WILTON – Plans to clean up the former tannery site were finalized Tuesday night with a construction completion target of late August or early September.
Selectmen discussed with the project’s engineer and geologist the clean up process that will provide erosion control, soil cover and a fenced off area of the site where chemically treated hides and scrap metal had been dumped during the nearly four decades of the plant’s operation. Once cleaned up, selectmen have said they want to sell the property located on busy Route 2 in East Wilton with the goal of getting it back on the town’s tax rolls.
Soil tests indicated the highest concentrations of chromium, a highly toxic chemical used in the tanning process, had leached from the leather pieces found dumped were in an area on the east side of the building.
“Some (tests) exceeded the standard minimum amounts by quite a bit,” said Jaime Madore, the lead engineer on the project. The clean up plan is to prep the site with erosion control measures to protect abutting streams on the property. A significant number of mostly poplar and cherry trees will be removed on the west side of the site so its “clean” soil can be excavated and used to cover the leather dump site. The areas of work on the property will be leveled, which Madore noted, “could potentially make it more attractive to buyers.”
The tannery began operating in 1959 and treated hides with a variety of chemicals for 38 years, before shutting down. Town officials have been actively working with state and federal agencies to clean up the property ever since selectmen voted to take possession of the facility in 2010, after foreclosure notices were sent to the owner with more than $75,000 owed in back taxes.
Phase II Brownfield assessments, conducted by the Campbell Environmental Group and the state’s Department of Environmental Protection located the area where high levels of chromium was found at the dump site of hides. Also on the site are scrap metal from barrel rings and other materials, as well as a buried oil tank, still containing an amount of No. 6 fuel.
Since then, the underground tank has been removed and asbestos has been abated from the warehouse structure, leaving the buried material as the project’s final clean up step. For the project, the town received two grants it applied for to complete the rest of clean up: a $200,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant and a $150,000 state Department of Economic & Community Development grant.
Nick Sabatine, a senior geologist with Ransom Consulting, Inc., said the final plans which selectmen gave their go ahead for at Tuesday’s meeting, need the state DEP’s approval before the construction project can go out to bid. If all goes according to plan, the project would be put out to bid, a site walkover with interested bidders would be held in mid May and selectmen would award a bid at their June 3 meeting. Construction is expected to be completed by late August or early September.
On the site walkover, selectmen want to ask bidders their estimates to demolition portions of the building that have already fallen down and what the estimate for taking the entire structure down would cost.
Once the clean up is completed, the property will be put on the market with deed restrictions of not digging drinking water wells and using a vapor barrier if building a structure at one location on the property.
