City of Salisbury begins process to clean ‘brownfield’

Salisbury, Md. – At a public meeting on Thursday at the Wicomico County Government Building, residents asked what would happen to the brownfield on 317 through 325 Lake Street once it was ready for use, but officials maintain that the priority is getting its soil decontaminated.

“Once that’s clean, then we can decide what’s going there,” City of Salisbury Department of Infrastructure and Development Project Engineer Travis Huff said.

For decades, the parcel of land was contaminated with hazardous chemicals after it was used for a fuel tank storage facility and then a waste oil processing facility. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Maryland Department of the Environment designated the area as a “brownfield,” a property on which reuse is complicated by hazardous materials.

In 2020, the City of Salisbury bought the property and, after receiving almost $1.8 million from the EPA, is now getting ready to clean it for use as a recreational area.

Huff said the construction and development during and after clean-up should be relatively straightforward, only taking about 120 days to clean the soil. 

“Now, when it’s done, it’ll affect people positively for their recreation needs,” he said.

Huff says the area may be used as part of the North Prong Park initiative, with a $500,000 grant from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for trails and playground equipment.

To decontaminate the soil, Huff said it would be tested again, and if it falls within a certain range, the city would take 2 feet of soil to a soil treatment facility for treatment. If it exceeded that range, he said the soil would be cleaned before being disposed of. Afterward, the city says it will replace the contaminated soil with a 2-foot soil cap and then place 8 inches of clean soil for playground equipment and landscaping. However, Huff said there would likely only be grass planted to make sure no roots grow past the cap of clean soil and mitigation.

Huff said the decontamination has a hard deadline of Sept. 30, 2027, but would be a relatively straightforward process, only taking about 120 days. He says construction would wet down the concrete to keep dust from getting into the air, and the work to turn it into a park would begin 90 days after bidding.

Von Siggers, a Salisbury resident, said she appreciated the opportunity to have her voice heard.

“I appreciate the progress that I’ve seen and appreciate this opportunity to absolutely to get more information,” she said.