The recent discovery of chemical contamination at the downtown riverfront redevelopment site has necessitated pushing back the closing date on the project’s first phase from Feb. 28 to July 29.
Last week, the Stoughton Redevelopment Authority (RDA) and City Council, in a special meeting on Thursday, Feb. 24, unanimously approved extending the closing date on the offer to purchase agreement and developer’s agreement with developer Curt Brink. The Phase One project area encompasses 1.87 acres and would include 78 apartment units.
That came on the heels of Tuesday’s City Council meeting, when during an update on the status of environmental work at the site, Chris Valcheff of TruNorth Consulting said pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative, was identified at the MillFab site in several test pits. He said the chemical was commonly used on utility poles and railroad ties.
“The results we found in one of the test pits is extraordinarily high,” Valcheff said. “We believe there was a railroad spur that ran through that portion of the site, and we believe that is the source of it.”
He explained that since the findings result in a “new condition” at the property, that information needs to be incorporated into the material management plan for the entire property. He said while the Stoughton’s agreement with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources states that the city is not responsible for remediation of the site, the DNR can’t approve a material management plan “until we know where this stuff is and how much it is impacting it.”
Valcheff said there were also elevated concentrations of volatile organics and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in some test pits. He said those chemicals had been found at some other areas of the site “but not at the concentrations we were finding in these test pits, specifically in two of the test pits.”
“We’re at a point where we can’t get the material management plan approved until we get some of this area defined … so DNR is then comfortable that we’re going to be addressing the area of concern and not leaving behind things that might be a problem in the future,” Valcheff said.
