NASHUA – Real estate developer Bernie Plante knows that properly encapsulating the sludge at Mohawk Tannery is vital to the success of any future project at the site, so he is doing his due diligence before work begins.

“We got delayed a little bit because of the complexity of the drawings and everybody’s workload, but we remain committed to the project and we’re proceeding forward,” Plante said. “It’s a multi-step process.”

Plante said those drawings are effectively the guideline for the containment system slated for construction at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. The property at the end of Fairmount Street was once home to Granite State Leathers, a firm which tanned hides for about 60 years from the 1920s to the 1980s.

Through the course of those decades, past disposal practices led to an abundance of contamination. This included direct discharge of wastewater containing hazardous substances such as chromium and phenol into the Nashua River. Lead, arsenic, barium and dioxin are also associated with the site, according to the EPA. The two largest disposal areas are directly located next to the Nashua River.

Plante’s project aims to remediate not just the Mohawk Tannery, but also two adjacent properties: the Fimbel Door property and the city’s Parkway Right of Way property, both of which are home to asbestos containing material (ACM) that is unrelated to the site’s past activities.

“The purpose of the drawings address all environmental matters that affect the three properties,” Plante said.

In order to address these environmental issues, Plante said officials will be moving forward with the full encapsulation of the waste material, which is a secant pile system. This waste encapsulation and impermeable capping relies on the consolidation of all the sludge and soils, and encapsulation at the lagoon areas of the site.

As for the drawings, Plante said they are what is called 80 percent drawings, with some of the more minor details left undone. This was intentional, and is still a sufficient design that can be priced out, he said.

“Different contractors may have different ideas for how to approach things,” Plante said. “So, there’s no sense to designing it right down to the last section of concrete or piece of steel involved.”

He said it is not unusual to prepare 80 percent drawings to get pricing, and then from there, refine everything else.

Moving forward, Plante believes the steps will be to get these numbers and then get together with the EPA, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and Nashua officials to review the numbers. If everyone is in agreement with the solution, he said then, land use permitting for the redevelopment piece can begin. Letters summarizing this update will be sent out to neighborhood residents in the next week or so. Plante said he just has to write them.

“Probably about this time next year, we should be underway,” Plante said of the work timeframe.

Community Involvement Coordinator with the EPA Kelsey O’Neil Dumville said as far as what Plante is proposing, nothing has changed. She said this has been a cooperative effort, and the EPA will be sure to inform the public of the action memo when it is ready.

“We still plan to move forward and hope to issue our action memo,” Dumville said.

She said the action memo would include what the EPA officials planned to do for the cleanup, and anything that Plante does would complement that.

However, before the project begins, everyone needs to be on board, and then go through the city, state and federal permitting for the environmental work and the redevelopment work. In the meantime, Plante said the area is a RC (residential commercial), multifamily zone.

“We’re going to pursue some type of multifamily use and some commercial use closer to the (Broad Street) Parkway,” Plante said.

Adam Urquhart may be contacted at 594-1206, or at aurquhart@nashuatelegraph.com.

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