SALISBURY — Digging pits as deep as 15 feet throughout the overgrown 16-acre site at 3 Main St., crews are hard at work cleaning up the town’s only “man-made mountain” and studying exactly what materials were dumped there as town officials hope to see the eyesore transformed into much-needed housing.
“Right now, we’re just doing all the environmental testing required,” project manager Richie Capolupo said.
What has been known locally as McKenna’s Mountain for the past 30 years is essentially a large pile of concrete and rebar from destroyed buildings. It is close to the New Hampshire border near the former Gateway gas station between Main Street and Route 1 (Lafayette Road).
The area is named after former resident Mike McKenna, who brought in all the materials to be crushed but never was able to follow through.
“Mike got in a horrible accident, and everything came to a halt and it just sat there 30 years. Obviously, the taxes weren’t paid on it until the town took it,” former Selectman Chuck Takesian said.
The area has been completely overtaken by nature to the point where it is no longer clearly visible from any angle of the road.
Through a small grassy path, crews are able to access the site, having begun work earlier in the month. Pits dug in search of untouched soil were spread out hundreds of yards apart as piles full of concrete, rebar and other debris sat next to them.
While most paths led to more worksites, one led to a homeless encampment. With blue tarps forming a string of tents with jugs of water and gas littered about, it looked almost like a makeshift village. There were no signs of its inhabitants when a reporter visited Wednesday but according to a worker who did not want to be identified, the camp is in use.
“They have a fireplace in the tent,” the worker said.
The goal, according to Capolupo, is to have everything cleaned out as soon as possible after the Board of Selectmen agreed to a $150,000 purchase-and-sales agreement with developer Salisbury Reclamation at its meeting Monday night.
As a prelude to possible development, a Phase 1 assessment of McKenna’s Mountain was completed in 2013 under the authority of the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission using $3,750 in Environmental Protection Agency funding. The assessment determined there was at least one type of contaminant on the site, according to the federal agency’s website.
Selectman Michael Colburn said that to the town’s knowledge, there are no hazardous chemicals on-site, just discarded construction materials.
Now, Salisbury Reclamation is hoping to confirm that.
Capalupo, brother of SPS New England Chairman Wayne Capolupo, said that so far in terms of what they have discovered from digging, it has been concrete and rebar as expected. He said the surprise has been how deep they have been finding what he described as “car-sized pieces of concrete.”
“That’s a bit of a shocker. What’s above ground was no surprise – we could see that. But after spending half a day digging, I’m surprised they excavated so deep and filled it up with concrete,” Capolupo said.
He said they will begin digging on the other half of the property.
“Then we’ll know better about the underground composition,” Capolupo said.
As far as hazardous waste, he said they will not have answers for some time as they gather samples and wait for testing and analysis.
“In a perfect world, they said that portion of the environmental analysis wouldn’t be done for at least 60 days – maybe more,” Capolupo said.
Takesian, who was in office when the ordeal began, said the main reason it has taken so long to get the site cleaned up has been conflict between the town and possible developers over what each party would be responsible for.
“People became interested, they wanted the town to do so much. The town said, “No, we want you to do this.” They could never come to a consensus on who should do what,” Takesian said.
He said this time around, he thinks things will be different.
“I’m extremely optimistic,” Takesian said.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.