The cost of cleaning up an illegal dump site at Black Jack Battlefield near Baldwin will be paid by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment because the site represents a potential health hazard.

That will save Douglas County $20,000 it had allocated for sharing some of the cleanup costs with KDHE. It also relieves the landowner, Black Jack Battlefield Trust, of having to pick up any extra costs that might be associated with the cleanup.

“We’re very glad,” Black Jack Trust president Ramon Powers said. “It wasn’t a liability we created, and we’re certainly very glad they (KDHE) are moving ahead and taking care of it.”

Earlier this year the trust went before the Douglas County Commission to ask for help paying for the cleanup. Cost estimates were $90,000 to $100,000. KDHE has a cap that limits it from spending more than $10,000 on dump sites that involve tires, appliances and similar trash, officials said.

But KDHE also thought it could split the dump site into six separate sites and appropriate a total of $60,000 while the county and the trust took care of the rest of the bill.

Carol Von Tresh walks by one of five dump sites Tuesday on the land adjacent to the Black Jack Battlefield, east of Baldwin. Von Tresh and others involved with the battlefield want to make the area a heritage and tourist site and have asked the county to help clean up the dump sites.

More recently, however, KDHE determined it could pay for the entire cost of cleanup because the trust wants to eventually open the battlefield to the public.

“We do have authority for emergency actions to clean up illegal solid waste sites if there’s a potential threat to human health and the environment, and this does fall into that category,” KDHE spokeswoman Sharon Watson said.

“We’re kind of out of it,” County Engineer Keith Browning said of the project. “It’s possible that once they get the project going, they may come back to the county later on some miscellaneous issue, but other than that it is a KDHE project.”

KDHE plans to take bids on the cleanup and obtain a contractor soon, Watson said.

“We hope to have it done by the end of the summer,” Watson said of the cleanup.

The battlefield, which is south of U.S. Highway 56 about 3 miles east of Baldwin, is considered the site of the first armed battle between abolitionist and pro-slavery forces leading up to the Civil War. John Brown led the abolitionists in an attack on June 2, 1856.

The trust purchased the land a few years ago and discovered the dump site, which is a short walking distance southwest of the main battlefield area.