Source: http://www.masslive.com, June 3, 2016
By: Jeanette DeForge
Three federal grants totaling $600,000 will help the city continue the 11-year effort to tear down vacant Uniroyal factory buildings and clean up the contaminated property.
The new grants will allow the city to begin removing hazardous materials including asbestos, lead and polychlorinated biphenyls to prepare to remove three buildings on the site, including two of the largest ones, Mayor Richard J. Kos said in a written statement.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers communities grants to help clean up brownfields. The competitive program will provide a $200,000 brownfield grant for one property and award a maximum of $600,000 to communities in a year, City Planner Lee Pouliot said.
The city has received a number of the grants to clean up the Uniroyal and Facemate properties. It has now spilt the project into multiple pieces and has successfully applied for the grants by calling each building a project, City Planner Lee Pouliot said.
“To date, the EPA has awarded over $2 million in Brownfields Assessment and Cleanup grant funds to the city of Chicopee. The continued partnership between the U.S. EPA and the city of Chicopee ensures the ability to address long term environmental challenges thereby removing a roadblock to successful redevelopment and reuse of these properties,” Kos said in writing.
The latest grants will allow the city to attack the 240,000 square-foot building labeled 28 North, which includes a basement and five stories and covers about 1.1 acres of property and the 270,000 square-foot building 28 South, which also has a basement and five floors and covers about 1.24 acres of land. The third grant will be used to remove hazardous waste at building 28 North Extension, which measures 56,500 square feet and includes five floors and a basement.
None of the grants will give the city enough money to abate all the hazardous waste in any of the buildings but it will at least allow the city to start the process, Pouliot said.
The city will likely remove as much hazardous waste in part of each building until more money from another source becomes available. The key will be to include a way to protect the area which has been cleaned so it is not contaminated again when the city has more money to return to the buildings, he said.
The city began working on the environmental cleanup and tearing down the long-vacant Uniroyal and Facemate property in 2005. In total there were 23 buildings on the 72 acres of land.
Cobbling together more than $5 million in state and federal grants, the city has removed all the dilapidated buildings and cleaned up nearly all contaminated soils on the Facemate site. That property is now the location of the new RiverMills Senior Center and the city is in the process of selling an about 3.8 acre parcel on the east side of the senior center to a private developer.
At the Uniroyal site 11 buildings have been removed and there are seven more to clean and tear down, Pouliot said.
Nearly all the money used to tear down and clean up the property has come from grants. In 2015 the City Council agreed to spend about $860,000 to complete some projects, including the removal of two large buildings and to set aside about $350,000 to pay legal consultants who are negotiating with Michelin North America, Inc. to reach an agreement on the site cleanup. The company, which purchased the Uniroyal name, has been ordered to clean soil and groundwater contamination on the property.
It also spent about $185,000 to secure the historic administration building, which some are hoping to redevelop.