The Capital Improvement Plan for Lewiston for fiscal year 2022 includes money for environmental cleanup work at Bates Mill No. 5 on Main Street, the saw-toothed building at center. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal 2017 file photo
LEWISTON — City officials will hold a public hearing Tuesday on a federal grant that will be used to conduct environmental cleanup work at Bates Mill No. 5.
The $500,000 Brownfields grant from the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection, has been a key piece of negotiations and redevelopment planning between the city and developer Tom Platz, who has redeveloped large swaths of the Bates Mill complex.
Earlier this month, the city and Platz agreed on a final, five-year agreement toward redeveloping the 350,000-square-foot Mill No. 5, but the city must own the building while environmental remediation is completed. According to previous assessments, the mill contains lead paint, asbestos and PCBs — a group of artificial chemicals that were widely used in electrical equipment — that must be either encapsulated or removed.
According to Lincoln Jeffers, director of economic and community development, the hearing will lay out the environmental issues in the mill, the methods to mitigate them, and what is recommended.
The city must spend the grant by July 31, 2022, and has contracted with consultant Ransom Environmental for the work. Ransom recently conducted what’s known as an “analysis of Brownfields cleanup alternatives,” or ABCA, for the site.
Jeffers said it describes past environmental studies, the work that has taken place to date, and recommendations for the remaining work.
“It’s getting that information out to the broader public, and in time, a cleanup alternative does need to be determined,” he said.
Jeffers said most of the work is dealing with asbestos in the roof and some pipes, and encapsulating high levels of PCBs that were found on the cement floor in the area of a former hydroelectric generating station. He said PCBs were used in oil that was used to cool the transformers.
The ABCA from Ransom Environmental lists two cleanup options as the “preferred alternatives.”
The report lists “Abatement with Roof Replacement” and “Abatement with Building Demolition” as the preferred alternatives, “since they are effective, technically feasible, financially less burdensome, and meet the remedial objectives, including the protection of human health and the environment.”
Abatement with roof replacement would use a combination of encapsulating hazardous materials and replacing the asbestos roof to still allow the former mill building to be redeveloped.
City staff is trying to get an updated cost estimate for the work, but a previous estimate was roughly $1.1 million. The city is required to provide at least $100,000 in matching funds for the grant.
The EPA requires public participation as part of the grant process, Jeffers said. There will be a 30-day public comment period.
He said there will be more opportunities for public comment at the City Council level, where officials will ultimately decide which cleanup option to go with.
Since the city took over the property in 1992, there have been decades of discussion on whether to demolish or redevelop the property. City officials have said that regardless of whether the mill is redeveloped or demolished, the environmental issues in the mill need to be mitigated.
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