BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

CANTON – St. Lawrence County’s Finance Committee gave preliminary approval for the county attorney to help Ogdensburg with remediation efforts at four city properties that are believed to be contaminated.

They took the vote during their Monday, Feb. 22 meeting. It has to go in front of the full board next month to be finalized.

The locations are the Shade Roller site, 541 Covington St.; MCYC site, 502 Riverside Ave.; the Kiwanis site, Riverside Avenue; and the Sybron site, also on Riverside Avenue.

Legislator Dave Forsythe, R-Lisbon, said he believes the action “is a long time coming.”

“I think the city will benefit wholeheartedly, as well as the county, from this,” he said. “I can think of nothing more I’d rather see than the waterfront in the City of Ogdensburg redeveloped, uncontaminated, and made thriving again.”

Legislator Jim Reagen, R-Ogdensburg, said he thinks the proposal is “a golden opportunity to move some of these properties on the waterfront back onto the tax rolls, back into future development. They’re not making additional waterfront property on the St. Lawrence (River) these days.”

“These properties on the St. Lawrence will be some of the most valuable properties this program will clean up and make ready for development,” Reagen said.

The motion notes that the city on Feb. 9 reached out to the county for assistance with getting the waterfront lots cleaned up and ready to go back on the tax rolls.

It also says that since 2015, St. Lawrence County has “remediated or resolved liability at more then 50 environmentally contaminated properties through a series of partnerships with the support of the state of New York.”