South Troy Brownfields Pilot Project
Questions and comments regarding this project may be addressed to:

The South Troy Brownfields Pilot Program is an EPA funded program designed to encourage the reuse of abandoned, deteriorated and underutilized industrial and commercial sites located along the South Troy Working Waterfront.

The project has been completed and the final report can be found here.

SITE BOOK

As part of this project, the Consultant Team developed a "Site Book" that describes key sites in great detail. Site Book

Background & Goals

The Brownfields Pilot Program builds on the work done during the development of the South Troy Working Waterfront Plan. During the development of this plan, an initial, “Phase I” assessment was done of the sites in the Brownfields Study Area. This “Phase I” assessment included reviewing government databases and other resources to find known issues with the sites, interviewing local property owners to determine current and past uses, reviewing historic maps to determine past uses and performing visual inspections to determine the general condition of certain sites.

Based on this analysis, much of the Study Area was rated as being of “Low” environmental concern with only a few properties being rated as either “Medium” or “High” concern. This was good news, and suggested that City may be able to return many underutilized sites to reuse without costly environmental cleanup. However, because the Phase I analysis did not include physical testing of the sites, there is still substantial uncertainty about what level of physical contamination is present.

The goal of the South Troy Brownfields Pilot Program is resolve some of this uncertainty by performing physical testing on selected sites, with the ultimate goal of encouraging the reuse of abandoned, deteriorated and underutilized industrial and commercial sites located along the South Troy Working Waterfront.

Funding

The US Environmental Protection Agency has provided funding to identify physical contamination issues and to develop an implementation strategy for placing sites back in use for the good of the community.

Consultant Team

Using this grant funding, the City has brought together a team of consultants to assist us in this effort. The “Consultant Team” consists of Sterling Environmental Engineering, PC (Project Management and Engineering Services); River Street Planning & Development (Community Involvement and Market Analysis); The Chazen Companies (Geographic Information Systems and Mapping); and Gary Bowitch, Esq. (Legal Research and Services).

Project Task Force

In addition to City Staff and the Consultant Team the City has created a ‘Brownfields Task Force’ to assist us in this project. The role of the Task Force is to provide input to and oversight of the Consultant Team. Task Force members have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to review all work done by the Consultant Team and to contribute their viewpoint and expertise to the process. The Task Force includes broad representation of all impacted stakeholders, including local businesses, neighborhood residents, concerned not-for-profit organizations and community groups, and government agencies.

Overview

The Brownfields Pilot Program is funded through a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency. The terms of that grant establish the process to be followed.

The Consultant Team, with guidance from the Task Force and input from the public, established an inventory of potentially reusable properties in the Study Area and a set of Criteria that measured the suitability of these sites for reuse.

Using these criteria and extensive public input, the South Troy sites were narrowed down to two sites for further ‘Phase II’ environmental testing and then to one site for a full remediation plan and implementation strategy.

Final Site Selection

During our discussions with EPA two sites were finally selected for investigation: the former Scolite Property (Site 22), "the Alamo" (Site 43). Originally we had planned to also investigate six acres of the County IDA property located between the Rensselaer County Jail and NewPenn Construction (Site 33), but this area has been investigated by the County IDA using a grant from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Site Selection: November 2002 - August 2003

The first step in the project was to develop criteria that will be used to select sites for further review. These criteria were developed with input from the Task Force and the general public. The general public was invited to provide input at the first public meeting on November 20th, 2002. The final criteria are available in the documents section.

The criteria were used to rank the fifty-four sites in the Study Area with different weights assigned to each criteria at the suggestion of the task force. This computer model resulted in a preliminary list of candidate sites which was reviewed and modified by the Task Force. The resulting 'Candidate Site List' (Map, Detail) was presented to the public at a second public meeting on January 29, 2003.

The Consultant Team developed 'Site Profiles' for each of the ten Candidate Sites and presented these profiles to the City and the Task Force. The City, with input from the Task Force, narrowed the sites down to the three that present the strongest opportunities for reuse. As required by the grant, several of the sites selected included land planned for public space such as parks, trails, plazas and other gathering or recreation areas. The three sites selected were the Former Rensselaer Iron Works site (also known as the Scolite site), the King Fuels site and the South Troy Industrial Park. More information is available on these sites here.

The three selected sites were presented to the public for comment at a third public meeting in April 2003.    

Ultimately, two of these sites were eliminated and replaced with a fourth site.   The King Fuels property was eliminated because New York State DEC was working with a former owner of the site to remediate the site.   The South Troy Industrial Park was eliminated, because the site owner, Rensselaer County, elected to seek New York State funds for assessment and remediation of this site.   In lieu of these two sites, a fourth municipally owned site “The Alamo” was selected for assessment.

EPA Review October 2003 - October 2004

Before testing began, the EPA required that the Consultant Team prepare and submit for review a series of documents including a Quality Assurance Plan (QAP), a Work Plan, a Sampling & Analysis Plans (SAMP), and a Health and Safety Plan. These documents provide the EPA with a clear understanding of exactly what is to be tested and what the testing procedure will be. Draft versions of these documents were submitted on September 29th 2003. Read those documents by downloading pdf files here.

