JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — Jamestown has a new supporter pushing to get what's left of the former Crawford Furniture factory cleaned up and paid for after it was destroyed in a fire two months ago.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to quickly complete its assessment of the property which city officials say is known to have had harmful and potentially toxic chemicals on site leftover from furniture manufacturing.
"The EPA is assessing the potential hazard that the site poses, public risk, health risks, that sort of thing," said Cyrstal Surdyk, Jamestown's director of development.
The factory has a single service shaft and partial wall left standing after the November blaze and plenty of other debris scattered about. Fencing has been put up to block off the site while the EPA works to establish a plan on how to proceed.
The city wants that plan to include demolition and removal efforts, and without federal support it could cost the city $2 million, according to Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist, who said that quotes came in higher than expected after initially estimating a cost of around $1 million.
During a news conference near the factory Wednesday, Senator Schumer said the sooner the EPA assessment is complete, the sooner the city can determine if the site qualifies for federal clean-up funding through either the Superfund Program or the Brownfield Program.
If the EPA finds the site to be hazardous, which Mayor Sundquist said he expects to happen, the city can apply for grants to pay for the cleanup.
"There's ample money," Schumer said.
"We need to get the EPA to examine the site, declare it's a hazard and then the monies will start flowing and it will be my job to make sure they get here as quickly as possible."
Surdyk added: "Our hope is that we will not have to expend local resources to do the removal efforts."
Jamestown Deputy Fire Chief Michael Coon shared Wednesday that the fire Crawford fire started on the first floor of the building. He said the cause remains under investigation and thanked the numerous departments who responded to help.
While the city is pursuing its own legal action against the owner of the plant, Mayor Sundquist is welcoming potential federal legal action as well. He said the owner had a history of code violations at the property.
"The EPA has a lot of other mechanisms that the city does not it can provide a federal action against the individual especially if they knowingly kept the chemicals and did not clean them up," Mayor Sundquist said.
Surdyk added that while it may prove difficult to "pierce the corporate veil" and prove potential negligence with the building held under an LLC, city leaders want to ensure other historic structures around Jamestown don't end up experiencing the same fate.
"We really want this to set a precedent for what our standards are for our community, taxpayers should not have to pick up the bill for something like this," Surdyk said.
The ultimate goal with the Crawford site is to redevelop the property after the cleanup is complete. Mayor Sundquist said there are already "people coming out of the woodwork" who are interested in future manufacturing and business along Allen Street that could benefit the City of Jamestown.