Kokomo Tribune (Newspaper) - January 13, 2006, Kokomo, Indiana friday J Come along for a tour of three Action today 0PBnmthsarBa POSITIVELY PART OF YOUR LIFE BEGINS TODDY Bl Kokomo Ind Friday January 13 2OO6 Continental cleanup to start Monday Crews will be setting up utilities trailers By scon SMITH Tribune staff writer Kokomo residents are about to see some signs of life on Continental Steels vast open spaces as work crews begin a massive environmental cleanup starting Monday Workers with contractor Hill should begin establishing utilities and setting up construction trailers next week the first step in what is expected to be a blitz of activity at the Superfund site this spring and summer Continental a company that smelted scrap steel into items like fencing nails and reenforcement bar for concrete is believed to be the largest environmental cleanup site in the Midwest The company which once employed workers in Kokomo closed its doors in 1986 The first stage of the cleanup will in volve building a massive flat space the future location of a dewatering operation for contaminated creek sediment accord ing to Pat Likins a project manager with the Indiana Department of tal Management The contractors will concentrate on pollution hot spots when they excavate more than cubic yards of sedi ment in the Wildcat and Kokomo creeks That sediment will be placed in huge bags called The tubes allow the water in the sediment to slowly drain out onto a specially constructed bermed dewatering pad The pad expected to measure 300 by 700 feet will be constructed among the plants former acid lagoons The 10 la goons all near the confluence of the two creeks are large shallow beds where acid was used to clean scrap steel The contaminated water draining from the will be treated the geol ubes will eventually be taken to a haz waste landfill Since the original cleanup plan was fi in 1998 engineers and ry officials have made the creek cleanup requirements more stringent in hopes of escaping the Indiana Department of Nat ural Resources Level 5 advisory for fish caught in the creeks Likins said Fish taken from a Level 5 body of wa ter should never be eaten The cleanup plan wont remove all of the contaminants in the creeks which T See CONTINENTAL Page AS Talk about it Click to discuss this story with other readers on our online forum Visit our Web site and click on this storys link UGH SCHOOL A Wisconsin high school basketball player made a shot at the final buzzer to keep his team un defeated the AP video to see the long range lumber Prom Nearly up and running New Peru sewage plant combines innovative processes to reduce sludge increase capacity KT photos Bath DOWN TIME Plant operator Jeff Steele shuts a portion of the interchange batch reactor at the Peru sewage treatment plant By RUSH Tribune staff writer PERU A project started about eight years ago finally is near com Superintendent Mike Dahlquist ex upgrades at the Peru sewage treatment plant to be done by March allowing it to handle 8 million gal lons a day with a peak of up to 26 million gallons a day The plant was rated for up to 4 mil lion gallons per day with a peak of 6 million Roger Merriman Peru Utilities general manager said the upgrades solve two problems It doubles plant capacity and fits into the citys long term combined sewer overflow plan It also included repairs and up grades to lift stations which move water out of low areas to the plant Peru has a combined sewer system meaning storm water and sewage OXYGEN TEST Jeff Steele tests the dissolved oxygen in the new vertical loop reactor at the Peru sewage treatment plant Oxygen helps in the natural biological reaction of microbes in the water run in the same pipes During rain the pipes were carrying more water than could be treated and the water that could not be treated went directly into the Wabash River Once we reached the point our daily flows were exceeding the ca of the plant we had to deal with it We knew down the road we had to deal with our longterm combined sewer overflow Merriman said The city could have dealt with just the plant capacity issue and then the sewer overflow plan as a separate project he said but it was more cost effective to do both at once He said its much more tive to transport and treat storm wa ter than to separate storm sewers from sanitary sewers That type of project could cost million per mile and the city has about 60 miles of sewers He said that kind of project would mean streets being torn up all over the city for years The project is funded through a state loan to be paid back over 20 years at percent interest The city opened a line of credit of million for the project Merri man expects the final project to come in at less than that T See SEWAGE J AS Governor details his local government plan INDIANAPOLIS AP Gov Mitch Daniels outlined his ideas Thursday for an extreme makeover of local gov in Indiana a plan that would encourage localities to consolidate eliminate township assessors and allow counties to create new taxes Daniels plan would allow county councils to adopt at limited rates new income taxes and hotel sales and food and beverage taxes as long as 80 percent of the revenue from the new taxes goes toward property tax relief The proposal also would allow local governments to consolidate or merge more easily and would provide finan cial incentives for those that do so Daniels says his proposals move in the fresh new tion of more home rule and local control in Haan executive director of the In diana Association of County Commis said the plan would free local governments from some state control We need the Haan said Weve lived under the iron hand of the state for so long Were quite capable of doing our own But Republicans in the House includ ing House Speaker Brian Bosnia and Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Espich say they want to focus on providing at least temporary property tax relief to homeowners this year Considering that plan as well as longterm financing al for local governments could be difficult during this years short leg session they said Espich of Uniondale has been cool to new revenue plans for another reason I continue to be concerned that every proposal 1 hear contains a provi sion where part of it is new money to spend for local governments and I T See DAN A8 Convicted molester gets the maximum A jury convicted Christopher Roler of a C child molest charge in November By MIKE FIETCHER Tribune staff writer Convicted child molester Christopher M Roler appeared in Howard Superior Court 2 Thursday and was handed the maximum sentence by law of eight years in prison for molesting a young girl Roler was originally charged with child molest as a C and child molest as an A in the Sept molest of a 9yearold girl in the 1200 block of North Korby Street according to police In November 2005 a jury convicted Roler of the lesser charge as a C which accused him of fondling the girl The jury was not convinced Roler at tempted to have sexual intercourse with the child which constitutes an A and found him innocent of that charge Jurors deliberated about 2a hours be fore reaching a split decision On Thursday Judge Stephen Jessup gave Roler an sentence the maximum penalty allowed by law for a C Howard County Prosecutor James Fleming said In accordance with Indiana law Roler T See MOLESTER Page AS Peru schools exploring kindergarten Busing meals are focus of concerns By DEMPSEY Tribune staff writer PERU Peru Schools will explore the possibility of kindergarten for the 200607 school year South Peru Elementary School will become the corporations early child hood center and will house kindergarten and Head Start classes When the school board be gan a renovation project the po of offer ing kindergarten was discussed That possibility also was a topic of discussion at this weeks board meeting What we talked about was the things we need to determine if it is going to go Su Tom McKaig said Three areas are a matter of concern The first is an analysis of how many kindergarten pupils might be involved must be 5 years old by Aug 1 which is a month later than it previously has been V See KINDERGARTEN Page AS Talk about it Click to discuss this story with other readers on our online forum Visit our Web site and click on this storys link C2 NASCAR 01 C4 lotteries B3 obituaries is a C movie listings sports BUM UICHI Today Rain and snow showers High 50 Low 26 Saturday Mostly cloudy High 35 Complete weather AS Todays A1 designed by Rachel Brantley TO SUBSCRIBE 76S 4563821 OR 16S 4593121 TO 765 4393111 1880382M96 MOWS 8 TO S SAT I TO NOON
