10-year effort to clean Marblehead site concludes

MARBLEHEAD – It?s official – the chemically contaminated Chadwick Lead Mills site on the Salem-Marblehead line is cleaned up and ready for residential use.?It?s finished. We?re done,” Woodard & Curran Vice President John Thompson said Thursday, noting that work ended this week on the 4.4-acre site. The bike trail has reopened and passers-by have already started telling clean-up employees, “It looks great.”Former bicyclists have already begun riding the trail and enjoying the harbor view, Thompson said, recalling that during the work period some riders were seen throwing their bikes over the fence so they could ride the trail – “but most of them were pretty respectful,” he said.Woodard & Curran will continue to monitor the plantings on the site to see how they survive and some of the fencing around the work site will be coming down.The results mark the climax of a 10-year permitting process, getting local and state approvals. Intensive work along the beach, the shoreline and so-called upland areas began in February, paid for by former owner National Lead.Thompson noted that workers tested the soil as they removed it and found lead and other contamination. In addition to removal, some areas have been capped.He noted that Chadwick Lead Mills operated from the 1830s-1910 and during the Civil War the company produced 9,000 tons of lead per year.The clean up upstaged the plans of KSS Realty Partners, which proposed to build a 44-unit condominium complex on the property under the state?s 40-B law, with 11 units (25 percent) set aside as affordable housing.The Marblehead Lead Mills development is described in some detail on the KSS website but KSS personnel could not be reached for comment Thursday.