County outlines remediation, monitoring and demolition timeline for old Law Enforcement Center at 407 Seventh Street

Kenny Smits, Woodbury County building services director, told the Board of Supervisors the former Law Enforcement Center at 407 Seventh Street remains under environmental oversight and requires further work before the county can demolish the structure.

Smits said the site has been in the Iowa Department of Natural Resources underground storage tank (UST) program. “The remediation project began around 2015, when we installed some equipment that actually pulled Benzene out of the ground, and captured it,” he said. He said the state-funded remediation had used about $350,000 of a $1,000,000 cap and that the active remediation effort was discontinued in August 2020. “The site was then reclassified and listed as no odors present, but continue monitoring,” Smits said.

Smits said county contractors plugged 15 monitoring wells in November 2023 but that the DNR continues to list the parcel as a high-risk site. He said a geothermal well on property owned by Pioneer Bank, across an alley from the LEC, must be plugged before the county can secure a “no risk” classification. “To get the LEC site turned to no risk that geothermal well would need to be plugged,” Smits said, and he said county staff have communicated with the bank and offered to oversee and pay to plug the well if necessary.

Smits reported recent hazardous-materials work at the site. In June 2024 the county retained EOC (formerly Impact7G) for an asbestos and hazardous-materials survey; Smits said that contract was roughly $11,700. He said the consultant found small amounts of asbestos in glazing at fewer than a handful of windows and identified numerous removable hazardous items such as old ballasts, televisions and medical waste that county staff have been removing.

Smits also described an underground diesel tank that fed the site’s emergency generator and that he said had never been registered with the DNR. “We discovered, that had not been registered with the DNR when it was installed,” he said, and described a multi-step process to remove the tank: register the tank, temporarily close it, conduct soil sampling, then pursue permanent closure and removal if sampling shows no leak.

On timing and cost, Smits said the land-transfer agreement with the City of Sioux City requires the county to demolish the LEC and turn the property over within 18 months of occupancy of the new LEC; the new facility’s occupancy date was Sept. 16, 2024, which Smits said makes the contract turnover date March 15, 2026. He provided an initial demolition estimate of about $850,000 and said that with architectural, abatement, tank removal and other closing costs the county should anticipate roughly $1,100,000. Smits said he has been charging early project costs to the LEC operating budget, which he described as nearly depleted, and that he will ask the board to include a CIP (capital improvement project) request and borrowing for the demolition in the FY 2025 borrowing plan.

Smits said a site-survey and utilities-identification contract from Olson Associates—$7,400—was ready to be presented to the board to support bid specifications for demolition.

Board members asked about the length of demolition work if the county proceeds; Smits estimated bidding and procurement would take about four months after specifications are finalized and that demolition could take roughly three months once started.

The discussion did not produce a formal vote on demolition funding. Smits told the board he expects to present a contract for the site survey and to ask for CIP borrowing related to demolition in the coming weeks.