SALISBURY, Md. - As the City of Salisbury was awarded almost $1.8 million from the EPA to make the site safe, general landscaping has begun at the brownfield on Lake Street. The next quarterly meeting about the progress of the construction is set for Thursday evening.
317-325 Lake Street operated as a fuel tank farm facility until the mid-1980s, when it went untouched until 1990, when it became a waste oil processing facility. After a large oil spill, the site went unused for a second time. According to the officials with City of Salisbury, the city obtained the site in 2020, went through testing, and found soil and groundwater is contaminated with carcinogens, declaring the site a Brownfield.
"It means that they have allowed the soil to be contaminated," said Travis Huff with the city's Department of Infrastructure and Development. "It has to be cleaned before we can do anything with it."
The grant from the EPA will cover the the cost of the brownfield cleanup. City officials say that will include removing 2 feet of contaminated soil and replacing that will a 2 foot soil cap.
"When they're doing the construction, they have to do mitigation process is they keep the soil damp so that way dusk isn't kicking up and spreading around," said Huff. "We're actually working right now on a storm water pollution prevention plan that and that makes it so that while they're digging up the soil, if it rains, it's not taking the contaminants to other properties."
Thursday's quarterly meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Government Office Building at 125 N. Division Street Room #306 in Salisbury.