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State will pay for cleanup of Inver Grove Heights couple's tainted land

Minnesota will cover $67,000 for contamination it caused in 1982 on an Inver Grove Heights property.

By JOY POWELL, Star Tribune

Last update: May 1, 2008 - 8:43 PM

After learning in 2004 that their residential land in Inver Grove Heights had been contaminated years earlier, John and Judy McEachran faced a cleanup bill of $82,000.

But now, the state of Minnesota has agreed to pay what remains on the bill -- $67,000 -- for a 1982 dumping mistake by the state Department of Transportation on their property.

"This was, without doubt, the state's responsibility," Rep. Joe Atkins, DFL-Inver Grove Heights, said this week. "What happened to the McEachrans was unthinkable, and I'm glad they're finally getting the compensation they deserve."

The Legislature approved the claims in a bill that was signed into law last week. Atkins helped push through the McEachrans' claim.

The city of Inver Grove Heights had earlier paid $15,000 to the couple to help cover the cost of cleanup of their property on Cahill Court, near Hwy. 50 and County Road 80.

Before the McEachrans owned the property, the land had been an undocumented dumping zone. The couple learned of the buried waste when they decided to build a second twin home on their property in 2004, and the excavation uncovered the mess.

State officials eventually agreed that the unearthed waste had come from asbestos-covered erosion piping used for drainage around old bridges. The waste had been buried on the couple's property more than two decades earlier during bridge work along Interstate 494.

In 1982, a trucker hired by the state had hauled chunks of the asbestos-wrapped piping to the property that the McEachrans would eventually buy, just east of Rolling Hills Park in Dakota County.

The government cleaned up the mess, and Dakota County billed the couple for $140,000 for the remediation. Various units of government reduced the bill, but a $67,000 debt still hung over the couple, who are United Methodist ministers.

The McEachrans were out of town Thursday and unavailable for comment.

Joy Powell • 952-882-9017