Cleanup cost tops $500K in Indiana city

RICHMOND, Ind. — The cost of cleaning up contamination at a former industrial site in an eastern Indiana city is now expected to top half a million dollars.

Richmond Metropolitan Development Director Tony Foster says the final price tag of cleaning up the former Richmond Gas Building property will be about $565,000.

The Palladium-Item reports Richmond will foot about $15,000 of that cost. Most of the cleanup is being paid for by a $200,000 federal grant, $190,000 from the state and $225,000 from Vectren, which previously owned the property.

Foster says the cleanup “has become a much larger project” since a 60-foot wide storage site believed to be 14 feet deep turned out to be 30 feet deep and filled with tar, the byproduct of converting coal to natural gas.