Western Mass. town gets $10 million to convert abandoned mill buildings to riverfront park

The western Massachusetts town of Montague will receive nearly $10 million in state and federal funding to convert an abandoned mill into a riverfront park. The town is one of 13 Massachusetts communities receiving funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up former industrial sites known as brownfields.

EPA Region 1 Administrator David Cash was in Montague Thursday for the announcement.

"It's a win win win win win win situation," he said at a press conference. "These investments clean up a polluted site and they prepare a site for use for the community, how they want to use it: residential buildings, or commercial use, or an open space."

Montague will receive $4.92 million in federal funds, and a $5 million state grant, to clean up the Strathmore Mill property, a multi-building, four-acre paper and cutlery manufacturing site built between 1874 and 1970 along the Connecticut River.

Recently-retired Montague Town Manager Steven Ellis, who spent years promoting the revitalization effort, called the announcement "a profound and emotional moment."

"We stand here at the confluence of our industrial and our indigenous histories, and we have an opportunity to really do something beautiful that is honoring both of those elements of our history," he said. "I can't wait to watch it move forward."

Other Massachusetts towns receiving federal brownfield grants through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Fund include Lowell, which received $5 million to help to clean up contaminated fill along Veterans of Foreign War Highway; Springfield, which will receive $5 million to clean up a contaminated 16-acre site that was home to a valve manufacturing factory, and North Adams, which will get $1.9 million to clean up a former tannery dump. The dump abuts the Hoosic River and contains a 1.5-acre, 10-foot-high mound of leather scraps contaminated with heavy metals.