Cleanup of Camden tannery site continues, thanks to brownfields grant
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved a $200,000 Brownfields and Land Revitalization grant to the town of Camden for the continued cleanup of the Apollo Tannery property on Washington Street.
The grant is one of 10 statewide grants, totaling $3.2 million, made by the EPA to assist communities as they work to redevelop contaminated sites in order to promote environmental integrity and future economic investment.
The PenBay Pilot reported the site remains contaminated and undeveloped despite the town’s efforts to date to clean it, after 100 years of heavy industrial operations. Contaminations include benzoapyrene and arsenic.
The tannery closed in 1999. Camden acquired it through a lien foreclosure in 2003. The cleanup was the first issue taken up by the Community Economic Development Advisory Committee when it was established in 2009, committee chairman Peter Gross told the newspaper.
The town is considering both green space and commercial use for the site. The Camden Farmers’ Market operates there in the summer.
In 2010, the Community Economic Development Advisory Committee's then-chairman Martin Cates told Mainebiz the town had created a “Land for Jobs” initiative that would provide land at the site to the right business for free. The town had identified certain industries that would fit within the residential location of the site, including biotechnology, information technology, financial services and health care, and a building there could support up to 300 jobs.
The site is on a tree-lined, residential stretch of Washington Street. The property's manufacturing history goes back to 1855 with the construction of the Gould Plug and Wedge Mill.
In 1887, it became the Camden Woolen Co. and employed 125 people. In 1953, the Camden Tannery Corp. took over. In 1997, it was leased to Apollo Tanning and operated for two years before the company applied for bankruptcy in 2000.
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