“Based on environmental work completed to date under the grant, site environmental conditions and HBMs (Hazardous Building Materials) appear to be manageable and should not be a significant deterrent for future redevelopment.”

That’s the promising conclusion of Tighe & Bond’s final report presented to the Town on Oct. 6. The findings are the results of the firm’s 18-month examination of residual environmental contamination on nine contiguous industrial and commercial parcels on Old Saybrook's Boston Post Road East: 306, 330, 332, 334, 336, 338, 340, 342, and 344.

The report was funded by a $155,000 Brownfields Assessment Grant that the Town was awarded by the State of Connecticut in 2015; with the Town required to deliver a 10 percent match to the grant. The goal of the study was to identify and quantify residual contaminants and hazardous building materials on the parcels in order to provide greater clarity of clean-up costs; an issue that has proven a deterrent to potential developers of the land.

The nine parcels are privately- owned and comprise a total of about 17.84 acres of land surrounding Roamtree Drive, located south of Boston Post Road. Historically, the properties had industrial, commercial, and agricultural operations under several corporate entities including Custom Marine; Highline Products Company, Inc.; and Blast-All. Currently, the buildings are vacant and the sites are not operational.

Tighe & Bond reported the scope of its grant-funded work included an independent assessments on four existing building, and preliminary remedial and abatement planning.

Earlier studies conducted on the properties included a Phase I ESA, completed in Jan. 2013 by BL Companies for the site owner, Frank Heinemann. Prior to that, several assessment and investigations were conducted between the 1980s and 2013 by ERM, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), Metcalf & Eddy, and BL Companies.

Environmental investigations of properties are completed in several stages, and properties with a history of uses that could contaminate the soil or groundwater require more intensive examinations before they may be cleared for re-use. The levels of investigation include a Phase I ESA (an investigation of a site’s history through a paperwork search), a Phase II ESA (a more intensive investigation that may include field testing, soil borings, and independent testing of field samples by laboratories), and Phase III ESA/Remediation (the most intensive investigation to identify and quantify the amount and type of contaminants present in soil and groundwater).

Tighe & Bond conducted Phase II ESA activities on the Boston Post Road East properties in May and June, 2016. Preliminary Phase II ESA activities had been conducted in February 2017 at several potential locations with residual contamination.

The report’s conclusion is that “remediation activities will be required to comply with the Connecticut DEEP Remediation Standards Regulations (RSRs). Soil remediation options may include excavation and offsite soil disposal or as a more cost effective strategy could potentially be managed on-site through capping strategies (i.e., beneath buildings or roadways). Capping strategies would requre the use of an Environmental Land Use Restriction (ELUR). At this time, based on existing groundwater quality data, active groundwater remediation does not appear to be warranted.”

The reports also notes that before any of the four buildings are renovated or demolished, abatement work to handle and contain hazardous building materials will be required.

The firm did not find significant or extensive widespread contamination along exterior portions of the site or to groundwater in its investigations.

“Although the site has a significant industrial and regulatory history, soil and groundwater contamination identified to date appears to be generally minimal and manageable,” wrote Tighe & Bond in its report.

At press time, Tighe & Bond were still refining it final submission, a preliminary Opinion of Probable Cost (OPCs), including estimates of the cost to clean-up the properties, based on the environmental investigations completed.