OGDEN — An Ogden official says the city will pay the $300,000 outlined in a federal agreement to help cover the massive $5.09 million cleanup effort in 2019 at the former Swift building site in west Ogden.

A Smith and Edwards official says the Farr West retailer will pay another $2.29 million of the total.

The Ogden Redevelopment Agency, the city entity that owns the land — now vacant and meant for future redevelopment — “will not contest and will pay,” said Brandon Cooper, who heads the Ogden Community and Economic Development Department. The new expense, meantime, will increase the total the City of Ogden has spent on the 7.22-acre site since fiscal year 2018 to $6.69 million.

Smith and Edwards Co., which owned the building when much of the contamination occurred that prompted the 2019 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-led cleanup, is on the hook to cover $2.29 million of the $5.09 million. Craig Smith, the company president, said the firm — operator of a sporting goods and Western tack store in Farr West — will cover the amount.

“Since the start of the cleanup by the EPA, Smith and Edwards has been open and worked with all parties involved,” Smith said in an email. “We are glad a settlement could be reached and think it is a benefit to the EPA, Ogden City and the community. Smith and Edwards has already agreed to pay the amount in the decent decree and will pay it with no dispute.”

Several federal agencies, including the Defense Logistics Agency and the departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, will cover another $2.29 million, according to the federal consent decree outlining the plans. The Defense Logistics Agency sold Smith and Edwards Co. much of the hazardous materials behind the contamination at the ex-Swift site from 1965 to 1990 was within lots of surplus military items, according to the Sept. 29 U.S. Department of Justice filing in the matter.

The $300,000 the city’s to pay to help cover the most recent cleanup effort will bring the total spent by the city since fiscal year 2018 in acquisition, cleanup and demolition costs for the ex-Swift site to $6.69 million. Except for the $300,000, the other city expenses are separate from the $5.09 million incurred in the EPA-led cleanup.

The city paid $362,670 to acquire the land from a Smith and Edwards-affiliated company in 2017, has spent $783,987 on asbestos abatement efforts and paid $3.16 million for initial demolition and site work. Last year, after the 2020 demolition of the building, the City Council appropriated another $2.08 million to cover cleanup costs related to a leaking underground storage tank on the site. Officials feared the leaking could have potentially contaminated the adjacent Weber River just to the west.

Cooper lauded city efforts to help in the cleanup of the site given the resulting benefits to the health and safety of the community.

“Of course, the preference is that the private ownership of the Swift (property) would have prevented the … condition in the first place,” Cooper said. “However, seeing that there was no market solution at the time for this looming danger, the bold and quick action of the administration (of Mayor Mike Caldwell) and City Council has certainly created a much safer, cleaner and more enjoyable area for Ogden city residents, without financial impact to taxpaying citizens.”

The $2.08 million appropriated for the site last year came from funds generated at the city-owned Business Depot Ogden industrial park, same as $1.3 million appropriated in 2021. Cooper said officials had argued, to no avail, that the city shouldn’t have had to pay any of the $5.09 million in EPA cleanup costs given other remediation costs Ogden has covered.

As for the most recent steps to address the issues related to the underground storage tank, Cooper said the efforts are continuing. More cleanup “may be needed,” he said, with more work to start next spring.

The site, home to a former Swift meatpacking facility many years ago, is part of the city’s 122-acre Trackline Economic Development Area. The zone extends from 24th Street north to Middleton Road and from the railroad tracks east of the ex-Swift site west to G Avenue.

After the 2019 cleanup of the former Swift site, Atwater Infrastructure Partners reached an accord with the city to build a 125,000-square-foot aerospace manufacturing facility at the location. That apparently stalled after subsequent discovery of the underground leaking tank and Cooper said the future of the location is up in the air.

“City administration is currently weighing the options for redevelopment,” Cooper said.

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