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Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Thunder possible. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%..
Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Thunder possible. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%.
An auger that mixes cement with contaminated soil towers over an excavation at 350 Franklin St., Olean, at the city’s largest brownfield cleanup. Thousands of tons of petroleum-contaminated soil have been removed from the site owned by MJ Painting.
An auger that mixes cement with contaminated soil towers over an excavation at 350 Franklin St., Olean, at the city’s largest brownfield cleanup. Thousands of tons of petroleum-contaminated soil have been removed from the site owned by MJ Painting.
OLEAN — “It’s the biggest brownfield cleanup in the city of Olean,” Mike John Sr., owner of MJ Painting, said of the site at 350 Franklin St., with its nearly 2-acre excavation that is 14 feet deep in places.
The gaping hole and piles of clean dirt that will be used to help fill the excavation are visible from Interstate 86 just east of Exit 25, as is a portable concrete batch plant and towering drilling rig and several excavators.
About half the 9.5-acre site will be cleaned up by the end of the year, John told the Olean Times Herald during a tour of the site on Friday. Phase 2 will begin in the spring and conclude next year.
Once the site of the former Socony Vacuum Oil Co. tank farm is remediated, about five acres will be used for a new paint shop and office building along with a truck center and storage yard in an expansion by MJ Painting.
The other half of the site will be available for commercial purposes including offices or light manufacturing, John said. There has already been some interest expressed in the site.
The cleanup is a cooperative venture involving Exxon-Mobil, the successor company to Socony Vacuum; the state Department of Environmental Conservation, City of Olean and MJ Painting, John emphasized. He said he cannot talk about costs.
About 25,000 tons of soil has been excavated from the giant hole in the ground. The grossly contaminated soil — often black with petroleum stains — has been removed from the site to an approved landfill. Most of what remains piled and covered by plastic sheeting along Franklin Street will be used to refill the excavation when the time comes.
“The entire site is not grossly contaminated,” John pointed out. Light-colored soil is less likely to be contaminated by petroleum residue. The whole site has been mapped as part of a three-year study, a prelude to the cleanup.
Contamination below the 12-14 foot mark is being addressed by a system using twin augers to penetrate the ground as deep as 35 feet and mixing Portland cement into the soil where it solidifies. “They are using so much cement that they brought in their own batch plant,” John said.
“We’re cleaning up the neighborhood,” John said. MJ Painting did a similar brownfield cleanup at its site at 291 Homer St. “That was large,” he said. “This is super large.”
Large pieces of broken-up concrete are piled along one side of the excavation. They were foundations for the oil tanks, John said.
“When this is done next year this whole site will be shovel-ready,” John said. “It fits the definition of redevelopment.”
The general contractor for the project is Roux Environmental of Massachusetts and Trex Environmental of Rochester is the prime subcontractor. About 30 workmen and operators are on site.
“When this is all cleaned up, we’ll get a DEC certification of completion” of the cleanup plan and be shovel-ready, John said.
MJ Painting has about 50 employees and 24 trucks. They have divisions for commercial and church painting as well as a pipeline and energy division and a new one for floor coatings.
(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)
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