City of Fort Myers releases cleanup plans for Dunbar sludge site

The City of Fort Myers released plans Wednesday to remove and dispose of lime sludge at a Dunbar site.

The city used a nearly 4-acre field to dump sludge for about a decade in the 1960s. Arsenic was discovered at the site in 2007, and in the groundwater there in 2012, but those results didn’t become public until early 2017.

Crews will begin removing the sludge from the site and surrounding private properties in November — the process is expected to be complete by February.

The new plan requires soil samples to be tested for arsenic. The sludge will be taken away on trucks to a disposal site — it could possibly be reused in the production of concrete, ceramics and hydrated lime pellets.

Results from samples taken on the groundwater last week should be released in two to three weeks. More groundwater testing is expected to take place in July and October.

Mayor Randy Henderson and City Manager Saeed Kazemi did not want to go on camera to discuss the sludge site.