Essex Boat Works, LLC, will be removing up to 1,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and remediating a former leach field at 9 Ferry Street in Essex, as part of the next phase of the site’s clean-up under the state’s Property Transfer Program.

A remedial action plan prepared by Glastonbury-based engineering and environmental firm GEI Consultants, Inc., came before the Essex Planning & Zoning Commission for approval at its regular meeting, on June 1.

A permit is required for these activities from the commission, as the site is located within the town’s coastal management zone. A public hearing is not required for the permit; the application was continued to the commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, July 6.

Most of the remediation work will take place inside the building at 9 Ferry Street, which is now primarily a boat storage area.

“It’s an area that had a former leaching field inside the building from the site sanitary” system, said Matt O’Neil of GEI Consultants, as he presented the plan to the commission. “That’s going to be removed as part of the project as well as some soils that have residual total petroleum hydrocarbons associated with historic work at the site.”

The petroleum hydrocarbon contamination on the site is a common environmental pollutant, most likely originating from oil that leaked from boats during mechanical servicing, said O’Neil.

“Boats that are typically placed in there now get drained [and] wrapped. Most of the contamination you’re seeing here is from historic activities. It’s not from the current activities,” he continued.

Both 9 Ferry Street and 63 Main Street, the Carlson’s Landing restaurant, fell under the state’s Property Transfer Program when the property changed ownership to Richard Carlson in 2016.

A requirement of the program, which is under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP), is full disclosure and investigation of environmental conditions at the site and remediation of contamination within a certain time period. A conditions assessment of the property identified six Areas of Concern (AOC) requiring investigation, with four of these areas requiring remedial activities.

The remedial activities include: limiting and restricting access to an area that formerly contained underground storage tanks; removal of and identification of any materials resulting from former drywells associated with painting and sanding and the shop and storage areas; either excavation and removal of the septic system and contaminated soil or leaving the existing system in place and applying a treatment to the soil to remove the contaminants; and removal of contaminated soil in the former drum and waste container storage area.

In response to a commission member’s question about possible contaminants from the site draining into the Connecticut River, O’Neil discussed his firm’s total investigation of the property, pointing to a map of soil borings that went beyond the six AOCs.

“All of those circles that you see here represent soil borings, or monitoring wells that were installed at the site as part of those investigations,” he said. “So, you can see we basically stuck this property like a pin cushion to try to identify any of the areas that had any residual contamination.”

O’Neil also addressed environmental impacts to ground water.

“In terms of ground water contamination at the site, there was some limited groundwater impact at the site, but they met the criteria and as a result does not require active remediation of the groundwater,” said O’Neil. “Removing the source, which is the contaminated soil, will ultimately resolve any issues of residual impacts to ground water.”

A licensed environment professional is required to oversee the remediation work, with a final report furnished to DEEP at the project’s conclusion.

O’Neil said that his firm is currently awaiting responses from a request for proposals and that work can begin as early as this summer.

“We’d like to move forward as quickly as possible,” said O’Neil. “The hope would be to be able to get this work done while the majority of the boats are out on the water this summer, so that it’s done, completed before they start bringing boats in to store them again for next winter.”