Greetings,<p>I am planning some cleanup work for our roundhouse. It is almost guaranteed that the ground is quite contaminated, especially with nearly 100 years of steam operations. Can someone give me a price range I can expect to pay per foot (or whatever unit you want to go with)?<p>Thank,<br>Gerald Kopiasz, President<br>Heartland Railroad Historical Society<br>



hrrhs@aol.com

It all depends on what you have to deal with.<br>

It's like the old saying: "If you have to ask, you can't afford it!"<p>Seriously, if you get the experts involved, you can expect that at the minimum they will want to do test wells to check for groundwater contamination, air sampling, soil sampling, etc. And for any roundhouse area, you should bet on finding petrochemical contamination, asbestos, solvents (benzene), maybe heavy metals, etc. Having been involved in some pollution cases over the years, I can tell you that the ultimate costs may be mind-blowing; the "proper" cleanup for even "small" spills can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.<p>Bottom line question is, WHY are you doing this? Have you been cited by local or federal EPA? Is there a complaint of ground-water contamination? Or do you just have a hunch?<br>



kevinmccabe@avenew.com

The reason why I am looking into is not because my organization is being forced to. It is because we have a good idea that there is some contamination on the site and would like to address this liability in the early stages of the project rather than having the EPA knock on our door at a latter date. Not to mention that I don't want to risk misleading any potential donors/investors.<br>



hrrhs@aol.com

There is a lot to this issue. Among the lessons we've learned is that different standards of cleanliness may apply if the land is to be re-used for industrial purposes (as, say a roundhouse) or as commercial land or a museum (to which the same standards as schools may apply). What are you calling your new facility for regulatory purposes? Land that historically was used only as a STEAM-locomotive terminal may not have bad contamination, as steam engines didn't necessarily generate large volumes of spilled lubricants and solvents, only ashes. But if the land was used for Diesels or other automotive-era equipment, then you will find the contaminants mentioned above. And if you're in the kind of territory where any unfenced, untended land tends to attract "midnight dumping," then be prepared to find anything.<p>Aarne H. Frobom<br>Michigan State Trust for Railway Preservation, Inc.<br>P. O. Box 665<br>Owosso, MI 48867-0665<br>



froboma@mdot.state.mi.us

There are several options available for the site. All involve public accessibility. For now we can say that it's commericial/museum to give you an idea of our intent. Most of the operations the building saw were STEAM related. The railroad put the building up for a 99 year lease shortly after steam operations ended (the railroad sold the building long ago). If there were diesel operations, they probably didn't exceed a five year period--if that. One issue that I thought of that hasn't been mentioned yet is the "A" word. Since we all know that our beloved steam locomotives contained a lot of this and since a few locomotive stayed at this site, wouldn't the "A" word still be an issue? Particularly since it could have leaked out of them like we see now in the park displays. And since the "A" word is a mineral, it could still be present, right? Or has the content been insignificant with other steam facilities? I don't think "midnight dumping" is an issue. The site is quite clean (free of obstructions) and in view for everybody to see.<br>



hrrhs@aol.com

If the "A" word leaked out, it probably blew away or got mixed with the soil years ago, concentrations would be prob. be less than the EPA worries about, i.e., so many fibers per cubic foot of air. What about asbestos on piping in teh shops, and any equipment you might want to bring in? IF friable, Can it be encapsulated in place, like under metal boiler jacketing, or does it have to be taken out. <br>Actually, if you are in an urban area, you may have circumstances similar to the below. <br>Museum wants to acquire some land with city help. <br>City sends out the evironmental engineers, they find a perfectly even distribution of lead at JUST higher than allowable levels for parkland over the whole site. Which means that 2' of dirt has to be removed, and 2' of clean soil put back, unless you just pave over the stuff. The lead would appear to be from an airborne source (use of leaded gas for example) from the even distribution, yet the deal is set WAAY back. And an EPA rep states the only danger is someone eating a BUNCH of the dirt, thus getting lead poioning. Sheesh. <p>The group in Cumberland Md.(?) had their roundhouse demolished in part because the city and the RR couldn't agree on who was going to handle the environmental issues, so the RR tore it down...<br>If you mix enough other stuff with lead paint for example, the TOTAL concentration in the waste stream (TCLP) is the determining factor on whether or not the waste is treated as a hazmat. <br>So, tear the whole building down and don't sweat it, or spend thousands getting rid of the lead paint in place. <p>I would think REALLY hard before I opened this an of worms. Check with an atty and see who would be liable if something cropped up 10 years down the road - it might not be YOUR problem, but the previous owner's. Just my .02 worth. <br>

The roundhouse was in Hagerstown, MD. <p>If your group is like most of the rest, then you likely don't have two nickles to rub together. In that case, don't worry. You are not the party that any lawsuit would come after. They would be looking for the deep pockets, specifically the railroad that owned the site before you, or if any other company or public agency had any ownership interest. I had to deal with this on a steel mill preservation project a few years ago which failed because of the same set of circumstances that doomed Hagerstown.<p>It may be possible to set up a separate organization to own and maintain the roundhouse site, and have another organization which would own the equipment and other assets. In that case, if there would be a lawsuit, all the equipment would be excluded, and you could merely go bankrupt with the first organization and start anew, but without losing the equipment. I've oversimplified it here, but the point is that it is possible to protect yourselves.<p><br>

In my limited experience with this stuff, whatever stuff was being dealt with was usually just fine until somebody came along and began dealing with it at the behest of the EPA or some such bunch of useless academic pencil pushing bureaucratic geeks. If it hasn't bothered anybody in decades, why push your luck? Fix any leaks, cover it up and it still won't bother anybody for decades to come. <p>Dave<br>



lathro19@idt.net

I think that the person who suggested consulting a competent lawyer was correct. There may also be federal or state grant funds from the "superfund" or other mitigation funds that is purposely set aside for just this type of situation. A lot of this mitigation is funded by exise taxes on petroleum. I know that a major local company had a major fuel contamination problem that the clean up was largely funded by the state program. And this company is far from a poorly funded train museum. <br>

Check out Evanston, Wyoming's Brownfields Assessment Demonstration for their UP roundhouse.<br>



ryarger1@nycap.rr.com

Here's the URL, which I can't get to work automatically on our website. www.epa.gov/docs/swerosps/bf/html-doc/evanston.htm.



ryarger1@nycap.rr.com