[CPEO-BIF] Area-wide BF cleanup stymied by waste site

["Hersh, Robert" <hersh@WPI.EDU>]

Sanford takes another look at waste site
 
Portland Press Herald
By NOEL K. GALLAGHER  
Monday, February 26, 2007
 
SANFORD, Maine - Town officials, residents and state and federal
environmental experts plan to meet Tuesday to discuss a cleanup plan for a
former copper recycling site that has been polluted for more than 10 years.
The site, where a company known as CGA used to soak computer circuit boards
in vats of sulfuric acid to remove valuable copper, has long been abandoned.
Left behind was a huge waste pile containing millions of pounds of discarded
circuit boards and shredded fiberglass. 

The town is including the site as one of a dozen properties that officials
hope will qualify for "brownfield" funding to pay for in-depth assessments of
possible contamination. The CGA site is a few miles from downtown; most of
the other brownfield sites in the package are clustered along the old
millyard and are targeted for development as part of a downtown improvement
plan.

Although Tuesday's meeting is for discussion of all of the brownfield sites,
the CGA property has become a lightning rod for neighbors, who have launched
a campaign to get the site cleaned up. They say they fear eventual
contamination from the waste pile.

"We're hoping that they clean that out," said neighbor Theresa Bernier. "It
is just awful. It's been years and years."

CGA operated its copper recycling operation in the 1980s and then sold the
property in 1992 to Lawrence DiPietro Sr. of Freeport for $1. He operated the
Southern Maine Regional Recycling Center on the site for several years before
essentially abandoning the property.

DiPietro then reneged on promises to pay back taxes to the town and to follow
through on a cleanup plan he worked out with the Maine Department of
Environmental Protection. In 1995, the DEP sued DiPietro and the company's
former owners, fining them $43,157 and ordering the site cleaned up.

For the entire article, see:
<<http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/070226wastesite.html>>

Bob Hersh
CPEO

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