The owners of the Shetucket Iron & Metal scrap yard, located in Norwich, Ct., have agreed to participate in an environmental study of the waterfront property that is seen as crucial to the future revitalization of the Norwich Harbor area.
Edward and Walter Seder, the brothers who run the 84-year-old business on New Wharf Avenue, stressed that the family wants to work with the city to determine whether the property is contaminated. But no one should assume that Shetucket Iron & Metal is closing or going out of business, they said.
Ideally, the Seders hope to find a place to move the business — admittedly a difficult task — and sell the harbor property to the city with a recommendation that it be converted into a park with public access to the water for boats and fishing.
“We realize you cannot develop this harbor to represent Norwich if it remains a scrap yard,” said Walter Seder, the company treasurer and a former city alderman. “If there's another facility that gives us what we have here, a new modern scrap yard is what we want.”
The Seders want to purchase new machinery for the scrap business — costing more than $1 million — but they hope to learn whether the city is interested in the property and whether the business can move before making the investment. A new location would need direct access to a freight rail line, as New Wharf has with the Providence & Worcester Railroad.
“We want to know for our own edification,” Walter Seder said. “New machinery is very expensive. As soon as we find out what's going on, what's happening with the city and whether we will still be here, we will make those decisions.”
Edward Seder, a member of the city's Harbor Management Commission, said he is well aware that the scrap yard is mentioned in every plan or map of potential waterfront revitalization. But to date, city officials have not discussed any plans directly with the family. When he visits business associates throughout the state, they always ask when or whether Shetucket will be bought out.
“It's only talk,” Ed Seder said. “We have the most beautiful scrap yard setting in Connecticut. We know that. If we ever move, I think the city should make a park of out this place, for the betterment of Norwich. We have 900 feet of waterfront here, with water 23 feet deep.”
The Seders approached City Planner William Sweeney in the fall and asked how the family could participate in the so-called brownfields environmental studies being done on several industrial sites throughout the city. The city had received two federal grants with a combined total of $350,000, but most of the money has been spent on sites in Greeneville and downtown.
About $30,000 remains, and part of that will be used to pay brownfields contractor GEI Consultants Inc. of Colchester to conduct a phase one study of the Shetucket property, Sweeney said. That study entails a detailed historical review of the uses of the property to determine likely spots where contamination might be found and a design method for how to do environmental testing. The study also will include a review of state and federal environmental records for permits and whether there have been spills in the past.
It will not include the testing, however. The city hopes to obtain a new federal grant for that.
Shetucket Iron & Metal moved to the property in 1966. Sweeney said records show that the land was a lumberyard before the Seders moved there, and that the land was created from fill brought to the site.
“The land itself isn't natural, and typically there is some level of contamination in that material,” Sweeney said.
The city needs permission from a property owner before using federal brownfields money to study a site. Sweeney said the Seders were at the forefront of the effort to study the Shetucket Iron & Metal property, and even raised the idea that the land should be used for a park if the scrap yard eventually is relocated.
“We're very pleased to see a genuine and cooperative level of support from the Seders,” Sweeney said. The Day (Connecticut)