Toxic fumes in Bellows Falls train station basement under investigation | Local news

BELLOWS FALLS – The city’s rarely smooth effort to buy and renovate the Bellows Falls train station has run into another environmental problem.

This time: Toxic trichloroethylene fumes were found to be seeping from the contaminated soil of the surrounding freight yard into the station’s basement.

But preventing the fumes from entering the basement could be a relatively inexpensive solution, Daniel Voisin of Montpelier-based Stone Environmental, the city’s environmental engineering company, told the Rockingham Select Board last week.

A similar problem at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury cost $36,000 to fix, Voisin said. He estimated containment costs at $10 to $30 per square foot. Tests so far have shown that the TCE does not appear in the upper part of the station, where there is a waiting room for Amtrak passengers, he said.

Voisin said the Windham Regional Commission is willing to cover all costs to clean up the steam problem at the station. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must approve the cleanup plan, he said. The Windham Regional Commission has already funded two brownfield assessments for the project and pledged more than $300,000 for lead and asbestos remediation.

And in a strange twist, the contamination could actually help the city renegotiate the purchase price for the station, which has risen to a potential $285,000 due to delays in December 2024. The estimated price of the building, which needs millions of dollars in repairs, is $325,000.

The toxic fumes will likely delay the expected closing of the real estate purchase agreement for the station, which has been postponed several times over the past two years as the city completes its due diligence in purchasing the station. The majority of the cost will be covered by a small down payment from city voters and various state and federal grants.

Rockingham City Manager Scott Pickup said Thursday he is currently working to finalize the cleanup plan for the station’s TCE problem and will then consult with Vermont Rail Systems, the owner of Green Mountain Railroad, on the actual purchase price.

Complicating the purchase is that the station sits on land owned by the transit authority, and the state does not want to sell the land to the city. Working out a lease for the land the station sits on — which is now contaminated — has taken several years, Pickup said in the past.

Voisin said the TCE was first discovered during testing in August 2023, and by law, the property owner (the transportation authority) should have immediately notified the Natural Resources Authority of the problem. But that didn’t happen. When the problem was finally reported in June, it triggered an immediate request from the Natural Resources Authority to submit a remediation plan within 90 days. TCE is an industrial degreaser, and exposure affects the central nervous system, causing headaches, nausea and dizziness. Prolonged exposure can cause liver and kidney damage, according to public health agency websites.

The trichloroethylene is contained in the soil, in the air spaces in the soil, explained Voisin, in the soil above the water table and under the foundation of the building. He compared the remediation to radon remediation.

Pickup said he did not want to renegotiate with the railroad until the cleanup schedule was finalized. Voisin strongly suggested that the owner of the land – the state – would be interested in getting the problem fixed before moving forward with buying or, in the case of Bellows Falls, leasing the land.

Contact Susan Smallheer at [email protected].