No Local Contractors in First Round of Asarco Cleanup, County Told

Montgomery County Board Development & Personnel Committee Meeting | July 6, 2026

Article Summary: MCEDC Executive Director Kaitlyn Fath told the Montgomery County Board Development & Personnel Committee on Monday, July 6, 2026, that EPA clean-up work at the Asarco site in Taylor Springs will likely begin with lakes and residential properties and will include no local contractors for the first layer of work.

MCEDC Report Key Points:

• Fath reported that EPA clean-up at Asarco in Taylor Springs will likely begin with lakes and residential properties.
• No local contractors will be included for the first layer of work.
• Fath also reported on an IHDA Strong Communities grant application, meetings with Small Biz Grant recipients, tourism, the community calendar, cellular coverage, and the COAD project timeline.
• The item was titled “Update/Approval”; the minutes record no motion and no vote.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — When the federal cleanup of the Asarco site in Taylor Springs begins, the crews doing the first round of the work will not be from around here.

MCEDC Executive Director Kaitlyn Fath told the Montgomery County Board Development & Personnel Committee on Monday, July 6, 2026, that EPA clean-up work at Asarco in Taylor Springs will likely begin with lakes and residential properties, but will include no local contractors for the first layer of work.

That is the entirety of what the minutes record on the subject, and each clause of it raises a question the record does not answer. The minutes do not say why local contractors are excluded — whether it is a matter of federal contracting rules, specialized certification for handling contaminated material, an existing award, or something else. They do not say what a “first layer” of work consists of, or whether later layers might be different. They do not give a start date.

Nor do they identify which lakes, or how many residential properties, or whose. Cleanup work that begins at people’s houses is a different proposition for a village of a few hundred than cleanup work that begins at a fenced industrial parcel, and Taylor Springs residents reading this have a direct stake in which properties are on the list. The public record before the committee does not tell them.

The ASARCO Taylor Springs Superfund Site redevelopment has been an MCEDC priority, pursued with the Village of Taylor Springs.

The Rest of the Report

Fath reviewed her written report — which is not among the committee’s handouts — and the minutes summarize the balance of it in a single sentence. She reported on the IHDA Strong Communities grant application, meeting with Small Biz Grant recipients, tourism, the community calendar, cellular coverage, and the COAD project timeline.

Six subjects, no detail on any of them. The community calendar is presumably the monthly full-page advertisement MCEDC purchases in a local newspaper, though the minutes do not say so. COAD — Community Organizations Active in Disasters — has a steering committee that has been meeting under the MCEDC framework. Cellular coverage appears here for the first time in the county’s record with no indication of what the issue is.

Fath attended the meeting in person, listed on the attendance line as MCEDC Executive Director. The item was titled “MCEDC Update/Approval.” No motion was made and no vote was taken.

The committee is a recommending body, and in any event took no action on the report. Nothing about the Asarco cleanup is within the county’s gift; the work is the EPA’s.