The New York City Office of Environmental Remediation (OER) has applied for an extensive cleanup of the development at 120-30 Jamaica Ave. in Richmond Hill before construction of a new school begins.
The 32,497 square-foot development contains a 4-story manufacturing building, a 2-story former retail/office building currently being used for merchandise storage, and a 1-story building with a stairwell that adjoins the buildings. The proposed school that would replace these buildings would be five stories tall and have a partial cellar and rear yard.
This request from OER comes after they identified volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds, as well as metals above cleanup guidelines, in the soil there. The groundwater samples taken revealed the presence of each of these above the quality standards.
OER has listed a variety of proposals in which to address the environmental concerns at the development in their Remedial Action Work Plan application. This would include implementing a community air monitoring plan for particulates and volatile organic carbon and establishing site-specific soil cleanup objectives.
According to the application, soil/fill that exceeds the site-specific soil cleanup objectives will be removed from the development. During this process, parts of the site will be excavated as much as 21 feet deep below grade, which would also create space for the building’s basement. Other portions of the site will be excavated up to 5, 10 and 15 feet below grade for utilities and another area up to seven feet to address lead hazardous waste. In total, around 10,500 tons of soil is expected to be excavated and removed from the site to permitted facilities.
A vapor barrier system will be added below the concrete slab under the building and behind its foundation walls to make it weather-resistant. An engineered composite cover will also be built and maintained. It will be composed of six inches of concrete underlain by 12 inches of subbase building slab covering the entire site and four inches of asphalt in the rear yard as a means of preventing exposure to any residual soil/fill that may still be present under the site.
The Remedial Action Work Plan draft will be reviewed by OER before a decision is made about whether or not the application is approved. A public comment period is currently open, running until Sept. 27. OER will take the public comments into consideration when making their decision.
Once the final Remedial Action Work Plan is approved, it will be posted on OER’s website, and a second fact sheet will be issued before the start of remedial work.
A direct link to the document repository can be found here. building. For information regarding New York City’s Voluntary Cleanup Program, visit OER’s website at: www.nyc.gov/oer. People can also learn about the project by contacting NYC OER Project Manager Adesa Boja at 212-788-9877 or via email at aboja@dep.nyc.gov, as well as NYC OER Acting Director Shaminder Chawla at 212-442-3007 or via email at Schawla@dep.nyc.gov.
