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CELINA - A former police shooting range and a long-defunct landfill will undergo environmental assessments to determine potential contaminants, the first step toward them being possibly redeveloped into viable businesses.
The Mercer County government has been awarded $600,000 through the Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program, which aims to create room for new economic opportunities in areas that can't be developed due to contamination, according to a news release from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's office.
The grant will be applied toward environmental assessments of the Jutte Landfill on Cassella Montezuma Road and the erstwhile Coldwater Police Department shooting range on Fleetfoot Road.
Another $400,000 grant is expected to be awarded in the near future as all 88 Ohio counties were eligible to apply for up to $1 million through the state program, according to county community development director Jared Ebbing.
The $400,000 grant would help pay for the removal of a fuel tank at the site of the former Windy Point Sportsman shop, which was demolished a few years ago with funding from the Ohio Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program.
"Two years ago, we used (state) demolition money to tear down the building. Now, we applied for (state) brownfield to remove the fuel tank," Ebbing said of the one-time sportsman shop at 5255 Windy Point Road.
The Jutte Landfill at 3404 Cassella-Montezuma, located just a few miles southeast of the Celina Sanitary Landfill that closed in 2021, operated from 1965 to 1971.
The Jutte Landfill is located at 3404 Cassella-Montezuma, just a few miles southeast of the Celina Sanitary Landfill that was launched by Tom Jutte in 1971 and shut down by Republic Services in 2021.
Ebbing said the Jutte Landfill was started by Tom Jutte's father. Tom Jutte transferred the property to his daughter Sally Kane in 2024, online county documents show.
"It's not a huge tract of land. It's just under 6 acres," Ebbing said. "It's along Montezuma Creek."
The landfill operated from 1965 to 1971 and accepted mostly household refuse, Ebbing said.
"(Tom Jutte) said his dad and then him had long trenches, and they would allow things to be dumped in (for a) tipping fee, etc. They'd cover it up and move on to the next," Ebbing said.
Jutte approached the county via a third party about using brownfield grant dollars on the landfill, Ebbing said. The $300,000 state grant will finance an environmental assessment of the landfill, including soil borings, groundwater monitoring well installation and sampling to assess potential contamination, state documents indicate.
Ebbing, who spent the bulk of his career working on relatively straightforward street and infrastructure projects, does not know at this juncture if the grant is enough to cover the total cost of the assessment. If not, the county could apply for the same funding again in two years to continue the work.
The assessment will guide future remediation efforts, per state documents.
"This is a phased project, this is a phased approach," Ebbing said.
Should the site reach the point where it could be redeveloped, anything could go on it except for residential structures, Ebbing noted.
"Somebody could put a machine shed on it, somebody could put a utility barn on it," he said. "It could be anything but a house with a well."
No timeline has been established for the project.
In an interview with the newspaper in 2021, Jutte said before the state's 1967 passage of solid waste disposal laws, several open-air dumps operated in Mercer and Auglaize counties.
"Back in the day, there were little pockets of landfills all over," Ebbing confirmed to the newspaper.
The 1967 regulations - which mandated trash could not be burned, needed daily cover and accessibility and that operators take into account the location of wells and quality of dirt - were passed following an incident when gas from a dump migrated about a mile to a school in east Cleveland, Jutte had said.
The Coldwater Police Department at one time used a 5-acre village-owned property at 4250 Fleetfoot Road as a shooting range. The lead bullets may have caused ground pollution.
The Coldwater Police Department at one time used a 5-acre village-owned property at 4250 Fleetfoot Road as a shooting range. The lead bullets may have caused ground pollution.
"That one, we just happened to have conversations with the village of Coldwater about some other issues, and they said, 'Huh, I wonder if that would qualify?'" Ebbing said. "We had this firm look at it and they said, 'Well, it surely would for brownfield.'"
The county will also spend $300,000 for an environmental assessment of the property, including soil borings and the installation of monitoring wells, to determine any environmental contamination risks and guide future remediation efforts.
"It can be redeveloped into anything when this is clean except for residential," Ebbing said. "Having a clean bill of health means something, too, for future legacy, for future property owners."
DeWine and others in his administration recently announced $50 million in grant funding for brownfield remediation and building demolition across the state.
"By investing in these sites, we're giving these areas a fresh start," DeWine said in a statement. "We developed these programs to turn areas of neglect into places of hope and opportunity for businesses and families alike."
Prior to the federal issuance of trillions of dollars in COVID recovery funds, much of which flowed to states, counties and local governments, brownfield, demolition and other related grant programs were cutthroat, Ebbing said.
"Before … all this federal stimulus, some of these programs existed but a county or a city had to go after and put the best application possible in order to maybe squeeze out $500,000 out of a brownfield grant and then match money," Ebbing said. "Well, those days are gone, with all this extra federal and that state money."
Flush with funds, the programs are now less competitive, Ebbing said.
While some people may fume over the notion of tax dollars being spent on the demolition and remediation of private properties, if the county doesn't apply for the grants, the money will go elsewhere, Ebbing argued.
"That's our taxpayer money, one way or another, federal or state taxpayer money that we all paid into," he said. "If we reject it, that's still our taxpayer money that's now being spent someplace else."
By accepting and applying grant dollars toward the razing of neglected or deteriorating structures or the removal of contaminants, the county is helping adjacent property owners and catalyzing revitalization, Ebbing maintained.
"Taking that blighted property out helps the neighbors in the area," he said.
His office typically consults with numerous community stakeholders to decide how to spend the grant dollars.
"How I do it, I called each of the villages and basically say, 'Hey, what projects do you potentially have that could be torn down or brownfield?'" Ebbing said.
