The Kerr-McGee property in Jacksonville is a polluted Talleyrand waterfront area that once was home to a long desserted plant.
There from the 1890s until 1978, fertilizers and chemicals were produced. Today the land is vacant, there are no buildings and a builkhead is built over contaminated sediments at the bottom of the St. Johns River that runs through our city.
How to clean up the site has been a headache but now the area may see state money for community projects to clean up the site. Under the plan, the site owner, Tronox Inc. would purchase the river bottom as part of a cleanup of the river and the shore.
In return, in an unusual community-spirited project, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection wants most of the proceeds to return to neighborhood projects. The cost of the river bottom is still undetermined but could run into a six-figure amount.
