Wheatland council on Tuesday voted 4 to 3 to take over ownership of the former Taylor dump at the south end of Church Street, west of Wheatland Tube Corp.

Council members Richard Campman, Robert Davis, George Keryan and Dave Cusick all voted to take over the property, while council members Nita Buczo, Lorraine Jones and Donald Stinedurf voted no.

Mayor Thomas Stanton said it could take a few months to transfer the deed to the borough. He said there is still a dispute as to who is the actual owner of the property.

He also said some things still need to be done, such as cleaning it up and cutting the grass.

The state had asked council to take over ownership of the property. The Alvin Taylor estate and the John McNeely Co., parent company of Wheatland Tube, each contend the other owns the property but agreed to turn over their rights to the borough.

The 40-acre property was an unpermitted landfill where municipal and industrial wastes were dumped from 1959 into the 1970s. The state had it cleaned up in 1999 and the waste was consolidated on 10 acres and covered with topsoil.

A proposed agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection and the borough for the borough take ownership of the site has three main purposes: to return the property to "beneficial public use," to assure the ongoing upkeep of the site and the public safety after the site's closure and to insulate the borough from liablility associated with the hazardous substances disposed at the site, according to a letter from Mark E. Gorman, program manager of hazardous-sites cleanup.