North Point cleanup project goes before planning board
Wiscasset’s planning board Monday night found the town’s application complete, for the proposed cleanup of the North Point fill area on North Point Road, off Birch Point Road. A site visit was planned for 4 p.m. Friday, April 17 and a public hearing was eyed for 7 p.m. Monday, April 27.
The project, which is on town land, also needs state and federal nods. Federal Brownfields funds have covered the preliminary work and, if needed, more grant funds will be sought, project representatives said. The application for the site plan review states in part, “Historically, the site was used as a dumping/storing area for waste from the Mason Station (power plant). Buried and partially buried waste (including asbestos waste) remains on-site and along the shoreline of the Sheepscot River. A portion of the Site's shoreline was stabilized in 2004; however, the remainder of the shoreline remains in poor condition.”
According to project representatives from Sevee and Maher Engineers in Cumberland, about 160 feet of shoreline will be stabilized and the upland part of the site will get a Brownfields cover system.
The project will grade the embankment, install riprap to within two feet above the highest astronomic tide line and vegetate the upper embankment.
The firm said the plan for the waste area is to cover the contaminated soils with a heavy duty fabric and about eight inches of clean fill, overlain by four inches of top soil that will then be vegetated.