On October 20, 2004, EPA approved the final plans.

Field Testing November 2004 - Spring 2005

A Site Investigation Report has been prepared that summarizes what is now known about each site. In addition to summarizing the findings from the environmental testing, the report documents the potential impact of the findings on feasibility of placing the site into reuse.

The results of the Site Investigation Report were presented at a fourth public meeting held in January 2006.

The project budget provides for the development of a remediation plan for one site, and the consensus at the fourth public meeting was to select the former Rensselaer Iron Works site for development of this plan.   The other site, the “Alamo” will receive additional assessment and a remedial plan using a combination of state and federal funding.   The federal funds are in place and state funds currently being pursued.

Remediation Plan

This plan includes clean-up objectives that conform to the applicable local, State, and Federal laws and regulations. It also specifies the types of technology recommended and includes generalized design considerations and characteristics which could be used to develop engineering design documents or contract documents.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has provided $200,000 to the City of Troy to identify physical contamination issues and develop an implementation strategy for placing Brownfields sites in South Troy back in use for the good of the community. In addition, EPA provided $50,000 specifically earmarked for use in developing public spaces such as parks, trails, plazas and other gathering or recreation areas.

“EPA’s Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is designed to empower states, communities, and other stakeholders in economic redevelopment to work together in a timely manner to prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield is a site, or portion thereof, that has actual or perceived contamination and an active potential for redevelopment or reuse. EPA is funding: assessment demonstration pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to assess brownfields sites and to test cleanup and redevelopment models; job training pilot programs (each funded up to $200,000 over two years), to provide training for residents of communities affected by brownfields to facilitate cleanup of brownfields sites and prepare trainees for future employment in the environmental field; and, cleanup revolving loan fund programs (each funded up to $500,000 over five years) to capitalize loan funds to make loans for the environmental cleanup of brownfields. These pilot programs are intended to provide EPA, states, tribes, municipalities, and communities with useful information and strategies as they continue to seek new methods to promote a unified approach to site assessment, environmental cleanup, and redevelopment.” US EPA (http://www.epa.gov/swerosps/bf/html-doc/atroy.htm)

The project budget, showing the breakdown of funds by Task is available in pdf format (ProjectBudget.pdf).

You can read more about the EPA brownfields project at the US EPA Brownfields Home Page. http://www.epa.gov/brownfields

The Northeast/Midwest Institute also provides a list of on-line resources.
http://www.nemw.org/reports.htm#brownfields

Documents on this page are in pdf format. Click here to download a FREE copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader or visit www.adobe.com..

Newsletters
Newsletter 1 - Nov 10, 2002 (439KB)
Newsletter 2 - April 10, 2003 (362KB)

Newsletter 3 - January 10, 2006 (347KB)

Public Meeting 1
Nov 20, 2002 Meeting Invitation (90KB)
Nov 20, 2002 Meeting Slides (1MB)
Nov 20, 2002 Meeting Handout (73KB)

Public Meeting 2
Jan 29, 2002 Meeting Invitation (113KB)
Jan 29, 2002 Meeting Slides (4 MB)
Jan 29, 2002 Handout - Maps (391KB)
Jan 29, 2002 Handout - Site Details (464 KB)
Jan 29, 2002 Handout - Task Force List (64KB)

Public Meeting 3
April 23, 2003 Meeting Invitation (112KB)
April 23, 2003 Meeting Slides (2MB)
April 23, 2003 Handout - Three Selected Sites (274KB)

Public Meeting 4

January 18, 2006 Meeting Invitation (347KB)
January 18, 2006 Meeting Slides (2.5MB)

Public Meeting 5

May 3, 2006 Meeting Invitation (347KB)
May 3, 2006 Meeting Slides (2.5MB)

Task Force Meetings
Oct 30, 2002 Slides (79KB)
Oct 30, 2002 Handout (135KB)
Oct 30, 2002 Notes (79KB)
November 13, 2002 Slides (976KB)
November 13, 2002 Notes (94KB)
December 11, 2002 Invite & Handouts (189KB) The 12/11 meeting was cancelled due to weather
January 22, 2003 Invitation & Handouts (269KB)
January 22, 2003 Slides (3MB)
March 26 , 2003 Slides (3MB)
June 18 , 2003 Slides (419KB)

Draft Documents Submitted to EPA on 9/29/2003
Note that these pdfs contain the main text only. Appendices are not available electronically, but can be reviewed at City Hall. Contact Andrea Poley at (518) 270-4557 or andrea.poley@troyny.gov.

Sampling Plan (SAMP) (371KB)
Health and Safety Plan (HASP) (373KB)
Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) (340KB)

Final Documents Approved by EPA on 10/20/2004
Note that these pdfs contain the main text only. Appendices are not available electronically, but can be reviewed at City Hall. Contact Andrea Poley at (518) 270-4557 or andrea.poley@troyny.gov.

Final Sampling Plan (SAMP) (343KB)
Modification Letter (346KB)

Others
Community Involvement Plan (98KB)
Task Force Membership List (66KB)
Final Criteria (72KB)
Map of Candidate Sites Presented Jan 29, 2003 (464KB)
Project Budget (54KB)
Self Guided Site Tour (413KB)