From ruin to revenue: Sanford's former CGA site just about ready for solar farm
SANFORD, Maine – Ten years ago, if you had driven by the former CGA site at 229 New Dam Road, you would have seen an 18-acre wasteland of unsecured piles of circuit boards, tires, wood, metal, rubber, plastics, clothes, cans, cardboard and concrete.
“All sorts of horrible stuff,” said Sanford Planning Director Beth Della Valle.
Today, if you were to drive by the site, you would see smooth land, an expanse of soil cleared of the demolition debris and waste material that had been heaped upon it for decades.
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And if you drive by the site next spring? If all goes according to schedule, you’ll see an array of solar panels, glinting in the sun.
For neighbors on New Dam Road, the cleaning of the site is a victory, claimed after many years of imploring city officials to move on the property, which CGA, an electronic circuit board recycling facility, abandoned in 1991, after operating there since the 1970s.
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And for the city, the transformation of the site from a contaminated dump to a solar farm will be a revenue generator and a key component to local efforts to redevelop and revitalize the historic downtown mill yard.
“It’s a major environmental coup for the city,” Della Valle said.
On Monday, Della Valle stood in the main corridor of Sanford City Hall and provided a chronicle of the cleanup, as shown in a display of enlarged photos on public display. A photo from 1990 shows drums and other waste strewn throughout the property. Another photo, taken just last month, shows the site cleared of all solid waste and most of the contaminated soil, ready for remediation in December and re-vegetation this spring.
One can imagine another photo being added to the display sometime next spring – one of the solar farm, which Walden Renewables will install and operate. Based in New York, Walden will lease the solar farm portion of the property from the city and will pay taxes on it. The farm will be built on city land but also will stand on some abutting property owned by the Maine Turnpike Authority.
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In 2010, the city acquired the CGA property by involuntary acquisition due to the owner's failure to pay property taxes. In the years that followed, the city worked on cleaning the site. In 2017, the state’s Department of Environmental Protection removed more than 3,000 tons of circuit board waste that was coated in copper and heavy metals.
Last month, crews removed 3.5 acres of trees on the site, only to discover even more solid waste – a “whole bunch more,” according to Della Valle. The waste had been dumped there years ago, and the trees grew through it.
“We had six times more solid waste on the site than we had anticipated,” Della Valle said.
The discovery and the additional work had a silver lining, though, she added. In picking up all of the added solid waste, crews also ended up removing much of the contaminated soil. Now there is just a comparatively small area, located in the back of the property, that has contaminated soil that needs to be removed.
Della Valle said the city is half way through its preliminary stabilization of the site for the winter months. The site will be permanently stabilized this spring.
TRC Companies, of Scarborough, has provided the city with technical assistance and management throughout the cleanup, helping to negotiate with Walden Renewables, conducting environmental assessments, and hiring contractors for the removal of trees and solid waste, according to Della Valle.
Benefits for another Sanford priority
The site is expected to do more than generate revenue and solar energy once the farm is in place on 3.5 acres on the property, according to Della Valle. The farm also will benefit the Virtual Sanford Renewable Energy Corridor that the city is creating as an incentive for developers. Energy that is generated by the city-owned portion of the farm will be dedicated for use by developers who redevelop in the historic mill yard in downtown Sanford.
The revitalization of the mill yard has been a goal of the city for decades. The city realized part of that goal in 2014, when The Sanford Mill opened at the corner of Washington Street and Pioneer Avenue and offered a mix of businesses on the lower floor and new apartments on the upper two. The city had taken the mill, which was vacant and decrepit for years, by eminent domain and partnered with developers to transform it into the mixed-use facility it is today. Ever since, the city has continued efforts to attract developers to the other mills in the historic yard.
The cleanup of the CGA site was funded through assorted local, state and federal monies, according to Della Valle. The state’s DEP has been one source over the years. So too has the federal Environmental Protection Agency, through its Brownfields program, which helps states and communities as they assess contaminated sites, clean them and find new uses tied to economic development. Locally, the city has relied on its capital and operating funds for the project, as well as in-kind work completed by the public works department.
“It’s been a real collaborative effort, all the way along,” Della Valle said. “It’s really pretty remarkable.”
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Sanford ME former CGA site almost ready for a solar farm
