The president of the company that has been remediating the former Ironton Iron site has told city officials the plot of land could be used now for redevelopment, pending the finalization of a few documents.

Mark Rhinehart, president of SRW Environmental Services of Milford, has told city officials, “You could build on this today and build safely.”

Rhinehart said the physical remediation of the site has been completed and the final steps toward making the property available for redevelopment is a matter of “putting documents in front of them (the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency).

Rhinehart said he plans to file the necessary, No Further Action request probably by late summer or early fall. The OEPA will then issue a “Covenant Not To Sue.”

“We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Rhinehart said.

The remediation has completed cleared the 20-acre site of any contaminated soil and any contaminated ground water is at 40 feet below ground. Rhinehart said locating and then cleaning the contaminated ground water has been the most difficult aspect of the job.

“We never could find the source of the it; we could never say ‘this is the point at which the release occurs,’’ Rhinehart said.

Work began in 2007 to clean up up the brownfield site. The city obtained Clean Ohio Funds from the state to demolish existing structure and conduct environmental assessments as well as the actual cleanup of the property. City officials hope to market the land for new development.