Brownfield Redevelopment in the Jewelry District
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To better understand the reality of brownfield remediation and redevelopment in the Jewelry District, we looked at three case studies that represent different key locations. The first site, Dynamo House, is a waterfront property and an important model for future waterfront development. Clifford Street, the second site, is a parcel located near the corridor and can be considered a case study for development following highway relocation. Lastly, Ship Street is a Brown-owned property in the heart of the Jewelry District. These case studies also allow us to compare the predicted contamination based on historical data with actual contamination, and thus assess the validity of our methods. Dynamo House | Clifford Street | 70 Ship Street The Dynamo House property, also known as the future site of the Heritage Harbor Museum, is located at 360 Eddy Street. It is bounded to the north by the vacant lot owned by the National Grid, to the south by South Street, to the west by Eddy Street and, significantly, to the east by the Providence River. This site is undergoing redevelopment under the direction of the Heritage Harbor Corporation, Struever Brothers and National Grid, with plans to open a museum. The South Street Power Plant has left a legacy of contamination leftover from its industrial land use history. Materials associated with the power industry and jewelry manufacturing offsite within the neighborhood have been found on the current Dynamo House site during environmental consultant phases. As part of the cleanup strategy, a soil cap has been proposed. The Dynamo House case study is important not only because it deals with brownfields-related issues of revitalization, contamination standards and public health, but because as a waterfront property there will be implications for wildlife health and the sustainability of the city’s urban development along a major estuary. The detailed report on waterfront development in the Jewelry District, focusing on Dynamo House, can be found here. Expected vs. Found Contamination From the historic land use maps, we identified several potential soil contaminants for the Heritage Harbor Museum/Dynamo House parcel and the adjacent parcel to the north along the waterfront. The parcel currently occupied by Heritage Harbor Museum/Dynamo House was the site of Narragansett Electric since 1889. The parcel to the north served as a site for the Hopkins Pomroy Coal Company, electric power generation and crude oil tanks.
All of the found chemicals were suggested as potential contaminants based on our industrial archaeology research. However, some of the expected chemicals were not found in the chemical profile. This may relate to the differing levels of activity and pollution from industries, resulting in different levels of contribution to soil contamination. ___________________________________________________ Case Study of 162 & 166 Clifford Street Phase I | Phase II | Additional Investigation | Contaminant Comparison | Sources Located on 162 and 166 Clifford Street, just 100 feet south of the I-195 corridor, this property is a site whose history of jewelry manufacturing is very similar to sites located within the corridor. As such, it can serve as an indicator of what contamination could be found once testing and further investigations begin in the corridor. The following is an overview of the investigatory process that took place at the site and the kinds of contamination which were found.
Photo Courtesy of "Additional Environmental Site Investigation." BETA Engineering, Inc. December 1997. Explanation of image: Above is a map of Providence showing the location of 162 & 166 Clifford Street, immediately south of the I-195 highway and located within the Jewelry District. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) of this site was conduced by Hoffman Engineering in December 1995. Through interviews and observations made during visits to the GB classified site, it was found that since its construction in 1910 the site, it had been utilized primarily by jewelry manufacturers. Plating processes had taken place throughout the building, which meant that various chemicals including sulfuric acid, potassium cyanide solutions, and chlorinated hydrocarbons were utilized in plating and/or other manufacturing processes throughout the building. The assessment uncovered analytical tests of the machinery and work areas located within the building, which were conducted in 1993 and which detected elevated levels of PCBs and TCE (which were later cleaned up). In addition, two underground storage tanks (USTs) were removed in October 1994, and approximately 3.75 tons of fuel-oil contaminated soil from spillage was found around the 10,000-gallon underground storage tank. The Phase I ESA report by Hoffman concluded that if extensive excavation for building construction and or renovation work was planned, a thorough subsurface investigation