Ohio: "ODOT's Costly Clean-Up in Newark To Displace Families"

"NEWARK, Ohio -- Becky and Andrew Snedeker spent their first year of marriage living with her parents while searching for their dream home. They found it on James Street in Newark, but now the Ohio Department of Transportation wants to buy and raze it to clean up a known carcinogen in groundwater feet below their property."



"The clean-up effort, which has lasted more than two decades, already has cost taxpayers an estimated $12 million. On Wednesday, several property owners learned it would cost them their homes.

'These are innocent people. They haven't done anything wrong. They lived next to our site,' said Joe Rutherford, deputy director of ODOT District 5.

For 47 years, employees at the Ohio Department of Transportation site, 115 1/2 Maholm St., Newark, used trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreaser, solvent and now-known carcinogen, on machinery used to test asphalt for roads, Rutherford said."

Jessie Balmert reports for the Newark (Ohio) Advocate September 13, 2012.
 

Source: Newark Advocate, 09/14/2012