Although the economic times might not be right, the site for a proposed hotel and conference center for the city of Newburgh is ready to go. ?The final remediation of the long-defunct Consolidated Iron and Metals on Newburgh”™s waterfront was completed at the beginning of September.
“This is great news for the city,” Mayor Nicholas Valentine said. “This parcel is part of the 30 acres that the city is going to develop with Leyland Alliance.”
In 2008, Leyland held a number of charrettes, or public design meetings, to gather input from the community on how to build out the city”™s remaining 30 acres of waterfront property.
“The site is ideal for a hotel and conference center,” Valentine said. “Unfortunately, the current economic conditions make it difficult, if not impossible, for us to move forward with the plans Leyland Alliance created as a result of the charrettes. I”™m glad it”™s finally finished and cleaned up.”
When the economy rebounds, said Valentine, “This is going to be a perfect complement to our already bustling waterfront. In addition to the hotel, we also plan to connect this parcel with the walkway currently in place on the waterfront. For now, it”™s sit and wait ”“ and hope things get better.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted the cleanup using a combination of federal funds and money from “certain potentially responsible parties.” It took 13 years to clean the seven-acre Superfund site, which was cordoned off with wire fencing. ?From the 1950s until 1999, Consolidated Iron and Metal used the property for scrap metal and a storage site and included smelting, sorting ferrous and non-ferrous metal scrap for reprocessing, baling and shearing large pieces of metal, including whole cars, into smaller pieces for transport, and flattening of cars.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation first became involved in the contamination in 1997 when it cited the owner for a number of violations. It was eventually shut down by the state attorney general”™s office that same year. ?The EPA began work in 1998, sampling an ash slag pile on site contaminated with lead and PCBs. During the cleanup, tires, scrap metal, concrete, lead-impacted soil and hydraulic oil were removed. In addition, an office building and three processing buildings were demolished and removed from the site. A final inspection was conducted in August 2010, confirming the remediation had been completed in accordance with design specifications.
