County Receives $2.5 Million Grant

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Infrastructure is an expensive endeavor that can severely burden local governments. 

Muskingum County Land Bank Executive Director Andy Roberts announced a $2.5 Million Dollar grant that was awarded to Muskingum County from the state’s Brownfield Remediation program that will assist in the decontamination of the former Mosaic Tile property and establish engineering controls for the future jail facility slated for construction. 

“These funds were going to be part of the project anyways, so this is straight off of the top. Engineering controls are just to finish off the Brownfield Site to make sure everything is in full compliance with the OEPA,” Roberts said.

A Brownfield property is any property that has potential or known contamination. The former Mosaic Tile property was known to have lead and arsenic contamination removed and future engineering controls are in the plans to be constructed to ensure that there will be no direct contact with those contaminants in the future.  

“So the vast majority of the funds will be used for the parking surfaces, the foundations and then confirmation sampling, just to make sure that everything is clean and that’s more or less where everything’s going to,” Roberts said.

The overall project is estimated at $78.6 Million dollars and with this latest grant, 16 percent of the total costs will be funded through grants.