Efforts to clean up the Brownfields area in Perry continue as the Council approved a bid for the project this week.

City Administrator Butch Niebuhr says the City has completed one-third of the project and they hope to finish it up this year.

“We’ve cleaned up almost 50 acres of that, there’s 100 acres left of this.  We got a grant two years ago to do an assessment and a cleanup, it was a combination grant, which was one of the first of its kind.  My understanding from the (Environmental Protection Agency) is if we do finish this cleanup this summer, I think we might be the first one that was awarded this first time grant or experimental grant, that we’ll be the first one to have it completed, which I think is a good deal.”

Niebuhr says the bids came in higher than they hoped but it won’t end up costing the City more money.

“It’s set up by how many tons are there.  We’ve actually got a little over $200,000 to spend and then hoping to get another $25,000 from the state (Department of Natural Resources) Brownfield cleanup program.  So in the end we’re hoping to have around $255,000 – $260,000 for cleanup, but the bid came in about $326,000 so that had to do with quantity.  So Council went ahead and approved the bid, knowing that it dealt with quantity.  When we hit a number, if it’s not cleaned up we’ll just stop, start over and see what we have left to clean up and probably look for more funds out there through the EPA and DNR.”

The low bidder for the project was from J. Pettiecord out of Des Moines.