Vermont Business Magazine Farm-Way, Inc recently celebrated the grand opening of its expanded operations at its family owned and operated store in Bradford. Twin State Fertilizer and its predecessors manufactured and repackaged seeds, fertilizer and pesticides for 50 years or more on the site where Farm-Way’s expanded facility is now located.
As the former Twin State Fertilizer property was contaminated by these operations and the owner did not have sufficient resources to address the contamination and redevelop the site, Two Rivers Ottaquechee Regional Commission (TRORC) and Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation (GMEDC) secured funding from Farm-Way and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) Region 1 that allowed GMEDC to purchase the property, enroll it in Vermont’s Brownfields Reuse and Environmental Liability Limitation (BRELLA) program and work with Farm-Way, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources’ Brownfields Program and EPA to clean up the site.
Taking advantage of the redevelopment “safe harbor” available to regional development corporations such as GMEDC under Section 6615 d (4) of Vermont’s Waste Management Act, GMEDC was able to remediate the contaminated property and transfer it to Farm-Way with a Certificate of Completion from Vermont’s Brownfields Program that protected Farm-Way and its successors and assigns from liability for the historical contamination at the site and allowed Farm-Way to proceed with the redevelopment of the property.
Source: (Bradford) Farm-Way, Inc