CHICOPEE – Two additional federal Environmental Protection Agency grants will help the city continue the long process to clean up the former Uniroyal and Facemate properties.
The competitive grants, each totaling $200,000, are to be used to clean up brownfields. The city has already received four similar $200,000 grants to remove hazardous materials from the two sites, said Lee Pouliot, planner and administrator.
One of the recent grants was awarded to remove demolition debris that had been buried at the Baskin Building on West Main Street, on the Facemate property. The second will clean up pesticides, herbicides and other hazardous wastes in soils along the former rail line that runs through the two lower tiers of Uniroyal. Pouliot said.
The City Council formally voted last week to accept the grants 12-0.
“I’m happy to see this. I won’t go on this property until these are cleaned,” City Councilor Timothy McLellan said.
The city has been working for at least eight years to try to clean up the two former factory sites as funds become available.
All buildings on the Facemate site, with the exception of the Baskin Building, have been cleaned and razed and most of the property has been cleared of hazardous waste. A new senior center is being constructed on one parcel and the city plans to eventually sell the two other pieces of land for redevelopment.
One of the problems with the Facemate property is a large amount of building debris was discovered, left over from a time when buildings were burned or torn down and debris was buried. All of that has been cleaned up with the exception of the area by the Baskin Building, Pouliot said.
The city has a commitment with the Massachusetts Historical Commission to try to redevelop the Baskin Building. The Chicopee Historical Society has expressed interest in converting the building to a city museum.
The Uniroyal property, which is larger and has a number of large, dilapidated factory buildings on it, has been even more difficult to clean.
The property has been divided into eight or nine different parcels and it has already received federal brownfields grants to remove asbestos and other hazardous waste from each area that has a building on it, Pouliot said.
“This is the last one where we have an immediate project ready to go. We have gotten four other EPA grants for four other parcels of property,” he said.
Portions of the tracks remain and all the stone is still there. Pouliot said the city will clean up as much of the property as the grant will fund.
“They (the Environmental Protection Agency) have been very good to us. Whenever we can clean up something, we will go for it,” Pouliot said.