Targeted for destruction
Municipal incinerator will finally be leveled this fall
WOONSOCKET – The safety fences will soon be going up and the city’s old trash incinerator at 25 Cumberland Hill Road will begin to fall to the wrecking claw this September.
That’s is all goes according to plan, and tthere are still a few steps to be completed before the J.R. Vinagro Corp. of Johnston can actually begin the demolition work. But Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt on Tuesday said it appears the project is finally moving toward completion after the City Council’s selection of the demolition contractor last month.
The Council chose Vinagro’s bid of $158,527 for the demolition work and debris disposal after a city review found the company to be the best qualified for the work.
Baldelli-Hunt has advocated the project as another opportunity to remove blight from city streets and noted on Tuesday demolition of the incinerator will be significant step forward in those efforts.
“The goal is to have the project start by the first of September, that’s target date,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
Vinagro must first obtain all needed permitting for the work as part of its start up and that will include obtaining permits from the state Department of Environmental Management in addition to those issued locally by the city.
As part of the bidding process, the city provided the bidders with a preliminary environment site assessment completed in March of 2016 by C&E Engineering, a city environmental consultant. Vinagro will need to complete any identified site remediation work on the building before it begins the demolition and removal work.
The city has already conducted some clean up of the old incinerator in the past, demolishing its stack at the back of the square brick, concrete and steel structure and also removing a portion the incineration area.
The city had used a front office attached to the main building to house several water department employees but that use was ended when Baldelli-Hunt took office and plans for demolition of the entire structure revived, the mayor noted.
The building hasn’t been used for trash incineration for decades and did not have the air quality protections that would be required under today’s environmental protection laws when it did operate.
The mayor herself remembers going to the old incinerator with her family to drop trash there and said it was not a sophisticated setup for disposal by any means.
“People lined up in their cars and then just disposed of their garbage there,” she said. “I can remember how you walked up to the edge and just threw it right into a big hole,” she said while remembering how there wasn’t even a safety rail to keep someone from falling off the edge.
“It is amazing how things change. Here we are today and we are going 180 degrees in a different direction with recycling and being much more sensitive to the environment,” Baldelli-Hunt said.
Getting rid of the building that still stands at the site will be another step forward, according the mayor. “It is a project that is long overdue,” she said. “The building has been vacant for decades and it’s located on a major artery in the city,” she said. That, she said, makes the incinerator a perfect target of her ongoing blight removal efforts.
“I’ve been told by several city employees that the city never moved forward on its demolition because of fear of the costs involved,” she noted.
After going out to bid, however, the city did receive a proposal that it could support to remove the old eyesore, according to Baldelli-Hunt. “When it is demolished, it is going to give a totally different perspective to that area,” Baldelli-Hunt said. “It is quite a significant building and people are used to seeing it there all the time,” she said.
It remains to be seen whether a business or some other entity will want to redevelop the property once the incinerator has been removed but even if that does not materialize, there will still be benefits for the city, according to Baldelli-Hunt.
“Just the fact that the building is gone will be a victory for the people of the city,” she said. “It will be a victory for the city just to have that removed,” she said.