EL MONTE The city is making lemonade out of lemons, or, perhaps more accurately, lemon trees out of air pollution.
Lambert Park is getting a much-needed facelift thanks in part to a $1.1 million fine paid by the now-defunct iron foundry Gregg Industries to the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
New landscaping, picnic shelters, restrooms and a splash pad are potentially on the horizon for the aging park. A small woodland garden and watershed garden are already being built on the park’s corners.
The project is being funded by the Gregg Industries fine as well as $972,000 in state funds obtained by the San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps for watershed rehabilitation projects.
Gregg Industries was cited by the AQMD more than a dozen times last decade for alleged air pollution violations. The foundry closed in 2009, officially because of the recession, though some blamed the AQMD fines. In the end, as part of its settlement with AQMD, the company paid the agency $1.1 million. Because the alleged pollution emitted by the foundry was in El Monte, city officials told AQMD those funds belong in the city.
“We lost 450 jobs, but we got $1 million,” Mayor Andre Quintero said Tuesday as the city council voted to officially receive the funds.
Resident Cosme Jimenez encouraged the council to get community input on the park’s design.
“We haven’t put an improvement in there in 50 years. If you are going to do it, do it right,” he said.
The first phase of the project is already underway — the construction of woodland and watershed gardens, as well as landscaping improvements on the perimeter of the park by the conservation corps. El Monte is using some of the Gregg funds to make urgent repairs to the park, including removing a dead tree, repairing sidewalks and building a picnic shelter.
The city will then actually design the park’s larger renovations, explained parks and recreation director Alexandra Lopez.
Those renovations could include new restrooms, a splash pad, new regulation-size soccer fields, a small office and other amenities depending on funding, Lopez said.
All of the projects could cost an estimated $7 million and will be built in additional phases, Lopez said. The city must decide which to prioritize first to be funded with the remaining Gregg funds.
Officials will then look for grants for the other improvements.
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