City investigates cheaper ball-field cleanup remedy

Correspondence between city officials and consulting firms reveals the city of Sarasota is seeking a less-expensive way to clean up contaminated water beneath Ed Smith Stadium.

In December, correspondence showed the city of Sarasota and the Baltimore Orioles disagree about the best way to clean up the groundwater. The pollution stems from the use of the site years ago as a landfill.

The city was preparing to pay approximately $450,000 in October for a groundwater extraction “pump-and-treat” method, which would involve pumping the wells dry then treating the contaminated water.

City staff thought both parties were in accord on that plan until the Orioles questioned in November whether what was left of a $1 million ball-field cleanup fund should be used for a different treatment method. The Orioles organization wants a portion of the money set aside for field mitigation issues, including tearing up an astro-turf practice field that doesn’t drain properly, building a new drainage system beneath it and re-sodding the site before the Orioles take the field in March for their third spring training season in Sarasota.

In a Dec. 15 letter, the Tampa-based consulting firm, Leggette Brashears and Graham Inc., recommended the city “use site cleanup efforts at the stadium using in-situ methods over groundwater extraction” methods, explaining that the in-situ process should be more cost-effective and create minimal disruption to ball-field operations.

In-situ methods treat the contaminated water and the soil around it without removing the water; they employ the insertion of a chemical oxidant into the ground.

In a Dec. 29 letter to City Utilities Director Javier Vargas, a Greenville, N.C.-based firm called Groundwater Management Associates Inc. supported the recommendation provided by LBG.

“Based on my experience with similar cases of groundwater contamination, it is my opinion that in-situ bioremediation is the preferred methodology for remediating the small plume of organic contaminants at the Ed Smith facility,” said GMA President Richard Spruill.

Spruill has a longstanding reputation in North Carolina for his expertise in groundwater matters. He is an associate professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.

The city of Sarasota is continuing to investigate how to move forward, but City Manager Bob Bartolotta said information he has seen so far shows the in-situ method might work and that it would cost about $250,000.

“The method appears to be quicker, less invasive and much cheaper than the pump-and-treat method,” Bartolotta said.

If the city used the in-situ method, Bartolotta said, the cleanup fund would have approximately $200,000 left over, which would allow Sarasota County to proceed with removing any contaminated soil near the field’s surface. That, in turn, could help the Orioles in their quest to re-sod the field and improve its drainage system.

Baltimore Orioles representatives sent emails to city staff in November, explaining they believe that what is left of the $1 million cleanup fund should be used to pay for a stormwater improvement project, which they maintain falls under the cleanup guidelines in their agreement with the local governments.

The city and Sarasota County entered into several interlocal agreements in 2009 and 2010 in the effort to create the $30 million spring-training complex. The parties outlined the transfer of Ed Smith Stadium to the county under a number of conditions, including the agreement that $1 million the county owed the city would be placed in an environmental reserve account to be used to clean up the ground below the stadium complex.