BELLOWS FALLS-Rockingham voters will soon vote on our town's purchase of the Bellows Falls Train Station, a property with a long history of deferred maintenance and environmental contamination.
Costs to address the known problems with the building and site will total millions of dollars. Hazardous materials issues at the site include contamination with volatile solvents - chemicals that are much like those with a history of harm at numerous industrial and military sites. Projected costs have increased substantially during planning. Recent figures for mitigating the hazmat and the basic restoration of the building now exceed $4.5 million.
The proposed purchase and the essential work would draw heavily on town funds. It also would depend on a very complex array of grants.
The unacceptable liabilities of chemical contamination are reason enough to cast the idea of the purchase in a negative light. If you also predict the property's future of burdening taxpayers, the uncertainty of grant funding, and the scarcity of eager future tenants, then you have a second, third, and fourth indelible reason to vote down our town's purchase of the train station. If the staggering $4.5 million figure weren't discouraging enough, it won't include improving the building for commercial use.
Lastly, the town's costly investment would be in a building that's located on leased land.
With so many red flags, it's time to cut our losses. The proposed purchase is not a sound investment for Rockingham taxpayers.
Andrew Smith
Bellows Falls
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