Railroad Ties and Pesticides Blamed For Rail Trail Contamination
 The rail trail extension from Hoosac Street to Lime Street is currently being designed and the cost has jumped because of extra work needed to cleanup arsenic contamination from railroad ties. |
According to Michael Verseckes, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, the arsenic was found in the railroad track ballasts just south of Lime Street and the state is currently awaiting the results of soil testing to see if it had spread beyond that. Railroad ties used to be dipped in an arsenic solution to be a wood preservative.
"We found some arsenic in the soil. The contamination is probably leaching from the old railroad ties," Verseckes said on Wednesday. "Nobody from the public would have a chance to come in contact with it."
Arsenic was also used along railroad beds and right of ways as a pesticide and herbicide, which could also have contributed to the contamination, he said. If the arsenic has not migrated off the railroad bed, Verseckes said safeguarding the future trail for public use should be relatively easy. Construction of the extension has not begun but is close to being completely designed.
"That soil will be removed and treated," Verseckes said. "At this point, we don't know the full cost of the cleanup."
The cleanup process will likely involve excavating the top levels of soil and capping the rest during construction, he said. However, it will involve extra work, which leads to the increase in cost.
The trail was expected to cost about $2 million and paid through a $4.5 million federal earmark. With the discovery, officials have estimated that to increase by $1.1 million and the balance of the earmark, $1.2 million, has been recommended by the Metropolitan Planning Organization, a planning group through the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, to go to Adams and North Adams to continue the project north to Hodges Cross Road in North Adams.
The balance is not enough for the next extension and officials from North Adams and Adams have both began searching for alternative funding to make up a $1.9 million difference.
The cleanup costs could change after the testing shows exactly how much extra work is needed, Verseckes said. Officials are still uncertain who made the $1.1 million estimate but it could be more or less expensive than that.
The contamination was a surprise for Adams officials, who recently pled their case to the MPO for what they believed to be the $2.3 million remaining in the earmark. Hours before that meeting, those officials were notified of the increased cost.
Town Administrator Jonathan Butler said on Wednesday he still does not have all of the details regarding the finding.
The trail is being developed by MassDOT and will be owned by the state Department of Conservation and Recreating. DCR spokeswoman S.J. Port said on Monday that arsenic is commonly found on railroad beds but did not have details on this specific finding.
