Steel Site Contamination Can Be Capped

Remediating a brownfield is often a difficult and pricey task, but for the steel site downtown, a plan is already in place to cap any issues.

In its past, the brownfield was home to Phoenix Steel Company and more recently Phoenix Pipe and Tube Company, which closed abruptly in the 1990s.

Jim Mullan, principal with Hocage Consulting, an engineering and environmental firm, said he thinks of the 120-acre steel site as two different parcels. French Creek East is located east of the Gay Street high bridge, while French Creek West is the western portion of the site, extending out to near Paradise Street in the borough.

The western part of the steel site never had any official environmental investigation done on it.

“No major widespread investigation has occurred,” Mullan said.

On the eastern part of the site, where Parcel O sits, investigation has been done, and a remediation plan was formulated and then approved. Parcel O has frontage in the 100 block of Bridge Street, between 101 Bridge St. and Phoenix Cycles.

A featuring 80,000-square feet of retail, 30,000-square feet of office space and 275 apartments is currently making its way through the borough’s land development process.

After the pipe and tube company was shuttered, some remediation was done, mostly just getting rid of the obvious contaminants. Drums of chemicals were removed, and some light asbestos removal may have been done on French Creek East, Mullan explained.

A “full spectrum” of testing was done on the site in 2005 and 2006. Mullan explained that he’d seen much worse contamination in his career than what was uncovered on the eastern portion of the steel site.

“They found no contamination in the groundwater at all,” Mullan said. “Groundwater is not a concern.”

Ten monitoring wells tracked the groundwater contamination and came up clean for a wide range of compounds. The soil, however, did show some contamination.

Iron, arsenic and lead were spaced throughout the eastern portion of the steel site, and some registered above levels for safety set by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). This is likely because slag was spread across the site when it housed the steel plant.

Under a previous owner of the steel site, a remediation plan was formulated and submitted to DEP.  That plans calls for a site-wide cap on the eastern portion of the site.

The cap will consist of two feet of clean fill. Barry Cassidy, project manager for the proposed mixed-use development on Parcel O, said the developer will abide by the plan and the cap will be done when that site is developed.

Only Parcel O, owned by O Creek Associates, is currently going through the development process. Other parcels on the steel site have different owners.

After all remediation is complete, a final report on French Creek East will be submitted to DEP.

One of the problems with an earlier plan on Parcel O, Cassidy said, was that the developer wanted the ownership of proposed residential properties on the site to be in fee, meaning the property would be divvied up. By selling in fee, all owners would get a piece of the parcel—and therefore, a piece of the contamination. Remediating a contamination issue with multiple owners can be very difficult, Cassidy explained.

For the new Parcel O proposal, the land wouldn’t be owned by nearly as many entities as in the previous plan, Cassidy said, so if any future contamination issues crop up, they should be easier to deal with.

Mullan and Cassidy were on hand for a presentation last week on the steel site and the issues involved in developing a brownfield.

The Parcel O proposal is currently before the Phoenixville planning commission, and a conditional use hearing will also be held on the property in the future, Cassidy said.