Morning Journal/Jo Ann Bobby-Gilbert The former East Junior High School in East Liverpool is being eyed as a Brownfield site, which could mean the demolition of the former school building.

EAST LIVERPOOL — The former East Junior High School property on Maryland Avenue is being proposed as a potential Brownfield site, which would result in the property being cleared for eventual development.

Service-Safety Brian Allen said the city is working through OMEGA to obtain grant funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to have the property declared a Brownfield, which refers to sites that have been developed but abandoned and contaminated with low levels of hazardous wastes, in this case asbestos.

Allen said OMEGA needs five sites in order to apply for the funding.

If declared a Brownfield, the former school building would be demolished in an environmentally safe manner, due to the asbestos in the structure, Allen said. Once the property is cleared, it could be marketed for development.

He said there are some ideas for the property already but “nothing I can talk about right now,” noting that it is “ideal for certain things.”

Located in a residential area, the property would not be particularly suited for manufacturing, Allen said.

The property was traded to the city several years ago by the city school district in exchange for property on Pope Street which the district planned to use for additional parking.

Meanwhile, a small section of the front lawn has been used the past two years by the city health department for a community gardens project but this year has not been used for the project and has become overgrown and unsightly.

Health Commissioner Carol Cowan said grant funding was used to get the project started, including purchasing gardening supplies, materials to have grow boxes made, to purchase a shed and pavilion.

However, that grant funding has now been exhausted, and, along with this summer’s rainy weather and a lack of community involvement, the project did not get off the ground this year, Cowan said.

“If you don’t get community involvement, this is what you get,” Cowan said, referring to the condition of the gardening site. “People didn’t take an interest like we thought they would and this is not a one-person operation.”

She said, “We were hoping people in the neighborhood would utilize the boxes and maintain each box and the surrounding space, but that didn’t happen. If the work had been divided among many people, it would have worked.”

The uncooperative weather and learning of the city’s plans to seek development of the property also contributed to not utilizing the gardens this year.

Cowan said there were some issues with the method used in preparing the space, with mulch put down on pathways in between the boxes when gravel or blacktop would be better suited.

This caused the pathways between the grow boxes to accumulate airborne seeds that germinated and grew into the weedy patch that now exists on the site, Cowan said.

“I’m sorry it got to this point, but we’re going to fix it,” she pledged.

Cowan said Mark Hissom will be removing the grow boxes, pavilion and shed from the site so they can be stored until another site can be found, and she is in the process of contracting with someone to mow the lot inside the chain link fence that was in place before the gardens project began.

After that, Cowan said she wants to see the project restarted but with some changes, including having less boxes to accommodate the actual number of gardeners interested and preferably placing them on a hard surface to prevent the weed growth on pathways.

“We need to get something more manageable,” Cowan said.

The city is responsible for mowing the grass at the property as a whole, according to Allen.

jgilbert@mojonews.com