and analytical testing would be warranted. Asbestos sampling was particularly recommended before renovations or demolition. Following this assessment, BETA Engineering conducted a Phase II ESA in which it took groundwater and subsurface soil samples in and around the on-site buildings. Three soil samples were found to have elevated concentrations of VOCs as detected from the HNu field detector. Two of these samples were soil samples that intersected the groundwater surface, suggesting that the source of the contamination was located up-gradient of these borings. The lab results did not detect any TPH or total cyanide in the soil, and no concentration of metals was above the RIDEM Direct Exposure Criteria for the soil samples collected in the borings. The soil sample collected from the floor drain contained elevated levels of copper, cadmium, and lead over the RIDEM Direct Exposure Criteria. The three groundwater-monitoring wells were all down gradient from different parts of the building. The groundwater results showed elevated levels of TCE, PCE, and cis-1, 2-dichloroethene in MW1 and/or MW-2. These results were below the GB classification but still need to be reported to RIDEM since they exceeded the GA concentrations. Additional Environmental Site Investigation An additional investigation was undertaken by BETA Engineering in December 1997, in which two groundwater-monitoring wells were installed to intercept migrating underground contamination. According to the Investigation summary, "A 15-foot layer of clay/silt soil was found to be located 25-40 feet below the surface. BETA and RIDEM decided this layer would act as a confining layer and the well was screened from 20 feet to 30 feet below the surface of the ground." The results for the two wells (MW-4 and MW-5) detected 1,1-dichloroethene (19.4 ppb) above the RIDEM limit of 7 ppb for the GB groundwater classification. Despite this exceedance, BETA concluded that the layer of clay/silt soil would act as a confinement and, "since GB groundwater classification is based on indoor air effects, no significant risk should be associated with 1,1-dichloroethene." Expected vs. Found Contamination
Clearly, there is a huge discrepancy between expected versus found contaminants. One possible explanation for this difference is that we did not appropriately link historical use to SIC code. For example, we entered 3911, Jewelry Manufacturing, as the SIC code, and Copper CO is the only chemical associated with 3911 in the look-up table. However, the found contaminants relate more to code 33: Metal Industries, which is associated with trichloroethene, PAH, and TPH. It is likely that the jewelry manufacturing industry also carried out practices similar to metal industries, but ultimately we could not decide to include that additional classification because we were limited by the amount of detail in the Sanborn maps. The high concentrations of arsenic and lead found on site may be explained by their almost ubiquitous nature in the Jewelry District due to historicla use of lead paint and the naturally high levels of arsenic in Providence soils. Abestos may similarly be a historical contaminant that is not linked to one specific industry, but rather older building construction in general. Phase I Environmental Site Assessment. Hoffman Engineering, Inc. December 1995. ___________________________________________________ Background | Phase II | Contamination Comparison | Remediation A notable case study in brownfield redevelopment is that of 70 Ship St , a property bought and renovated by Brown University in 2004 and now the home of Brown's Molecular Medicine laboratories. Formerly the Hirsch/Speidel jewelry manufacturing company, the building was constructed in 1912 and continued operation until December of 2000. Manufacturing conducted at the site included plating, metal working, grinding, tumbling, cleaning, small-scale painting, fabrication, and assembly. The site and adjacent properties are reportedly connected to municipal water, sewer, and electricity. The Providence River is located approximately 12,000 feet from the site. A Phase II procedure revealed that several chemicals persisted from the lot's historical industry. Soil contaminants in exceedance of regulatory limits per the residential direct exposure criteria included:
In the site's groundwater, regulatory exceedances included the chemicals:
Expected vs. Found Contamination From the historic land use maps, we identified a single potential soil contaminants for the parcel located at 70 Ship Street. The 1950 Sanborn map indicate that 70 Ship Street was the former site of jewelry manufacturing.
Similar to the Clifford property, the found contaminants differ significantly from the estimated contaminants. This difference may be explained by the same logic as that of Clifford; namely, that because of the low level of detail in the Sanborn maps, the property was not assigned an appropriate SIC code. Remediaton
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