Look at this old cutie!
This is Mill #10; at 56,000 square feet it is the only remaining
Town-owned building at the Baltic Mills site. The exposed brick end is
actually the wall that connected it to Mill #1, which was demolished
after the 1999 fire. This is the building from which we will be
removing asbestos, in preparation for potential restoration. The photo
does not do justice to the incredible granite stonework. In the
foreground where the trees are you can just make out the granite
tailrace, that brought water away from the mill and back into the
Shetucket river, about 200 yards to the right. Note also the existing
monitoring well in the lawn; this site has been the recipient of many
remediation and testing activities by both the Town and the EPA since
1999.”
Sprague Selects Consultant to
Oversee Baltic Mills Site Cleanup
February 2008
The Town of Sprague has retained the firm of Paul
Burgess, LLC, of Stonington, in association with Eagle Environmental of
Bristol, to provide environmental consulting and management services for
its EPA-funded Brownfields Cleanup project at the Baltic Mills site,
which was 75% destroyed by fire in 1999. The project will consist of
removing hazardous building materials from the remaining granite mill
building, with the goal of promoting re-use and redevelopment of the
entire site in accordance with the Economic Development Commission’s
Strategic Plan for Baltic Village. Sprague has also received a
technical assistance award from EPA to conduct additional site
investigations to obtain a comprehensive and final (Phase III)
assessment of the entire property. Remediation is expected to start as
soon as weather permits.
Some of us think the
Baltic Mills site looks good all year round, in a crumbly sort of way,
but the backdrop of fall leaves gives the remaining granite structures a
rather regal look. We’re very excited that this former factory, nearly
completely destroyed by fire in 1999, will be given a second chance
through the hard work of community volunteers and some well-timed
cleanup and feasibility study grants. In April 2008 the Town contracted
with CERC (the Connecticut Economic Resources Commission) to implement a
feasibility study under a $35,000 US Department of Agriculture
Rural Business Opportunity grant, which will build on CERC’s 2006
study, which was funded by the Sprague Economic Development Commission.
This new, extensive study will be able to show to a potential investor
or developer exactly what will have to be done to the site to make it
the most economically viable entity possible, given the basic parameters
of the community’s desires (conformity to historic village setting,
downtown and public appeal, etc.). Information gained from the study
will include such details as the types of businesses most likely to
succeed at the site, given the area’s demographics, the costs of
renovation/construction/cleanup, tax benefits (for both the investor and
the town), etc. This information comprises a large part of what an
investor is seeking when interested in developing a site for commercial
or mixed-use purposes. (Although the combination of business and
residential development has not been ruled out for the site, the USDA
grant only funds the study of business development.)
Through the $200,000 EPA Brownfields Cleanup grant,
the town has retained a Licensed Environmental professional (LEP) to
oversee asbestos abatement at Mill #10, the remaining granite structure
on the site. Although its interior and roof have been
severely damaged, the building remains structurally sound and is a good
reminder of the quality of workmanship used to build these
turn-of-the-century structures. Both the Sprague Historical Society and
the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism strongly support the
preservation of this building. Although it is often more costly to
renovate existing structures than to build new ones, the Baltic Mills
site offers the best of both worlds—the chance to preserve one building
as an example of the former mill, and the freedom to construct a
mill-like complex from the ground up without having to worry about
preservation, replacement of old/outdated fixtures, losing energy
efficiency, etc.
On-Line Information Repository
One of the requirements
of this grant is the development of a repository of information
regarding the site, and the progress on its cleanup. The Town has an
extensive collection of mill-related documents on file, and all are
available for public review, but we will be collecting pertinent
cleanup-related documents and putting them in a centralized location;
hopefully many of these documents can also be kept in an online archive
that you can access from this page. We will be adding to this archive
periodically.
Below, for Mills Cleanup
fans, are documents in our current archive
·Baltic Mills Cleanup Application
·First Report to EPA
·Baltic Mills property Profile
Form
·Baltic Mills Cleanup Workplan
·Phase II TBA report
·August 2007 Baltic Mills Public
Meeting, notes and comment
In October The EPA
awarded Sprague a $100,000 Targeted Brownfields Assessment (TBA) grant
to conduct additional testing on the peninsula area of the property.
This area had been home to a coal-fired plant that produced the gas for
the mill, and an understanding of the materials that are present in the
soil will assist us and/or future investors in determining how to best
address this issue. EPA is the lead agency for the hiring of a
consultant, who will probably begin tests very shortly or in the Spring.
Although no longer a complete structure,
the Turbine House is a marvel of aesthetic and engineering genius. It
is hoped that future developers/investors will want to try and preserve
this structure or incorporate it into the design of the new mills
complex.”
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