Interim City Manager Bill Burrough said Tuesday that Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality officials were "very receptive" to the city's plans to clean up the Majestic Hotel complex, which it purchased a week ago.
"We met today with the chiefs of the air, solid waste and hazardous materials divisions, as well as the asbestos program manager. All of them were very receptive and willing to help us in this endeavor. They understand it's an issue for the city of Hot Springs, Garland County, and the state of Arkansas, and they stand ready to help us," Burrough said.
The city acquired the hotel property from Park Residences Development LLC after 17 months of efforts to get the owner to clean up the debris left from the Feb. 27, 2014, fire that destroyed the "yellow brick" building proved fruitless.
Burrough said the meeting at ADEQ's offices in North Little Rock was held at the city's request to make sure proper procedures were followed, that permits were in place, and to see if other permits were needed. He said no permits will be required now, but the city may have to have a licensed asbestos abatement company on site.
"It was more of a discussion than anything else. Our goal is to minimize the amount of waste going into the landfill, and there is an incredible amount of brick, wood and metal in that rubble, so we wanted to discuss several options on how we could manage those," he said.
How quickly the salvage and recycling operation moves is dependent upon any issues with asbestos, Burrough said.
"There have been some asbestos surveys done through PRD LLC, but we don't know what those results are. We're going to go back and take a look at where we're at from an asbestos standpoint. We want to make sure that when we start the process that public safety is taken care of as well.
"We want to make sure that as we clean up the debris, we're doing it in a responsible manner," he said.
He said the city wants to recycle as much of the material as possible, but will probably have to have an asbestos contractor on site to take care of issues as the debris is removed.
Burrough said one of the first things the city will do is attempt to get the asbestos survey that has been completed, which "will tell us what we're dealing with and what we have to have on the site."
"I think once we have that and submit out notice of intent to ADEQ, we can start the process. We want to use vendors to help us with this, and we'll be developing a request for proposals. But, in order to develop the RFP, we have to get the study first," he said.
Once the debris pile from the "yellow brick" building is removed, the next cleanup phase will be the "red brick" building and the laundry, followed by the Lanai Towers and Suites.
"As we move through this process, we'll try to do it in phases so we can make a significant impact, but not have more than we can handle at one time," Burrough said.
He said ADEQ was agreeable to the city's plans to salvage and recycle as much material as possible and was agreeable to letting the city remove the wood waste off-site and having it chipped or ground to be used for other purposes. Some of the bricks can be stacked on pallets and made available for reuse, and the metal will be taken to a recycler.
Burrough said the city plans to begin the clean up this year.
"We've owned the property for less than a week and already we've had a meeting with ADEQ. We're not going to waste any time in taking care of the rubble, but there is a process we have to follow. We're working even today trying to secure that asbestos survey," he said.
With additional cleanup planned in the months ahead with the "red brick" and lanai structures, Burrough said the city has to be fiducially and environmentally responsible.
"If we can salvage and reuse any of that and keep it out of the landfill, it will reduce our costs, so we're very keen to do that," he said.
Local on 09/03/2015