By Erin Tiernan — Erin@concordbridge.org
The task force that’s been vetting the pros and cons of Concord owning the soon-to-be cleaned-up Superfund site at 2229 Main Street says it will recommend on October 1 that the town buy the land.
The 46-acre former Nuclear Metals Inc. site in West Concord has been involved in state- and U.S.-led cleanup efforts since the 1990s.
For four decades prior, the company made depleted uranium products, primarily for armor-piercing ammunition. It also manufactured metal powders for medical applications, photocopiers, and specialty products such as beryllium tubing used in the aerospace industry, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
A $300 million cleanup is underway to eradicate pollutants that leached into the soil and groundwater through an unlined holding basin where the company discharged waste from 1958 to 1985.
Once that’s done, the EPA says about half the land — roughly 23 acres — will be developable and safe enough to host almost any future use, including housing.
Paul Boehm, chair of the 2229 Main Street Advisory Task Force that’s analyzing the risks and opportunities the land brings for Concord, will present his group’s findings and recommendations to the Select Board on October 21.
A ‘slow-moving train’
Ultimately, any decision to negotiate and eventually purchase the land from the federal government rests with the Select Board. A 2015 Town Meeting vote gave the board that power.
“It’s a pretty slow-moving train,” Select Board Chair Mary Hartman said when asked recently by The Concord Bridge about what happens next at the Superfund site. “That land will not become available to us until 2029.”
But Hartman said Concord could save money on future site planning if it moves forward sooner. The EPA will begin site configuration work in 2026. Concord could weigh in on things like where driveways are installed if local officials decide how they want to develop the land and enter into “good faith” negotiations with the federal government before that work starts.
The draft recommendation leaves the planning up to the Select Board. However, task force leaders say it will be supported by a report due out by year-end detailing the group’s research and findings. The report would cover any ongoing risk of cancer or other illnesses from exposure to toxins at the site, ownership scenarios, and potential for development, as well as potential town costs and liabilities.
Boehm said it is the culmination of two years of meetings, six site visits, dozens of interviews with officials, developers, and external experts, two public forums, and thousands of hours of personal research by task force members, town staff, and paid consultants.
“We’ve done our homework,” task force member David Ropeik said at a September meeting.
Weighing potential health risks
A big question on the minds of Concordians at a June public hearing was how safe the Superfund site would be post-cleanup regarding the risk of cancer or other pollutant-linked illnesses.
“One thing that I want to make clear upfront is this is us doing our due diligence — we’re not just trusting the EPA to have made the right risk decisions, not just trusting [the state Department of Environmental Protection] to have made the right risk decisions,” said Pam Rockwell.
Kurt Herman dug into the risk assessment conducted by environmental consulting firm Roux, which the task force hired to look into potential hazards to human health.
A “hypothetical resident” carries a baseline 0.33 percent chance of getting cancer, Herman said. For someone living at the site, that risk would increase to 0.330001. “It’s very insignificant,” he said.
The report will detail exposure risk for various illnesses, which are all well below both state and federal thresholds of concern, according to soil sample analyses in the Roux report.
There is one private lien and one federal lien on the property, which the Select Board would settle — along with any other legal liabilities — in negotiations with relevant parties. The EPA has previously indicated it would not look to profit from selling off its share of the land for public use.
Once the task force votes on the draft recommendation, which has already garnered a consensus among a majority of its members in a straw poll, the Select Board has “work to do” to determine how best to use the land, Hartman said.
Informing that process will be a land use matrix that town staff are on track to deliver by year-end, Hartman said. It will detail various needs — including new public works and public safety facilities — as well as land available for development.
The Superfund site is one property on that list, along with the MCI-Concord land and the Peabody School property.
The 2229 Main Street Task Force’s October 1 hybrid meeting starts at 7 p.m. in-person at the second-floor conference room at 141 Keyes Road and on Zoom.
Fast Facts: 2229 Main Street at a glance
Total size: 46 acres
Developable: 23 acres
Cleanup cost: $300 million
Cleanup completion: Late 2028/early 2029
