Taylorville Park Board to investigate MGP site near park
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Elizabeth Wood
Breeze-Courier Writer
(TAYLORVILLE) — Manners Park Board of Trustees held a meeting Monday night in the dining hall to discuss their investigation regarding the Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) site, which sits across the road from the park, near the playground and baseball fields.
Geotechnology, a St. Louis based company,started their investigation by looking into the history of the MGP site, starting back in the 1800s and working up through the 1990s court case to current reports on the ground, water, and air contamination levels.
Marlane Miller, president of the board, said the company got back to her with the reports they had found and with some concerns that would be further investigated in the coming week.
The 19,569 documents contain graphs, contamination reports and property records on the MGP site. Some of the individual documents are roughly 180 pages long.
“He said that basically he’s not finding anything there that’s telling him what they have done over here, so he asked for permission to go after and get in touch with the state and the federal EPA because he’s wanting to know where any samples were taken and where any tests were done,” Miller said.
Miller added that Geotechnology found that Hanson Engineering had done some testing around the park, but he couldn’t find the results.
“So what he thinks they did, was that Hanson engineering did the testing, but they kept it private instead of making it public through the IEPA,” Miller said, “which, technically, they can do. Right now, he’s in the process of figuring out why it came to a dead end and why there are no results of the soil samples they have, and if they do [have the results], he wants them and that’s where we are.”
At the moment, Miller said Geotechnology is concerned that the MGP building was built on Webster St. and later torn down sometime between the 1930s and the 1980s. At the meeting, Miller had printed a 1938 aerial photo of the site.
“This is the gasification site here,” Miller said, pointing to the MGP site, “now, notice here, here’s the road running down, that’s Webster St., where is that sitting? Right on the road, that building was sitting on the road in 1938, and that’s one of the problems he’s concerned about right now.”
The company’s investigation is estimated to last another week before moving onto the next phase.
Also on the agenda was Christmas in the Park, which will proceed as planned. The full schedule has been posted online and on the park’s Facebook page.
During the meeting, the park also discussed the new security cameras getting installed at the pool.
Approved on the agenda were the treasure and maintenance reports as well as the minutes from the special meeting held on October 10.
The next Park Board meeting will be held at the Manners Park dining hall on Nov. 27, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.
