Swampscott to clean up water tower site

SWAMPSCOTT – The town is preparing to move forward with work on the site of the water tower, an area which was contaminated with lead and has become a neighborhood eyesore.Town Administrator Andrew Maylor said the $300,000 project is currently in the bid phase.Maylor said the site was contaminated with lead back in the 1990s when the water tower was sanded and repainted by a contractor.”Adding a new depth of clean soil helps to address remediation issues even though due to previous remediation efforts the site is in compliance with Department of Environmental Protection mandates,” he said. “It also allows us to make general improvements to the site.”Maylor said the project goes beyond remediation, however, and would allow the town to make general improvements in that area.”In the end we will not only get preferred measure of remediation but we will beautify the site,” he said. “We will create a retaining wall, install new fencing and plant shrubbery. It will be an improvement to the neighborhood.”Department of Public Works Director Gino Cresta said an additional two feet of topsoil would be placed in the area, which would then be leveled off.”After we make it level, a new retaining wall will be built around about 20,000 square feet of the site and we’ll do some landscaping,” he said.Cresta said the area has been an eyesore and the town owes it to the neighborhood to clean it up.”It’s starting to look like a dump up there,” he said. “We need to clean up that site. We owe it to the community. We promised the neighbors a new fence years ago.”Cresta said when the project is complete the town would have additional storage space near the tower if it were ever needed and the entire area would be fenced in.”It will continue to be a secure site,” he said. “No trespassing will be allowed.”Cresta said he expects the town would receive bids by the end of the month and once the project is underway he expects it would take two or three months complete.”There will be very little or no disruption to the neighborhood while the project is going on,” he said.