Council votes to allow Casey's gas station within safety zone of city's new water wellfield

MISHAWAKA — The Common Council approved a rezoning Monday night that will allow a second convenience store-gas station at Fir and Douglas roads within the safe zone the city has established to limit the potential for contamination near its new water wellfield .

Developers won approval for a Casey's convenience store and gas station with a 6-3 council vote, despite strong opposition from the city .

Council members Gregg Hixenbaugh, Lou Ann Hazen, Kate Voelker, Matt Carroll, Matt Mammolenti and Anthony "Tony" Violi voted in favor of the rezoning. Ron Banicki, Dale "Woody" Emmons and Lacy Hahn voted against.

SEC Investments LLC filed documents to ask the city to rezone 2.3 acres at the southeast corner of Fir and Douglas roads from C-1 general commercial to C-10 filling station commercial for a Casey's convenience store and gas station.

Officials for the Casey's development told the council its current technology for tank construction, piping, and its monitoring and policies for protecting the environment would protect from spills that have plagued gasoline stations in the past.

Calling the vote "a disappointment," Mayor Dave Wood said the city's new $40 million water wellfield at Veterans Parkway was a generational resource that needed to be protected.

"We made a generational investment, a significant investment in Mishawaka's water security, and I think this decision tonight was a step backwards from that goal," Wood said after the meeting.

A Family Express convenience store and gas station exists at the northwest corner of Douglas and Fir. It was approved by the council in 2015, four months before the city entered into an agreement to buy land from Juday Creek Golf Course for the new wellfield.

In speaking before the council, Wood said the issue of the rezoning was a land issue.

He explained the Family Express project was decided before the city had purchased the property for the wellfield.

"Since Family Express went in, we did purchase property, and we put in a very significant generational investment — $40 million — into a new wellfield to serve Mishawaka's growth, to help with our pressure on the city's north side and to give us what I call water security for, essentially, our lifetimes," Wood said. "… and if we continue to put risk right on our perimeter, I'm not comfortable with that."

Stephen Studer, attorney representing Casey's said the developers have applied for a wellhead protection permit with the St. Joseph County Health Department. The city turned over the wellhead protection oversight to the county in 2004.

Studer said the county health officials said Mishawaka's water wellfield could handle a gas station project no closer than 200 feet from the wellfield. The land for the Casey's is more than 1,700 feet from the new Mishawaka water wellfield.

But city officials, including Dave Majewski, water division manager for Mishawaka Utilities , maintains the city has done its preliminary "delineation" for its safety zone for the areas where potential contamination could affect the new water source.

The future Casey's property falls in what city officials have determined to be the city's "one-year time of travel area," a zone from the new wellfield where a molecule of water-contaminant can travel in a year before reaching the well, thus contaminating the city's source of water.

Majewski told the council that the city's permits with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management require the city to measure the first 12 months of water affects on the aquifer before establishing a final delineation area of safety.

But Studer said Casey's reputation and its experience in managing 2,600 stores and stations throughout the Midwest assured council members the risks of fuel spills are very low.

Casey's has offered to pay for and drill two and possibly three water monitoring wells for city use to keep track of water quality between the gas stations and the wellfield.

Council member Banicki said while he called Casey's a great company, he had to just decide what makes sense.

"Sometimes, you just have to go with your gut," Banicki said. "To me, the risk of having the wellfield, I just can't support this today. And I hope everybody understands that at some point Casey's would build somewhere in the area."

Council President Hixenbaugh said, however, his support was based upon the fact that he felt Casey's made its case with its approach and practices with its safety measures.

He also said he had hoped the county wellhead protection ordinance that affects Mishawaka projects could be tightened and reworked to allow the city to have a better guide for the issue.

Hixenbaugh said that he believes the city analyzed the risk of having a Family Express station when they decided to put the wellfield on the land it purchased from Juday Creek Golf Course.

"That (risk) appears to be a risk that was deemed to be allowable and acceptable," Hixenbaugh said, referring to the decision to put the wellfield near the Family Express station.

"We have a gas station that's directly catty corner from the parcel we're talking about here," Hixenbaugh said. "… We have a gas station on one border, and ... we're being asked to turn down the gas station on another corner. And, to me, that feels arbitrary, and it opens the door to potential litigation."

Wood has the option to veto the council's vote on the rezoning, but that might not settle the matter, as he acknowledged.

"I have the ability to veto," the mayor said, "but 6-3, they can just override it."

Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@sbtinfo.com .

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Council votes to allow Casey's gas station within safety zone of city's new water wellfield