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Westerly council approves DEM‑funded soil testing contract with Beta Group, Inc.
Summary
The Westerly Town Council voted to authorize the town manager to sign a contract with Beta Group, Inc., not to exceed $22,700, to perform limited design investigation and a short‑term response action plan for soil testing at a waterfront property; the work will be paid by a DEM grant and not by town taxpayers.
The Westerly Town Council on Oct. 21 approved a resolution authorizing the town manager to enter a contract with Beta Group, Inc. for a limited design investigation and short‑term response action plan at the town’s water‑side property, not to exceed $22,700.
Town Manager Manning told the council the soil testing is part of the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) grant process and that the contract will be executed in the town’s name but paid by the DEM grant rather than town funds. "It's not town funding going into this," Manning said. "It's actually grant funding through DEM that's actually paying for this, but all the contracts are under the town of Westerly's name. So this is of no cost to the taxpayers."
The manager described the likely contamination as an "ash" product commonly present in material brought onto the site decades ago and said the sampling aims to separate material that can be remediated and reused on site from material that must be removed. He said roughly 20% of the soil may be reused on site while the remainder will be extracted and removed for disposal. "There's the majority of the soil can be removed off of the site without a problem," Manning said.
Councilors voted to suspend the council rules to consider the item immediately, then approved the Beta Group contract by voice vote. The motion to approve was recorded as unanimous.
The contract is listed as statement of work number 005 and was described during the meeting as the next step in a DEM‑funded soil sampling and remediation process. The town manager said the property acquisition related to the project is expected to close in the coming weeks, after which the contractor will proceed with sampling and preparation of a short‑term response plan.
The council did not specify a detailed disposal plan or a schedule for when the sampling results will be reported to the council; the manager described percentages and reuse as approximate pending analysis.
