Fairbury seeking to convert contaminated former metalwork site into public park property

FAIRBURY - The city of Fairbury is seeking to convert the site of a former metalwork operation into a public park space – if they can clean up some of the remaining contamination and debris.

A stretch of land just south of Fairbury's downtown used to be the home base for Fairbury Iron and Metal. But that building has long since been demolished, and now the city of Fairbury wants to connect the space to an adjacent public park property. 

But there are still plenty of details to iron out.  

Two investigations executed over the last two years uncovered a significant presence of potentially dangerous metals like arsenic and lead rooted in the environment. Some steps have already been taken to remove some debris and minimize some contamination, but there’s still plenty of work to be done, which is why the city of Fairbury is applying for a Brownfields Cleanup Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to help complete the cleanup.  

"Back in 2023, city officials became concerned about some operations of the Fairbury Iron and Metal site, some potential encroachment with their operations and drum storage and debris that had found its way onto some city property," said Frank Uhlarik, a Brownfields project manager with international consulting firm Stantec. "It didn't become an enforcement or punitive action because the city was involved, and cooperating, and showing an interest in possibly acquiring and taking care of any cleanup obligations that would be necessary, if of course grant funding could become available."

That's where external operators come into play. Uhlarik and Stantec are working with SENDD to help administer Brownfields grants across Nebraska. He says criteria such as demographics and population can actually work in Fairbury’s favor as the city pursues this money to help them execute a cleanup project of this scale, even if the present elements don't pose an immediate health risk. 

"The cleanup grant application which we're preparing for the city needs to include a lot about the site's history," he said. "Typically the EPA likes to make sure that communities that are under-invested and just don't have the wherewithal and means through their general fund budget to address these types of issues...EPA likes to elevate them, and get these communities on a level playing field with other, larger communities with many more resources. So it's a good opportunity for Fairbury to take advantage of."

The city's aim is essentially to convert the former metal workplace into an extension of the Mill Dam Park property next door. But what features might that new green space include? Now it's up to the public to help provide some input. 

Fairbury will be presenting its grant application in an open house discussion on Monday evening, where members of the public can provide their input on the cleanup process, and suggest what they’d like to see the future space used for. That meeting will be held at 5:30 PM inside the city council chambers on D Street, alongside the standard planning and zoning meeting.

"We're going to start looking at what could be done down in that area, what the public might like," Laura Bedlan, Fairbury's development services director, said at Tuesday's city council meeting. "It's going to be a longer process than just one meeting - we'll come back to the public several times, get lots of information from everybody, but this is kind of the beginning of what we would like to see down there."

"We'll have sketches of the concepts that have been put forth for the park, so we know what is the ultimate outcome. Very preliminary at this point, and there will likely be, in the spring sometime, more of a broader, community visioning session to weigh in on these concepts," Uhlarik said.

On Tuesday night, the Fairbury city council purchased some privately owned property on nearby C Street, bringing the city one step closer to the start of its plan to convert this abandoned space into something anybody can safely use. Uhlarik says that the tentative restored territory is restricted to some kind of park space because of floodplains constraints, but there is still plenty of potential the city can tap into. 

"We're trying to enhance a tourist attraction here, that's really a unique area with the dam history, the railroad history, there's some historic context there, and it would be nice to make that more of a destination," he said.