BREWER, Maine — Junk vehicles, including a discarded horse trailer and a line of trailer beds, have sat for years decaying around the JR Redemption Center, and city officials want the site cleaned up, City Manager Steve Bost said Monday.
City leaders are asking the City Council to empower the code enforcement officer to pursue an official complaint against the business located at 151 South Main St. The panel meets at 6:30 tonight at City Hall.
“The council is concerned about the state of the property, especially the accumulation of trailers and old motor vehicles,” Bost said.
The City Council order on tonight’s agenda, “essentially provides the code enforcement officer with council approval to move forward on addressing those violations,” according to Bost.What exactly those violations are will not be known until the site is officially assessed, he said, adding that many of the potential violations are clearly visible.
“The council had an opportunity a number of years ago to address some of the land use issues on JR’s property, but for a number of reasons that action did not occur,” Bost said.
City leaders have worked for nearly a decade to develop the city’s waterfront and at one point offered to move the recycling business, which is owned by Loring Salls, but that effort failed.
The property has 580 feet of shorefront located behind the business.
On Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began cleaning up portions of the site in an effort to clear away lead-contaminated soil and to stabilize the shoreline on the property that over the years has been used as a gas station and an auto salvage shop.
With visible battery casings, presumably from the auto salvage business, and cribwork constructed with wood timbers and car chassis, the EPA determined during a spring 2008 investigation, that “portions of the site pose a risk to public health,” an EPA press release about the cleanup states.
EPA estimates it will take three to four months to complete the cleanup. Meanwhile, the redemption center remains open.
“Now that the EPA is on the site doing remedial work, the timing is appropriate,” Bost said of the proposed order to allow the city’s code enforcement officer to assess the site for violations.
In 2006, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection cleaned soils contaminated with petroleum in the northeast corner of the property where the former gasoline station was located, the EPA statement said.
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