Sharon moves money for transfer station cleanup

SHARON — At a sparsely populated town meeting on Oct. 9, $50,000 from the town’s Undesignated Fund was approved to be allocated towards covering clean-up costs of the old Salisbury-Sharon Transfer Station site on Sharon Road.

The work included building demolition, ground leveling, concrete and metal removal, and the extraction of contaminated soils.

The sum was added to $12,000 that was previously allocated towards the project in last year’s municipal budget, bringing Sharon’s total contribution to $62,000. The remainder of the $200,000 total price tag was paid by Salisbury.

During site remediation in 2023, engineering consultant firm Arcadis conducted an environmental health survey of the area, finding some soil and concrete contaminated by hydrocarbon oil, as well as some soil containing low concentrations of PFAs, commonly known as “forever chemicals” as they do not break down in the environment. The levels of PFAs detected were far below the state Residential Direct Exposure Criteria, a metric used to determine the public health risk associated with contaminated soil.

An earlier study by Anchor Engineering in 2016 also found arsenic at the site, which did exceed the Residential Direct Exposure Criteria in several locations, though Arcadis’ December 2024 report described the concentrations as “near background.”

Water monitoring wells were installed at the site over the summer to continue to survey the area. The first reading, which was done recently, found the soil to be clean, reported Salisbury First Selectman Curtis Rand.