This story by Robert F. Smith was first published in The Commons on Jan. 28
BELLOWS FALLS — A complex ownership situation involving two state agencies could derail Rockingham’s plans to purchase and restore the Bellows Falls train depot, but Development Director Gary Fox said these issues can be resolved in time for the town to meet the April 1 deadline for buying the building.
To that end, the town has sent a letter to Gov. Phil Scott seeking cooperation from two state agencies to move the project forward, and the state has affirmed its willingness to find solutions.
The 8-acre rail yard at the north end of the Island, part of the village’s designated downtown historic area, is owned by the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTtrans), while Green Mountain Railroad (GMRR) owns the 1923 depot building in the middle of that land.
Also at issue is who is responsible for cleanup of industrial pollution — and how it will be paid for.
The town wants the restoration of the historic depot to be the focus for development on the Island in the decades to come. GMRR is willing to sell the building to the town for $285,000. Town officials report that while VTrans won’t sell the land the building sits on, the state agency is willing to lease the land to the town.
Some town officials, like Selectboard Chair Rick Cowan, have expressed concern that if the town buys the building and leases the land before resolving environmental mediation issues, the town might get stuck with the environmental cleanup bills, as the proposed VTrans lease assigns responsibility for environmental cleanup to the tenant.
The renovated depot building might include a restaurant — a scenario envisioned in the design work for the $4.3 million project — but Cowan said the lease would prohibit the sale of alcohol on VTrans property, which could drastically impact any future restaurant plans.
Lawyers are involved in discussions to put these issues to rest prior to the purchase.
“There is a lot of ambiguity in the lease language,” Fox said. “But changing one or two sentences in the lease could clear up all of that.”
That is the purpose of current talks with various state departments, and a letter from the town asking the governor to intervene.
“Why not just get these problems ironed out?” Fox asked. “Who wants to go to court over this down the road? Let’s get this all squared away now.”
Town urges state to help resolve issues
The Rockingham Selectboard sent the letter to Vermont Gov. Phil Scott earlier this month asking him to intervene with the agencies and help resolve the issues before April 1.
“We need your help!” the Jan. 7 letter begins.
The letter asks Scott to work with the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and VTrans “to achieve a positive outcome for the Island District.”
As a major transportation and industrial hub for two centuries, the soils of the Island suffer from extensive pollution, which either has to be removed or contained.
Rockingham is nearing the end of Stage I of a three-part development plan for the historic train station. Stage II is scheduled to start around April 1.
The stage I predevelopment work involved a survey of the site for structural and environmental issues. The cost of that work was $127,542 from taxes and over $64,000 in grants. An action plan has been developed that will be enacted in Stage II.
At that point, Fox said, “we’ll have a train station that we can work with. It will have been restored to preservation standards.” Importantly for the project, he said, the town already has “100% committed funding for Stage II.”
That funding includes $269,000 raised from taxes, and, Fox said, “You’ve got just under $1 million in non-taxpayer money going into it,” referring to money already raised from grants.
Environmental issues like lead paint, soil gases such as trichloroethylene and contaminated soil will all be addressed by the end of Stage II.
Last June, consulting engineers Sanborn, Head & Associates discovered tetrachloroethylene vapors in the air within the soil beneath the foundation of the depot building and above the water table.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the chemical was widely used in dry-cleaning fabrics and metal degreasing.
The agency describes primary long-term effects of the chemical as neurological, “including impaired cognitive and motor neurobehavioral performance. Tetrachloroethylene exposure may also cause adverse effects in the kidney, liver, immune system and hematologic system, and on development and reproduction.”
Fox said that at the end of Stage II of the project, “we’ll have an Amtrak station that is safe, health-wise, with the environmental issues mitigated through either removal or sealing.”
“The building will have been restored, and it will have all new windows and doors,” he said.
But Cowan said there are still unclear details that have him concerned, and that Fox is trying to resolve. Resolution of those issues, Cowan said, would be necessary to get his approval of the project.
The Selectboard members told Scott that the town must get “a commitment from Vermont DEC and VTrans to address the contaminated railyard in a feasible manner, and minimal VTrans lease modifications, purchase and renovation of the station is not possible due to liability of leasing the land, putting the town at risk of 170 years of rail operations.”
Project planners projections indicate that rail use of the yard will double over the next decade.
Pollution and housing concerns
The rail yard, a local fixture for well over 170 years, takes up the north end of the Island, the 20-acre rail/industrial section of Bellows Falls, formed by the Connecticut River on the north, east, and south sides, and the canal powering the town’s hydroelectric station on the west side.
The railroad has also played a critical role in the history of the region. Rail lines have provided transportation for paper, textiles and other goods produced in the area, as well as milk and other agricultural products shipped to Keene and Concord, New Hampshire, to Boston and beyond. Rail service has transitioned over the years to primarily long-haul freight and one Amtrak passenger train, the Vermonter.
The canal was built in 1801 and helped Bellows Falls become a major transportation hub. In the later 1800s, the canal would be converted from transportation to providing water power for mills. In the 1920s, the canal was rebuilt to power the hydroelectric plant in Bellows Falls.
The Island was home to several factories over the past 200 years, which created extensive ground pollution there.
The advent of rail in the 1840s increased the village’s importance as a transportation center. The rail yard in Bellows Falls was a major Northeast rail hub.
Because the Island is immediately adjacent to Bellows Falls’ downtown, in recent years it has also been designated as part of the downtown historic district. Fox said that redevelopment of the Island for a variety of commercial and housing purposes is a vital part of the village’s future plans.
The town has developed an Area Wide Plan with input from the Windham Regional Commission. The plan proposes several town and private industry projects over the next several years.
These include adding over 100 housing units on the Island in upper stories there, and 45,000 square feet of street-level commercial development.
When asked about the assertion of a few in the community that adding low-income housing increases crime, Fox scoffed at the idea as nonsense.
The village’s history supports him. Over the past several decades, five major housing projects, including numerous apartments for low-income tenants, have been completed in the half-mile stretch of downtown Bellows Falls from the former Armory building on Westminster Street to the recently opened Bellows Falls Garage building on Rockingham Street.
Town officials said all of these projects combined have had zero impact on crime statistics, and that the buildings have a reputation for being well-managed and safe.
On the contrary, Fox said, “The way to fix tax issues in the town is to add buildings back to the Grand List.”
The Island, he explained, is the area where the town has lost considerable buildings off the tax list. Adding to the Island’s appeal for development is that “it already has water, sewer and three-phase power, and it has the most room for growth.”
Cleaning up the pollution on the Island is not only “the right thing to do for the future,” Fox said, but “the most valuable place to add property value back” to the town.
In response to the town’s plea, Scott’s office pledged to “work directly” with the Agency of Transportation and the Agency of Natural Resources and assured the town that the governor’s office is “actively working towards a solution.”
“Who wants to invest in a community that won’t invest in itself?” Fox asked. “There are a lot of places for the federal and the private money to go. If the town runs away scared, private money will go elsewhere.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Concern in the air on Bellows Falls depot project.