which a lot of good things can come,” he said.
One successful program, he said, is along U.S. Highway 17-92 in Seminole County, where run-down stretches along the highway are being revitalized.
Challis said White Challis Redevelopment Co. will take a look, as a real-estate company, at what opportunities there might be in DeLeon Springs.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has already removed tons of soil from the Valero station. Joe Matrai of Universal Solutions in Tampa, an engineering and consulting firm working on the project, said cleanup of Cezar Perez’s property across U.S. 17 from the gasoline station is slated to begin at the end of February.
The DEP, at some point, will try to locate an old gasoline tank that may be under part of the highway, and may be causing or adding to the plume. That will require digging up part of U.S. 17. The work is slated to begin in 18 months or so. Members of the Community Association had hoped it would begin sooner.
Petroleum contamination has cast a pall over DeLeon Springs, and, coupled with a lack of water and sewage utilities, has made redevelopment of the town’s business area nearly impossible. Septic systems and wells installed years ago are too close together to meet modern standards, and because of that, businesses can’t get permits to expand or redevelop.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is looking at the feasibility of helping to run City of DeLand water and sewage facilities from Brandywine to DeLeon Springs under its Rural Development Program.
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Attorneys Mark Watts and Chris Challis of the Cobb Cole law firm in DeLand and Daytona Beach are not in this for "community service" and wanting to help deleon springs, there has to be something in it for them, maybe a back door commission, etc.
On the valero station, first clean up the pot/ crack house ajoining this station, do a few underage stings, etc and put the pressure on this business to do whats right.
This wont happen, the owners are foreign, but most likly citizens.
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