Город Адамс лишился федерального гранта на снос заброшенного завода Curtis Paper Mill

ADAMS — Plans to demolish and clean up the long-vacant Curtis Fine Papers mill have hit a setback after the town was denied a $4 million federal grant that would have helped pay for the work. The town had hoped to remove the deteriorating, highly visible complex along Route 8 near the North Adams line, which has been the target of vandals, and prepare the 11.8-acre property for redevelopment, potentially expanding the town's tax base. The town applied for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Cleanup Grant in January. The rejection letter, sent in June by Jerry Minor-Gordon-English, acting director of the Office of Brownfields and Land Acquisition, said the EPA received 558 applications and awarded 193 grants. Minor-Gordon-English said the applications were evaluated by panels of EPA staff “as well as other federal representatives” and that the application for the Curtis Paper Mill did not score high enough to win funding. The letter encouraged the town to reapply and offered a debriefing within 15 days of receipt of the letter. No one from Adams followed up on the offer for a debriefing about the grant process, according to Nicholas Caccamo, Adams town administrator. The letter also encouraged the town to reapply in 2027. Donna Cesan, interim community development director for the town, said Adams town officials plan to reapply. “However, we have learned that EPA has significantly reduced the maximum grant amount to $500,000, necessitating a more incremental approach,” she wrote in an email to The Eagle. She said the town would also look to other funding sources, including the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. "We also will continue to use the town’s current brownfields assessment grant to prepare a scope of work for cleanup of the two structures on the Curtis property that were identified for rehabilitation,” she wrote. “Once we complete the detailed assessment work to identify contamination at the site and prepare an appropriate cleanup plan, we also are discussing hosting a developer conference to showcase the Curtis site and its redevelopment opportunities.” In addition, Cesan said the town will continue to work with the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and engineering consultant, Weston & Sampson. A group called the Friends of the Curtis Paper Mill has questioned the demolition plan, calling for three of the buildings to be preserved because of their unique features, historic significance and potential for reuse. Developed in the late 1800s, the complex operated as a specialty paper manufacturer from the early 1900s to 2003 under the names Royal Blue Papers, Crown Paper, and James River, as well as Curtis Fine Papers. Curtis filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Manufacturing equipment was removed and the property was bought by MJD Real Estate in a bankruptcy sale in June 2009. The price was $15,000. Several industrial tenants occupied the buildings, using petroleum products and chlorinated solvents in their operations. A trucking company used one of the buildings as a warehouse from 2009 to 2018. The town acquired the property through a tax taking, which was affirmed by the Massachusetts Land Court in June 2023. The site contains two groundwater extraction well houses, a 100,000-gallon No. 6 fuel oil storage tank, and a pond. While MJD attempted to secure the site, “trespassers frequently entered the building and there is widespread evidence of vandalism,” according to Weston & Sampson.