County Commits $160K To Fund Hospital Boilers Replacement Project

COFFEEVILLE – Yalobusha County supervisors voted unanimously Monday to allocate $160,000 to replace two 50-plus-year-old boilers at Yalobusha General Hospital (YGH), the latest in a series of capital improvements funded from the county’s $3 million environmental lawsuit settlement tied to contamination from the former Holley Automotive plant.

The boilers, which heat the hospital’s west wing, are original to the building. “The current boilers that are running are the original boilers, that makes them 51 years old. They are really in the danger zone to operate,” YGH Maintenance Superintendent Todd Hughes told supervisors.

Before making the request at Monday’s meeting at the Coffeeville courthouse, Hughes outlined how much of the settlement money the county has already funneled back into the hospital and nursing home since 2020. He ticked off each project, including a generator upgrade at the nursing home completed in April 2023 for $246,682; a roof replacement on the hospital’s south and east wings completed in 2021 for $134,499; and a boiler project in the Spears Wing at the nursing home finished in 2022 for $259,000, aided by a $20,000 grant. “Yalobusha County to date has paid $640,181, and we appreciate that,” Hughes said.

He then updated supervisors on the larger hospital infrastructure project that originally carried a price tag of just over $1 million, with the county and hospital each pledging $354,600 with the balance covered by a grant. But when the project was bid in July 2023, the lowest proposal came in at $1.76 million—far beyond the budget estimates. Hughes explained that they negotiated the total down to $1.219 million, but state bid laws prevented awarding the contract without rebidding. “We thought if we rebid it, we’d just be back at the same money… so there wasn’t any point in rebidding it,” he said.

Instead, the hospital broke the work into smaller phases and has since paid $133,010 to complete portions of the bigger job for infrastructure improvements at the hospital and nursing home.

The boiler replacement is the next phase and Hughes asked the board to cover the cost.
District 4 Supervisor Eddie Harris clarified the request: “So what you are asking for today is $160,000?” “Yes,” Hughes replied. Board President Cayce Washington reminded his colleagues that supervisors had already pledged their $354,600 commitment for the earlier project. “We previously committed to that, and we said we would still honor it if the expenses came up,” Washington said.

District 2 Supervisor Kenny Rogers also supported moving forward. “Fifty-one years old—it’s time for it,” he said.

The $160,000 will come from the county’s general fund, which District 5 Supervisor Gaylon Gray noted carries roughly $4 million, including the remaining settlement proceeds from the environmental lawsuit.

Washington also reiterated how the county decided, early on, that any settlement spending tied to the hospital had to show up in bricks-and-mortar improvements. “When all that money came about, some of the hospital board members approached us and said, ‘Hey, where is ours?’” Washington recalled. “We were like, we’re not just writing checks. We want to see work done on the buildings. It was the easiest way to show transparency—putting it back in the facilities and not getting wrapped up in payroll or operational expenses. It’s an older building, and I trust what Todd is doing.”

The source of the settlement dates back decades. The settlement stemmed from trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreasing solvent released into the soil and groundwater between 1973 and 1987 by the Holley Automotive Division of Colt Industries. The contamination spread across approximately 340 acres, including land owned by the hospital.

The discovery in 2016 that cleanup systems had been shut down without notice, combined with new EPA vapor-intrusion guidance and a stalled hospital expansion that had already absorbed nearly $700,000 in planning costs, triggered a joint county–hospital lawsuit filed in January 2019.

Although the terms were confidential when the lawsuit was settled in late 2019, the amount became public when supervisors voted in January 2020 to disperse $500,000 to the road department, $100,000 to each beat, and bank the remaining $2.5 million.

Because the hospital is county-owned, the proceeds went directly to the county, though supervisors have consistently acknowledged that the hospital was the primary reason the settlement existed.

With no further discussion, supervisors voted 5–0 to move forward with advertising the boiler project. The Yalobusha General Hospital board was expected to take up the matter at its meeting Tuesday.