Greenburgh Brownfield Cleared for Development
The site, at 1 Lawrence Street in Ardsley, was remediated to non-residential use standards through the NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program
by Kris DiLorenzo
Ardsley — The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced that through the NYS Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCU), the brownfield site at 1 Lawrence St., in the Ardsley section of unincorporated Greenburgh, has been sufficiently remediated to allow development. Six of the site’s 10.7 acres were brownfield, a result of chemical manufacturing by the Stauffer and then AkzoNobel companies, from the 1930s-2006. (A brownfield is land that is abandoned or underutilized because of contamination from industrial use.)
This May the DEC issued a Certificate of Completion (COC), confirming that Ardsley, LLC is eligible to redevelop the site and receive tax credits toward the costs of cleanup activities and site redevelopment. However, a COC may be modified or revoked if, for example, there is a failure to comply with the terms of the order or agreement with the DEC.
The 1 Lawrence St. site is bordered on the south by Lawrence Street (at Exit 16 off the Saw Mill River Parkway), and on the east by Saw Mill River Road, across the street from Life The Place to Be – a venue for parties, receptions, and other events.
Stauffer acquired the property in the 1920s; in 1984, chemical manufacturing was replaced by research and development activities. The Dutch company AkzoNobel acquired Stauffer in 1987, continued research and development, then ceased operations in 2006. Between 2008-2009, all buildings on the site were torn down.
Originally, AkzoNobel planned to sell the property to Texas-based developer JPI/TDI Real Estate Holdings. JPI conducted soil sampling and estimated that a cleanup would cost several million dollars — and because it was under contract to buy the property, was admitted into the BCU program in late 2015, aiming to remediate the property to residential standards. The Town of Greenburgh was the lead agency in conducting a full environmental review under SEQRA (the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act).
JPI’s proposal to build a 272-unit apartment complex, The Jefferson, was roundly rejected in 2016 by Ardsley and Greenburgh residents, who cited major issues of traffic, impact on the Ardsley school system, flooding, wetlands protection, and stress on first responders.
“The site is in the GI District [General Industrial]. The site was cleaned to a non-residential standard,” Greenburgh’s Community Development & Conservation Commissioner Garrett Duquesne told the Rivertowns Current in a June 20 email. “In this district, multi-family residential is a special permit use.” On June 25 he added, “There are no existing special permit residential developments in the GI District. The Jefferson would have been the first.”
JPI withdrew its proposal, and in May 2017, AkzoNobel sold the property to St. Louis-based Environmental Liability Transfer, Inc. (ELT) for $1.85 million.
ELT buys properties and assumes corporate environmental liability, cleaning up and redeveloping the sites of various manufacturing plants, power plants, and gas stations. ELT principals Michael J. Roberts and Thomas Roberts formed “Ardsley LLC,” and in 2017 signed an agreement with the NYS Department of State for a remediation and development plan, collaborating with Commercial Development Company, Inc. (CDC), a brownfield redevelopment firm.
The DEC stated that, with the health department, it determined that “the site poses a significant threat to public health or the environment.” EnviroAnalytics, which provides ELT with environmental consulting and project management services, created a proposal for cleaning up the contamination and submitted it to the DEC.
The BCP agreement requires citizen participation at various milestones during the project. In late 2017, Greenburgh invited public comment on the plan. “Pending unexpected delays, it remains our goal to complete environmental remediation by the end of 2018,” ELT’s Director of Marketing and Public Relations, John Kowalik, stated in a message to Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner. “Once a site re-use proposal has been identified, we will contact the appropriate authorities (including the public) to begin the process for approval and implementation.” However, ELT was unable to deliver its Remedial Investigation Report (RIR) until August 2019.
The soil’s subsurface was contaminated with PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl), a highly carcinogenic chemical compound formerly used in industrial and consumer products, now banned in the U.S. by the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act; VOCs (volatile organic compounds) such as carbon disulfide; SVOCs (semi-volatile organic compounds), including pesticides such as Dieldrin, introduced in 1948, widely used in the 1950s-1970s as an alternative to DDT, and now banned from use nearly worldwide. Benzene (a VOC) and metals contaminated the groundwater; the metals found were copper, lead, mercury, nickel, chromium, lead, zinc, and arsenic (a semi-metallic element).
Other reported contaminants were PCEs (perchloroethylene/tetrachloroethylene, a dry cleaning solvent), PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), found in fossil fuels or incompletely burned organic matter), vinyl chloride (VC), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), oil-based products, and fire retardants.
Samples of water and sediment from the Saw Mill River, east of the property, were not contaminated, so the river was not considered part of the brownfield site.
To complete the remediation, ELT was obliged to meet specific objectives. After treating soil and groundwater with chemical oxidants to break down contaminants, they collected and analyzed groundwater samples to evaluate the remedy’s effectiveness, then placed a cover system over areas free of asphalt or concrete to address any contamination remaining beyond the cleanup level for commercial use.
ELT then imported clean backfill material, implemented a health and safety plan and community air monitoring plan for use during all activities that might disturb the ground, implemented a Site Management Plan (SMP) for long-term maintenance of the remedial systems, and recorded an Environmental Easement to ensure proper use of the site.
The DEC and the state’s Department of Health reviewed the proposal in 2021.
Potential uses for the site include warehouse distribution, self-storage, outside storage, and athletic training facilities. “Although the property has been cleaned up the town has not received any notification from the property owners as to what they propose to develop on the site,” Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner stated in a June 3 email blast. “Over the years I have suggested a solar farm and hope that will be considered by the owners… When the owner has interest for re-use of the site it will approach the Town regarding process (site plan approval, special permit, etc.). Any proposed reuse of the site will involve a process of referral to the municipalities within 500 ft. of the site.”
As of press time, ELT had not responded to inquiries about new developers.
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