Photograph courtesy of Ellie Klemsz
Bloomington – The City of Bloomington Utilities Department increased security at the abandoned Griffy Water Treatment Facility in 2017 after large quantities of toxic mercury were discovered inside.
The water treatment plant, located on the North side of Griffy Lake, was retired 23 years ago but much of the outdated machinery was left behind.
Since then, students and Bloomington residents have been drawn to the iconic building for its aesthetically pleasing graffitied walls and eerie hallways.
For many IU students, the building represented an unspoken bucket list item. Senior Ellie Klemsz is one of those students.
“I’ve been there loads of times. The first time was in early 2016 and then a bunch more times in 2017. It was so cool to be somewhere that looked so creepy with the graffiti and everything,” Klemsz says.
“A lot of people were there taking pictures and that’s mostly what my group did too. All you had to do to get in was walk through a big hole in the fence.” she says.
But attitudes toward the building drastically changed after three of its industrial canisters containing liquid mercury deteriorated, releasing a little more than 100 pounds of the toxic substance into the building.
According to the Mayo Clinic, even a small amount of Mercury vapor can seriously damage the body’s neurological system and even lead to death.
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When city officials discovered the leak after a July 2017 inspection, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) helped facilitate a swift cleanup effort.
However, the leak was so big that only two-thirds of the mercury could be contained.
The rest of the mercury had been unwittingly spread around the building through he foot traffic of trespassers.
One of those trespassers was Martinsville resident, Brian Wagaman who recorded a video from inside the treatment facility in January 2017, several months before the city realized that mercury had been leaked.
“It was crazy inside there. I went for fun one night and got in through a worn-down part in the fence. And then in the basement — I was walking around recording video — and I saw this mirror-y stuff in the standing basement water,” Wagaman says.
“I looked closer and realized holy shit it was mercury. Tons of it. I was like holy shit. The video is up on YouTube. You can see me playing around with it using a tree branch even. I got out of there quick after that though,” he says.
After the initial cleanup, the City of Bloomington Utilities hired Bruce Wilds Security LLC, a 24/7 private security company that would watch the facility and prevent any further cross contamination.
James Hall, Assistant Director of Environmental Programs, believes that the city had no other choice than to hire security.
“You know, once we saw that the mercury was randomly popping up in different parts of the building that were nowhere near the original spill site, we had to take into consideration the fact that it was probably due to break-ins,” Hall says.
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The cost of the security has not been cheap. The city has spent more than half a million dollars on the cleanup and security efforts alone since 2017.
“That’s about $20,000 a month just for security and security equipment. Then on top of that we had to pay over $300,000 just for the mercury to be cleaned up, which wasn’t even all of it,” Hall says.
The astronomical costs of the fiasco has left many people wondering where the money is coming from.
“I just want to know how they’re paying for it. It better by emergency funds and not taxes or something,” IU senior Klemsz says.
The money for the cleanup effort is being taken from city waterline maintenance projects, according to city officials.
Those projects had been originally funded by the potable water tax found on all Bloomington water bills.
“We never considered raising water bills to pay for it, but the money does have to come from somewhere and we made the difficult decision to have it come from other maintenance projects,” Hall says.
“We are definitely feeling a financial squeeze right now because of it. Those water mains really need fixing and updating, but we’re running out of viable options to pay for both,” he says.
The city ultimately wants to demolish the facility, but they must wait for IDEM to give them approval based on federal guidelines for safe environmental mercury levels.
The city estimates that regardless of what IDEM has to say, the combined cleanup and security efforts will take another year and several hundred thousand additional dollars.
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But recent lapses in security have drawn attention to the associated costs.
Just last week, an on-duty security guard was found sleeping on the job, leaving the building vulnerable to trespassers.
Bruce Wilds, owner of Bruce Wilds Security LLC did not return a request for comment.
After being made aware of the serious lapse in security, Assistant Director of Environmental Programs, James Hall wrote in an email, “We will have a discussion with our contractor.”