Plan To Remove Scrap Yard From Harbor Progressing

You can't revitalize the Norwich, Ct., Harbor waterfront with a four-acre scrap metal junkyard front and center. That much has long been known.

But now, with city officials placing new emphasis on waterfront development, plans to clean up the Shetucket Iron & Metal scrap yard to make way for a park — and perhaps an amphitheater and a farmer's market — have new currency.

A new waterfront division of the Norwich Community Development Corp. has targeted the so-called New Wharf area as its top priority. City Manager Richard Podurgiel last week requested some $5 million in federal funds for general waterfront improvement projects. And a new draft of an environmental report on file at the city planning office concludes that while the top two feet of soil throughout the scrap yard is contaminated, the ground beneath appears to be clean.

More testing is needed, but a rough estimate of the cleanup cost is about $2 million, city Planner William Sweeney said.

“It's encouraging that the original fill put in the river was clean fill,” Sweeney said. “That's different from other sites in the city.”

Sweeney said the main obstacle now is funding. Further environmental testing must be done and a cleanup plan written. City officials have been discussing the possible purchase of the scrap yard with its owners, Edward and Walter Seder, for more than a year. The Seders purchased the site in 1966 from Dawley Lumber, which had operated a lumberyard there since the late 1800s.

The Seders agreed last year to allow the city to use the remaining portion of a federal environmental testing grant –– about $30,000 –– to study the scrap yard property as a prelude to possible redevelopment. At the time, however, the Seders had hoped the business could be relocated to another industrial site with freight rail access.

On Tuesday, Edward Seder conceded there is a slim likelihood of relocation, which he said would not be a factor in the family's talks with the city. A condition of those negotiations is that the property be developed only as a waterfront park and not be sold to another developer, he said.

“I know in my own mind you cannot renovate the harbor or downtown and have a scrap yard in there,” Seder said. “To me, it's beautiful, but in the overall picture, to really do the harbor, a park is the ideal thing for that location.”

Seder is a member of the NCDC board and also of the waterfront division board. He agreed that the city should push for federal and state funding to close the scrap yard and clean the property. He noted that Gov. John G. Rowland said last week during a visit to the city that it's time for mid-size cities to benefit from state funding.

Seder noted that the state Department of Transportation plans to rebuild the Route 12 bridge over the Shetucket River this summer. The entrance to New Wharf is from the east bank of the river just beyond the bridge. The state could improve the entrance road at the same time at a much lower cost than retrofitting it in the future.

“It's all part of the same package,” Seder said.

Podurgiel included the $5 million for the waterfront park in an overall $25.7 million federal grant request he outlined in a three-page letter to U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

“The Norwich Harbor Commission and numerous local civic organizations have recommended that land adjacent to the harbor be acquired and developed as a public park, which would provide greater water access to the people of Norwich,” Podurgiel wrote.

Plans call for bicycle and walking trails, a new public boat launch, a community boathouse and recreation facilities, he said.

“Development of a harbor park will remove unsightly land uses from downtown Norwich, improve the downtown neighborhood, promote better public use of the waterfront and encourage private development on land in the vicinity of Norwich Harbor,” Podurgiel said.

Ronald Aliano, chairman of the NCDC waterfront division and the Harbor Management Commission, said it's up to city officials to undo the mistakes of the past along the waterfront. He said removing the scrap yard would have to be the top priority.

“That property obviously is of paramount importance,” Aliano said. “Nothing of great magnitude can be done in downtown unless that property is cleaned up and turned into a park.” The (Connecticut) Day