Chemical contamination clean-up underway at Hopewell neighborhood site

Published May 9, 2025 at 7:44 PM EDT

Rendering of a building to be built in Hopewell.

A chemical clean-up operation is underway at the Hopewell neighborhood site at the corner of Second Street and South Rogers Street.

Bloomington-based VET Environmental Engineering has found traces of arsenic and benzene about 4 feet deep in the soil. Sara Hamidovic, VET’s president and CEO, said the chemicals are left over from a former gas station that stood years before the old hospital was constructed.

Benzene is a common chemical found at sites like Hopewell, according to Hamidovic.

She said a project manager with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management is involved with every step of the clean-up process. So far, the team has two potential strategies: draw a line around the contaminated area and excavate it or start digging down until they hit soil that is not contaminated. The VET team will be using tools to analyze and separate clean and contaminated soil.

The soil will then be dumped in a secure landfill, according to Hamidovic.

She said if any residual benzene remains after clean-up, the city will have to build protections into neighborhood buildings.

“So, if they build a building on top of that, that building needs to be constructed with a vapor barrier and a vapor mitigation system that prevents any residual vapors from entering the structure,” she said.

Hamidovic said while this is a problem her team will have to solve, it’s not unusual.

“Leaking underground storage tanks and gas station clean-ups are very, very, very run-of-the-mill in the environmental industry,” she said. “So, this is something that yes, this is a big deal and absolutely needs to be cleaned up, but it is kind of a run-of-the-mill project as far as an environmental project goes. These are extremely common.”