Generous Donation Will End Up Costing Town Officials -- MesoLink.org -- 04-22-05

A small town resident has generously donated eight acres of land to the borough, but town officials have raised concerns over the contamination of the land. Even when the donation was made some officials expressed concerns over whether the land would be contaminated. The land is currently a site of greenhouses, and testing has shown that it is indeed contaminated, and risks polluting the area with asbestos fibers as well as a range of other toxic pollutants unless a thorough and professional clean up is arranged.

Unfortunately, town officials have estimated the cost of clean up to be around one million dollars. Although officials have stated that they appreciate the donation from Herman Hellberg, they have also stated that careful consideration must be given to whether the two can afford this sort of funding. The president of the Borough Council stated: "I'm real happy he wanted to donate it, but if we can't get the funds to clean it up ... I'm afraid of the liability for the borough."

The donator of the land was out of town for a while, but council officials have stated that they will be asking him if he wants to contribute to the cost of the clean up. The asbestos clean up alone is likely to cost nearly two hundred thousand dollars, and there are other contaminants to look into such as the removal of oil tanks, pesticides, and herbicides. One town official stated: "The cost of the cleanup may exceed what we can pay. It far exceeds the worth of the land."

The borough has already spent over twenty thousand dollars on studies of the land. An official stated that the borough might not be able to move forward on the use of the land, in which case the donator would have to make necessary arrangements. “It will have to be remediated to certain standards depending on who may buy it and what they'd like to do with it.”