The City of Dallas is suing the U.S. Navy for alleged failure to clean up a contaminated former Naval airfield by the deadline originally established.
Dallas alleges that the Navy violated a 2002 legal settlement that required the Navy to clean up Hensley Field by 2017, according to The Dallas Morning News.
The City bought the field in the 1920s and leased it to the U.S. Navy from 1949 to 1999.
The settlement stated that the Navy agreed to spend roughly $18 million to remove chemicals known to increase risk for cancer and other diseases from the soil and groundwater at the site.
Contaminated soil at the site has since been managed, but the groundwater has not been given the green light by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Dallas is now seeking monetary compensation for damages and a definitive timeline for when the project will be completed, per the DMN. Last year, the City said the Navy’s cleanup costs were an estimated $92.4 million but the field was still far from approval, reported the DMN.
“The United States has failed to keep multiple binding promises to remediate the significant environmental contamination caused by its decades-long use of the Hensley Field site,” the City’s complaint reads, according to the DMN.
“As a result, Dallas cannot implement its master plan that contemplates the reuse and redevelopment of the Hensley Field site into a vibrant mixed-use community for more than 12,000 residents and 12,000 jobs.”
The Dallas City Council approved plans last year to use the site for a 738-acre mixed-use community that includes over 6,800 residential homes, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Plans also include public space that will be “an interconnected network of community and neighborhood parks, greenways, natural preserves, and over 7.5 miles of on-site trails oriented to Mountain Creek Lake,” according to Dallas Innovates.
Hensley Field is currently used by the City for storage.
“By causing and failing to remediate significant environmental contamination, the United States has deprived Dallas of the economically viable or beneficial use of the Hensley Field site, which constitutes a taking by the United States of the property,” the complaint claims.
Despite the ongoing lawsuit, City Manager T.C. Broadnax said that the City appreciates “all of the U.S. Navy’s efforts to remediate the site for the past 20 years,” per the DMN.
“We are confident that we can reach an agreement on the final phase of the project that ensures Hensley Field can be safely developed into a premier community offering mixed income housing, recreation, commercial space, and more.”
The Dallas Express reached out to the U.S. Navy for comment but did not receive a response before press time.
