A 136-acre former tire dump that burned in Ohio in 1999 and took nine years to clean up could be reincarnated as a solar farm.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has signed off on a proposal that would release the owners of Kirby Tire Recycling from the $65.4 million they owe in fines with the caveat that it will be sold to a solar developer and turned into a green energy farm, said Ohio EPA spokeswoman Dina Pierce.

“I guess it’s not a done deal yet,” she said.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that there are few details about the proposal available and that the landowners could not be reached. The Ohio government isn’t discussing who may buy the property or how much solar would be developed there, according to the Dispatch article, only that the purchase price would go to pay off back-taxes and a bank lien before the balance goes to the EPA.

The Ohio Department of Development has approved a $165,000 voluntary action grant to perform an environmental assessment on the property and determine if there are any additional cleanup measures that need to be taken before the land is developed, Pierce said.

The EPA doesn’t expect to get more than a tiny fraction of the more than $65 million it’s owed for its cleanup efforts.

“The reality was that we were never going to see that money anyway,” Pierce said. “It’s a nice idea, to have a renewable energy project there, to take one of the worst environmental incidents in the history of Ohio and turn that land into a green energy farm.”

More than 25 million tires were piled at the site when it caught fire in August, 1999, according to an EPA fact sheet on the disaster.

The EPA and other Ohio agencies had been fighting the landowners in court for years to begin getting rid of and recycling the tires and to make an effort to mitigate fire danger there, according to the fact sheet. The cleanup had already been turned over to the state when the fire broke out.

The cleanup was expected to take up to 15 years, but went more quickly when the state upped the fee it charges on every new tire from $0.50 to $1, funding the EPA’s effort.

The soil was burned and laden with toxins and 20,000 fish in a nearby creek were killed, according to the fact sheet.

The rural land is unlikely to be used for farming, and other developers probably won’t be beating down the door for the property even if it doesn’t come with astronomical liens, Pierce said.

She said she’s happy to see possibilities for the land. Not only will it be generating clean energy, she said, but it will also be generating property-tax revenue and jobs.

“It’s nice that a piece of property that has such a bad legacy could be turned into a green energy project,” Pierce said.

Pictured: Approximately 250 firefighters, the Ohio Air National Guard, U.S. EPA, Ohio EPA and others spent five days battling the August 1999 arson fire at the Kirby Tire site. Four young men have been convicted of setting the fire.