State Grant Will Help With Pollock Park Clean-Up

Pollock Park has been closed since contamination was discovered in the soil there in 2017.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by the office of State Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist.

State Rep. Joe Ciresi has announced that the Department of Community and Economic Development has approved $56,704 in new funding through a Industrial Sites Reuse Program grant to perform an environmental assessment and remediation plan for Pollock Park on the former Mayer Pollock Steel Company site in Pottstown. 

The borough plans to remediate the site, which has been closed since 2017, and return it to recreational use.

Two-acre Pollock Park, shown here as the green square, is located
between Cross and South Streets in the southern portion of Pottstown.

“With the commonwealth’s help, we will restore this recreational space in Pottstown and make it safe once again,” Ciresi said. 

“With this new funding, we come a step closer to properly cleaning and reopening Pollock Park, which will lead to years of enjoyment of this outdoor space for our residents. I’d like to thank the DCED and Governor Wolf for their support of public health and outdoor recreation with this funding,” Ciresi said in a prepared release.

Pollock Park is located on the 800 block of Cross Street and serves a residential neighborhood on Pottstown's south side. It is also a designated trail head park for the Schuylkill River Trail. 

Heavy metals and Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) have been identified in the soil throughout the property. It is believed that contamination originates from the previous use of the site as a scrap yard. 

When Pollock Park was closed in November, 2017 due to soil
contamination, a health warning was posted there by authorities.

The grant will provide $56,704 to perform the comprehensive scope of work which includes soil tests, installing and monitoring ground water wells, data validation, reporting of results and drafting of a DEP-approved remediation plan.

“Pollock Park is a very important park to the surrounding residential neighborhood and to Pottstown at large, and it has real potential as a destination park with appeal to the wider community,” said Pottstown Parks and Recreation Director Michael Lenhart. 

“This DCED grant, supported by the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority, is crucial support for the effort to restore a key Pottstown recreation space to public use. The Borough offers its sincere thanks to PA DCED and Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority for their support of the Borough’s Parks and Recreation system.”

“This investment will provide the neighborhood with a recreational space that will promote a sense of

Before being stalled by the discovery of contamination, a 

new master plan for the park's revitalization was created.

community while ensuring the preservation of public health and safety,” said DCED Secretary Dennis Davin. “The Borough’s leadership in remediating this space will serve as a benefit to the residents of Pottstown both now and in the future.”

The Industrial Sites Reuse Program provides loans and grants for environmental assessments and remediation carried out by eligible applicants who did not cause or contribute to the contamination. 

The program is designed to foster the cleanup of environmental contamination at industrial sites, thereby bringing blighted land into productive reuse.

For more information about the Industrial Sites Reuse program or DCED, visit www.dced.pa.gov.

Pollock Park Pollution Clean-Up Must Come First

Photos by Evan Brandt

Once the contamination is removed from Pollock Park, the borough will try to get funding to implement this master plan for a new park.

Updating and improving Pollock Park has become complicated after an environmental study of the two-acre site found heavy metal and other chemical contamination beneath the soil.

Nevertheless, having a master plan in place will help attract funding to pay for the park once the clean-up has occurred.

The clean-up will take at least 14 to 16 months from now according to Joseph Kraycik, a consulting geoscienctist with Environmental Standards, the Valley Forge-based firm that discovered the contamination.

Parks and Recreation Director Michael Lenhart addresses
environmental concerns during the Pollock Park meeting.

Funding for the clean-up could come from a variety of sources, said Michael Lenhart, Pottstown's director of parks and recreation. In fact, he said, he has already gathered the paperwork for the first grant application to the federal government.

Because the park is now considered a "brownfield," a name for former industrial sites that have contamination, it may actually be easier to attract funding to pay for the park, once the clean-up is done, said Lenhart.

And they're going to need it.

Because now that the park will be taken down to soil, all the trees,m pavement and vegetation removed, the estimated price has jumped from $300,000 to $600,000.

Residents also posed questions and expressed concern about the clean-up, whether they would be exposed and whether any previous exposure might have caused long-term health problems.

There were no immediate answers.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting.

A Place to Park on Pottstown's South Side

Pollock Park is located between South Street and Cross Street on Pottstown's south side.

More trees or fewer trees?

Keep the soccer field, the tennis courts and the basket ball court? Or get rid of them?

Lights?

A Gazebo?

These are the kinds of questions posed, answered and asked again Monday night during the first attempt at getting input on a concept plan for Pollock Park.

Your faithful blogger arrived 45 minutes late, as you no doubt realized, having read yesterday's post indicating I began the evening in Gilbertsville for a very short Douglass (Mont.) Supervisors meeting.

So forgive me if this report is less-than-complete.

The two-acre park is wedged in between South and Cross streets and is a neighborhood staple, if a little under-used.

In an attempt to change that, and with help from a grant from the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Simone Collins landscape architects met with a group of more than 20 people in the new community meeting room of the Pottstown Regional Public Library Monday night to get their thoughts.

There were a lot of them.

Many said they wanted to find ways to make the park safer, as well as more useful to the neighborhood. They worried about vandalism, but some said they didn't want lights.

Peter Simone, who heads up the landscape architecture firm, said in some parks they have installed motion sensor lights to cut down on vandalism.

There was also discussion of some sort of public art project and Assistant Borough Manager Justin Keller said the borough is currently working on an ordinance to make it easier to paint murals in the borough.

By the time the meeting was over, about 8:30 p.m., the idea board was packed with post-its and Simone said they would use those ideas to put together a draft plan to bring back to the residents.

That will occur on March 21, time and place to be announced.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets.

Pollock Park Planning Meeting Set for Feb. 6

Pollock Park is located in the 800 block of Cross Street on Pottstown's south side.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Pottstown Borough.

The Borough of Pottstown will host a public meeting to gather input for the Pollock Park Master Plan on Monday Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. 

The meeting will take place at the Pottstown Regional Public Library on 500 E High St. 

The presentation will include an existing conditions analysis of the park site and a brainstorming session. 

The Borough encourages all interested persons to attend this meeting. 

“We are open to a whole range of ideas for Pollock Park,” said Mike Lenhart, Director of Parks and Recreation. “We want to make this park a resource for the entire community.”

Based on public input, a draft plan will be created and presented to the public on March 21, for additional comment. 

Pollock Park is located at 847 Cross Street in the sixth ward of Pottstown. 

The plan is being prepared by the Borough with the assistance of Simone Collins Landscape Architecture of Norristown. 

Funding for the plan is partially provided by a grant administered by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Bureau of Recreation and Conservation. 

If you plan on attending, RSVP to Kourtney High, Borough Grants Administrator at (KHigh@pottstown.org) 

If you forget to RSVP please attend the meeting anyway!