CANTON — Work to clean up the old Brindis Leathers Tannery site is expected to be completed in mid-October.

It was supposed to be done by the end of August, Malcolm Ray, Canton engineer and member of the Dam Advisory Committee, said on Friday morning.

The cleanup project is part of a multi-pronged larger project to redevelop the downtown area fronted by Route 108 and Route 140. It includes a new public access boat launch site being built by the state and a new dam on Whitney Brook, the outlet of Lake Anasagunticook.

The tannery site was built around the turn of the century after Lyman Smith bought several dams on Whitney Brook between the lake and Cross Street, took them out and put in one dam for the tannery, Ray said. It operated until the mid-1970s.

He said Canton did two small projects with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

The first involved researching historical uses of the property to determine if it contained hazardous materials. It did. The second phase had MDEP doing soil sampling and digging test wells for water samples.

Canton took the old tannery dam by eminent domain; it also took property on both sides of the brook. The side along Route 140 wasn’t contaminated. It only had tannery storage buildings.

So the brownfields cleanup work targets the land between the brook and the new Town Office.

“It’s right where the old tannery building was and the old tanning pits, which were the worst of the problem,” Ray said.

“It was near the wing walls of the old dam, and when the tannery burned, they basically just piled everything into the pits.”

Most of the contamination is coal ash from the railroad, he said. Among the chemicals found in the tanning pits are arsenic and zinc.

The MDEP then determined that the contaminants didn’t need to be excavated and carted off. They could just be covered and contained, Ray said.

“The hazardous materials that are on-site aren’t going anyplace,” he said. “It’s not like they were leaching into the water or into the brook.

“So they are where they are, and they’re not moving,” he said. “These are contact contaminants, so you actually have to touch it or get it in your mouth or in your eyes or something like that.

“So as long as you cover it up so people can’t come into contact with it, it’s fine,” he said.

That meant Canton had to mark the hazardous materials area by placing a geo-textile layer over it. That indicates where the contamination starts for any future contractor that happens to dig on-site, Kevin Cooley, a Kleinschmidt engineer, said Friday.

Ray said clean fill will be placed atop the geo-textile layer, along with loam, so grass can be grown. The contractor hired to do that work is M. O. Harris Inc.; Ransom Consulting Inc. is the project engineer.

Ray said the EPA brownfields cleanup grant project is a federally funded $200,000 project that required a 20-percent town match. That portion involves work to clear brush on the lot’s backside. The town has ordered trees from Maine’s Project Canopy and is waiting to plant.

Another section of unused or unneeded property that came with the land-taking extends from the dam to Route 108 and between Route 140 and Whitney brook below the dam.

Ray said a committee will determine what to do with the properties once the state gives Canton a clean bill of health on the brownfields site.

“Our hope is those properties will get sold and get new owners who will find some kind of a use for them,” he said.

That includes the old fire station fronting Route 108. Ray said they didn’t remove it yet for fear of losing the right to put something back on the footprint due to shoreland zoning laws.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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