City gets bids for removal of incinerator

City may hire consultant to review proposals to raze eyesore

WOONSOCKET – The city may hire an engineering consultant to evaluate bids from four demolition companies who’ve made offers to raze the defunct municipal incinerator on Cumberland Hill Road – a site many say could be city’s most egregious example of architectural eyepollution.

Because the bids range from a low of $94,750 to a high of more than three times that amount, Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt believes a professional should review the offers to make sure they’re all adequately responsive to the bid specifications before recommending an award.

C&E Engineering of Woonsocket, which has already performed two environmental studies of the site, is being considered for the bid review work, since it’s already familiar with the issues at the 25 Cumberland Hill Road incinerator, said Blake Collins, the city’s business outreach and public relations coordinator.

“They haven’t been engaged, but it’s something we think would be very prudent as there does happen to be a bit of a spread in the bids that came back,” said Collins. “This is a very qualified company that’s been involved and this is what they do.”

Built in the 1960s, the crumbling behemoth where the city burned its trash has deteriorated into what Baldelli-Hunt now calls “the poster child for urban blight in our community.” If all goes according to plan, BaldelliHunt will tap funds from the blight removal account in the budget to raze the building and remove hazardous materials that are known to have seeped into the soil beneath the cavernous brick, steel and concrete structure.

City Council approval would be required for the project to move forward.

The administration says the cleanup of the parcel, situated at a key gateway to the city, would allow officials to explore other options for the land, including selling it for private development or using it for other municipal purposes, said Collins.

The four companies that tendered offers on the cleanup are:

• Mancini Demolition, Inc., of North Scituate, $94,750

• AA Asbestos Abatement Co. Inc. of Johnston, $97,750

• J.R. Vinagro Corporation of Johnston, $158,527

• S&R Corporation of Lowell, Mass., $299,000

C&E’s prior environmental surveys of the site have confirmed that it is contaminated with an assortment of hazardous materials, including asbestos. Among other things, the scope of work included in the request for proposals to clean up the property, issued by the city last month, require

the successful bidder to raze the building and remove all hazardous materials from the site in accordance with state and federal regulations.

Prior administrations have pointed to the municipal incinerator as glaring eyesore, but they may have been discouraged from pushing for demolition out of concern that such an undertaking would come with an exceptionally hefty price tag, city officials say.

If nothing else, Collins said, the work the administration has already done suggests that the cost of eradicating the blight isn’t cheap, but it’s within the city’s means.

“We’re demonstrating this is something that isn’t farfetched or that the cost would be prohibitive from us moving forward,” Collins said. “It’s a pretty serious example of environmental contamination and probably the city’s biggest eyesore. The admin- istration certainly wants to move forward on it.”

The cost of razing the building and cleaning up the site could be further mitigated by deploying some inhouse resources and labor from the highway division, according to Collins.

Some modest efforts have already been undertaken in the past to lessen the visual shock of the decimated incinerator and remove some of the contaminated material. Several years ago, for example, the city demolished the stack from which smoke and ash byproducts of incineration were vented. Debris was also removed from the onetime hearth of the facility.

The building is a relic from a bygone era of waste disposal – a time when household trash was still disposed of by local authorities – before the advent of modern regulations enforced by the state Department of Environmental Management and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. After closing down more than three decades ago, the city began landfilling household trash, also at a local facility – a dump that has since evolved into one of the city’s marquee recreational areas – Rivers Edge Recreational Complex off Davison Street.

Today, curbside trash pickup is outsourced to private contractors who haul waste exclusively to Central Landfill in Johnston, a sprawling facility that, like the city’s trash incinerator and local dump, will also have a limited lifespan.

According to a 2014 report commissioned by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, which runs the facility, the 1,200-acre Central Landfill will max out its storage capacity in 2038. Whether it lasts much longer may depend on how much more of the waste stream is diverted for recycling in the future.