Waukegan — The Environmental and Sustainability Committee heard a progress report Sept. 2 on remediation of the former Fansteel property at 801 South Market Street, where project manager Colin Brown said the city and contractors have completed most field work and expect regulatory review to be the remaining step toward a recorded "no further remediation" (NFR) finding.

Brown, project manager with the Deaton Group, told the committee the 11-acre site on the South Lakefront received a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency brownfields cleanup grant of about $400,000, with a 20% city match, creating roughly $480,000 for remediation work. He said Illinois EPA performed a targeted brownfields assessment in 2024 and that city-contracted crews removed impacted soils, imported clean fill and capped the site with a roughly three-foot engineered clean-soil barrier to protect human health and the environment.

The cleanup work included excavation in identified hot spots during September–November of the previous year by a local contractor, Lake County Grading, Brown said, and the import of clean cover soil from a GFL facility in Zion. He described a combined submission to the Illinois EPA of a site investigation report, remedial objectives report and remedial action plan — a package he called roughly 1,750 pages — and said Illinois EPA returned conservative comments in August that left the project "near the finish line." "We're at the 90%. We're at the 10-yard line," Brown said.

Brown outlined the near-term schedule: the project team planned to complete final documentation in September, then submit materials for Illinois EPA's 60-day review. If that timeline holds, he said the city could receive a draft NFR in early to mid-December. An NFR letter would identify any restrictions on future use, and a final NFR would be recorded on the deed so future developers could proceed with cleanup requirements accounted for.

Brown said the city and planning staff engaged the community during 2024, including a roundtable at Trinity AME Church attended by Alderman Bolton and local residents. He also noted media coverage that helped draw interest to redeveloping the South Lakefront. The project team confirmed that some remaining tasks are primarily desktop work responding to Illinois EPA comments rather than additional field remediation.

No formal committee action was taken; the presentation was an informational update and committee members had no questions for the presenter during the meeting.

Questions and comments raised earlier in the public-comment period about other environmental matters — including the NRG coal-ash ponds, land-use code integration and solar installations in Yeoman Creek — were not resolved at this meeting and were not the subject of the Fansteel presentation.