WILTON — A $200,000 federal Environmental Protection Agency grant will pay for most of the cost to clean up a contaminated former tannery building, giving town officials hope they will be able to soon start collecting taxes again on the abandoned industrial site.
Wilton is among a handful of Maine communities receiving a portion of the $3.4 million awarded last week through the Brownfields program, which provides money for projects cleaning up contaminated sites nationwide to facilitate their reuse.
The grant money for Wilton will cover a majority of the cost to remove the hazardous materials and debris left inside and around the tannery building off U.S. Route 2, Town Manager Rhonda Irish said.
Cleaning up the town-owned property has been a priority for the past two years. Town officials partnered with regional planning agency Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments to prepare the grant.
Although it remains unclear how much the site will be assessed at after the cleanup, Irish said Wednesday the town plans to sell the parcel as soon as possible to return it to the tax rolls.
The property is assessed for $900,000, but will be reviewed following the cleanup, she said. That assessment translates into about $13,000 per year in taxes based on the current rate.
The building was a tenement house and stable before 1901. Wilton Tanning operated out of the building beginning in 1959. The tannery closed in 1997, and the building hasn’t been used since.
The town foreclosed on the property about two years ago because of unpaid taxes, Irish said.
Irish noted the problems at the site highlight a struggle communities statewide face to redevelop contaminated properties without federal assistance. She said the town couldn’t afford the cleanup, even though it was the only way to find another use for the property.
“It has been a site that really wasn’t able to be used for a lot of things because there were so many unknowns,” she said.
There are issues at the site with fuel tanks, hazardous vapors and metals, as well as the dumping of tanning hides and other debris. Irish said the cleanup will address the problems by working with an environmental consultant who will oversee the project, which will follow state regulations.
The grant pays for a majority of the project while the town is required to provide a $40,000, Irish said. She noted the town’s share will probably consist almost entirely of in-kind services instead of monetary contributions. For example, the local share will be the work at the site by public work department’s staff and administrative work done by town office staff.
About $120,000 has already been spent on preliminary cleanup and other planning costs tied to developing the tannery site, Irish said. Of that money, about $80,000 came from grants administered by the regional planning agency. The remainder consisted of state environmental agencies work on projects at the site.
David F. Robinson — 861-9287
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