Youngstown gets another grant to clean up Cold Storage site
WHEATFIELD — The Village of Youngstown received a $90,000 grant from a county agency Wednesday toward cleanup of the Youngstown Cold Storage site.
Combined with a previous $110,000 grant from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, the money gives Youngstown $200,000 in hand. However, village officials said they still need about $150,000 more to carry out the first phase of the work.
The Niagara County Brownfield Development Corp. board voted in favor of the grant at a meeting here. The corporation was set up last year to administer a revolving loan fund set up through the county’s own $1 million EPA grant.
President Amy E. Fisk, a senior planner in the county Economic Development Department, said this is the second project the corporation has aided.
A $250,000, five-year loan to Santarosa Holdings was approved in January. That company has plans to reopen part of the former Union Carbide plant on College Avenue in Niagara Falls as a tire recycling center.
Youngstown Cold Storage, a former fruit processing plant at 701 Third St., closed since 1996, is to be demolished and replaced with what project manager Frederick A. Stephens called “housing aimed at the empty-nester market.”
But first, plenty of cleanup is needed. Daniel E. Riker of TVGA Consultants, the firm hired by the village, said the $350,000 plan includes removal of contaminated soil a foot deep, a 3-inch coating of ash inside the plant that contains arsenic, a PCB-contaminated concrete platform under a compressor and a 500-gallon fuel tank.
The EPA removed ammonia coolant from the site in the late 1990s, Riker said.
Stephens said the company went under because an influx of low-priced Chinese apples undercut the local farmers, and because of high utility costs.
“It’s a sad commentary that the lowest-cost electricity in the world is seven miles away [at the Niagara Power Project] and they couldn’t take advantage of it,” Stephens said.
Bernie Rotella, grant writer for the village, said he applied last month for a $600,000 Restore New York grant from the state for the Cold Storage site. He said there are also hopes that State Sen. George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane, will be able to shake loose other state funding.
Niagara County took possession of the site after its abandonment and deeded it to the village. Legislator Clyde L. Burmaster, R-Ransomville, said, “It’s good for everybody to get this property back on the tax rolls, but in addition to that, it will enhance the appearance of that very nice community of Youngstown.”
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