LOCKPORT — Sevenson Environmental Services has been hired to remove lead-contaminated soil from 33 residential properties along Mill Street. It’s the latest job in the ongoing Eighteenmile Creek Corridor Superfund cleanup effort, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Between 1-1/2 feet and 2 feet of soil will be removed on each property beginning in late spring-early summer this year, EPA Public Affairs officer Mike Basile said. The properties are all in the vicinity of the old Flintkote plant.
On Monday, Sevenson Environmental representative Ben Faer detailed for the city planning board his employer’s plan to create a temporary staging area at industrial-zoned 225 Mill Street, where new, clean backfill for the affected properties will be stored, along with equipment and five mobile office trailers.
“On top of that we’ll have parking and it’ll be used for temporary materials storage and equipment storage,” Faer said.
Faer said there will be a security guard on site during evenings and weekends, as well as lighting, but no security cameras. The cleanup effort will be in progress for two to three years, he added.
The planning board voted to recommend the staging area.
Basile said the Army Corps of Engineers will oversee Sevenson Environmental during the soil removal and replacement effort.
He also said that an update on the Superfund project was sent to all 33 property owners this past September. The Eighteenmile Creek Corridor, the stretch of the creek between Lockport and Olcott, was added to the EPA’s National Priorities List in 2012. Mill Street and side streets in the neighborhood played host to numerous industries since the 19th century; that’s where the contamination comes from.
Basile said Sevenson Environmental will recreate the landscaping on each property being remediated.