CGA Site

SANFORD- People like to live in towns that don’t have many “eyesores” and the town members of Sanford feel the same way. The 17-acre former CGA site on New Dam Road has been a dump for many years.

With the use of harsh chemicals, used computers were torn apart to remove the copper from the circuit boards. The company up and left the property leaving a mess for the town. 8,000 cubic yards of circuit boards has to be removed along with huge tanks, plastic pipes, trash and other materials. The abandoned buildings would also have to be taken down and trashed or recycled. There is also an estimated three acres of contaminated soil to be cleaned.

Environmental Protection Agency has been in contact with the Town of Sanford and is now stating that the town needs a plan for the CGA site before the cleanup funds can be approved. H. Curtis Spalding, regional administrator for EPA Region 1, “suggested that the Town of Sanford needs to determine potential future uses for the 17-acre property and then seek funding sources through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (U.S. HUD), and other sources that may have funding for redevelopment”.

Some suggested sites for the 17-acre property were a recreation area, baseball fields and maybe a “multiuse building” that could be used for an ice-skating rink.

A clean-up grant from the Brownfields program could help clean the property by partnering with the town but it only qualifies the contaminated soils, not the rest of the trash that would have to be cleaned up first. It is an estimated $343,620 to remove and dispose the computer circuit boards, $524,096 to excavate, transport the contaminated soil where only $200,000 would be funded by the Brownfields grant.

It’s been over twenty years and the town realizes it’s time to get rid of this huge “eyesore” and turn it into something beautiful and useful to the community. With a plan in the works funding will start shortly after then clean-up can begin.

(First Draft)