Last night, the Green River City Council voted to enter into a remediation agreement with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality for upcoming work at the Union Pacific Depot building.
The agreement is part of the groundwork needed to start work on the building, utilizing approximately $200,000 granted to the city in a Brownsfield Cleanup grant awarded to the city last year.
The grant is not related to the $1 million grant awarded by the Wyoming Business Council the city ultimately returned last year.
Mark Westenskow, the city utilities manager, said the upcoming project at the depot will focus on removing lead-based paints and asbestos from the building.
Westenskow said the specification phase for the project is nearly complete and hopes to have it bid out to contractors this spring.
The agreement with the Wyoming DEQ was originally placed before the council during its Nov. 18 meeting, with former Mayor Hank Castillon approved to sign the remediating agreement pending a legal review.
During that time, City Attorney Galen West became concerned with a stipulation of the agreement requiring the city to defend any claim made against the state or the department of environmental quality for the work conducted and pay any damages as a result of that claim.
“It’s in the contract, we’ll have to live with it,” West told the council.
In order to work around that stipulation, West said the city will enact a work around where the contractor successfully bidding the project will name the city, state and the department of environmental quality as insurers for the project.
Reader Comments(0)