By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

Port Arthur city officials Monday continued to await results of soil tests on ground possibly contaminated in Bryan Park on Gulfway Drive. Results may be another week in coming.

The City Council held a Monday morning meeting in executive session ostensibly to discuss, among several items, legal advice about environmental issues.

The city is under Texas Commission on Environmental Quality mandate to address possible contamination of ground beneath where the Kansas City Southern Locomotive No. 503 has been exhibited in the park for as long as 60 years.

Concerns about contamination arose last summer in the wake of Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey, when some neighbors to the park expressed concerns about asbestos on the locomotive and contamination from leaking oil, possibly under the tender attached to the locomotive.

The city has been given three deadlines — March 6, April 20 and May 11 — to clean up contamination at the site. Most recently, the engine and tender have been moved on new track from the site of the possible contamination and soil has been removed and sent for testing.

“We haven’t gotten definitive word on the soil test,” City Attorney Valecia Tizeno said.

City attorneys said Monday afternoon that they have been in contact with TCEQ to advise them of progress made by the city at the park, as well as to let the state know they are still awaiting test results. Assistant City Attorney Gaylyn Cooper suggested TCEQ understands the city is making a good faith effort to address TCEQ’s concerns.

Among other topics for the executive session was the value of the land at Bryan Park. Tizeno and Cooper said they could not comment on that portion of the meeting because of the attorney-client privilege extended to executive, or closed, sessions.

They said the City Council did not take action on what was discussed in private.

Mayor Derrick Freeman said the Bryan Park, one of 33 city parks, could not be sold without voter approval.