Troy

Petroleum giant Chevron could pay about $1.8 million to clean up a former industrial site in South Troy once used to make manufactured coal gas and later to store asphalt, according to a plan being considered by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Work at the 7-acre Water Street property, located just south of the Route 378 (Menands) bridge, should start next year and last about nine months, according to a DEC notice this week. Storage tanks on the site were removed in 2006 and the site is currently vacant.

California-based Chevron USA Inc. would pay to remove about 725 cubic yards of soil contaminated with nearly a dozen industrial chemicals, tar and asphalt left behind when the site closed in 1999 after at least seven decades of industrial use, first for plants that manufactured coal coke and gas, and then for asphalt storage and distribution.

The ground is now polluted with aromatic hydrocarbons, including benzopyrene, benzoanthracene, benzene, toluene, arsenic and xylene. Tests have found coal tar as far as 11 feet underground.

Once the contaminated soil is removed, the cleanup plan calls for the site to be covered with soil "acceptable for commercial and industrial land use," according to DEC. The land has been filled in with "slag, cinders, brick, gravel and other materials" over the past, according to DEC.

DEC will hold a public hearing on the proposal at 7 p.m. Feb. 20 at Troy City Hall, 433 River St., and is taking public comments on the plan Feb. 1 through March 2, through John Spellman, project manager, NYSDEC, Division of Environmental Remediation, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233, or john.spellman@dec.ny.gov.

A copy of the proposal is available for public inspection at the Troy Public Library, 100 Second St., Troy.