LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Senator Michael Nemes (District 38) said a lot is happening in Bullitt County. From spending money on widening highways to rehabilitating hundreds of acres of a longtime toxic dump.
Smith's Farm is tucked between Brooks and Shepherdsville. It's a known dump for heavy metals and has been undergoing change in the last few decades.
The Superfund site is located off of Pryor Valley Road and on the gates and fences are signs warning of hazardous material. Local representatives, like Nemes and Bullitt County Executive Judge Jerry Summers, are looking to invest into the healing land to change it from private land to a public space in the near future.
"We're just exploring right now and we're just exploring the uses of what we can do," Summers said.
Smith's Farm was deemed toxic in 1989 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency which kicked off a 30-year rehabilitation process.
"We were looking at this primarily 400 acres of it, of which 80 acres of it is the physical dump, the physical superfund site itself," Summers said.
Summers is taking the steps to help create a recreational area for hiking and biking trails.
"Also for law enforcement to be able to use it as a quasi-training center," Summers said.
According to Nemes, Ford Motor Company is the main business working with the EPA to clean up heavy metal waste.
In a statement Richard Binhammer, the Corporate and Public Policy Communications for Ford, said, the company is "fully committed to protecting human health and the environment and continues to work collaboratively with the U.S. EPA to manage remedial actions at the Smith's Farm property."
"They've filled the property and they have air vents and all kinds of stuff up there," Nemes said. "They have a water treatment plant so that the heavy metals won't go into the streams they have around there."
The senator said this project is only in the conversation stages and they have reached out to local companies about investments.
"Salt River Electric came out and looked at it, said it was too big for them," Nemes said. "LG&E came out, looked at it and said it was too large for them. But the power lines go right across this property where all you'll have to do is put a substation to go into the lines."
These officials will continue to survey and watch this spot with it's vegetation as the seasons go by with their drones. To make sure this is a healthy spot for a potentially new public space in Bullitt County.
According to the EPA, Smith's Farm was an uncontrolled dump from the 1940s to the 1970s. It then became an industrial landfill until 1989 and has been in the rehabilitation process since then.
To read more about the EPA's findings, click this link.
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