MONTAGUE — Voters agreed on Monday to spend tax dollars on cleaning up hazardous materials at the blighted Strathmore Paper Mill, which will make way for future development or demolition of the buildings left behind from the town’s paper mill past.
Asbestos remediation of the town-owned mill complex will cost the typical homeowner about $10 a year for a decade.
Without the remediation of the hazardous materials, the buildings could have sat empty for decades and would be costlier in the long run to remediate, said Town Planner Walter Ramsey.
The May annual town meeting OK’d spending money to clean up the vacant mill buildings, subject to the Monday election, which authorized the town to take on debt and thus increase the tax rate to pay for the nearly $385,000 project.
The Proposition 2½ debt exclusion will allow the town to increase the tax levy to pay the annual debt service for the project.
The tax increase won’t occur until the tax bills for fiscal year 2018 are issued beginning in July of 2017.
The abatement will remove materials, including two large steam boiler systems with extensive amounts of asbestos pipe insulation throughout the buildings, almost 24,000 square feet of asbestos panels in disrepair and some areas of asbestos floor tiles, according to an informational sheet issued by the town.
The cleanup of the roughly 270,000-square-foot complex on the island between the Power Canal and the Connecticut River, could be the catalyst to attract future development and get the property back on the tax rolls, town officials hope.
Earlier this year, one investor, Obear Construction Co. of Montague, promised to rehab one out of the 10 blighted buildings, turning the brick building into 16 to 20 condominiums with up to two floors of offices or workshop space.
You can reach Lisa Spear at:
lspear@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 280