Finding fix for contaminated sites

GOOD RESOURCE: Robert Atwood, president of Resource Controls in Pawtucket, says there has been a focus on remaking old spaces, such as manufacturing plants and schools, as people look to move back to cities. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
GOOD RESOURCE: Robert Atwood, president of Resource Controls in Pawtucket, says there has been a focus on remaking old spaces, such as manufacturing plants and schools, as people look to move back to cities. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

As the business of environmental assessment and remediation has changed over the past 30 years, Resource Controls has evolved as well, becoming more involved in solving problems that can make site development difficult.
The Pawtucket-based engineering-design and environmental-consulting company began in Providence in 1986, designing waste-treatment plants for the jewelry and metal-plating industries that then dominated the industrial waterfront.
It then branched into site remediation, including assessments and cleanups. The company has now evolved into connected services, including site development and planning, while expanding its geographic footprint into southeastern Massachusetts.
The company has three focuses: client services, including environmental-liability planning and regulatory planning; engineering-design services, including planning and permitting and surveys of property and building conditions; and environmental services, such as site assessment, remedial design, hazardous-materials management and site closures.
In recent years, more of the company’s focus has been in “brownfield” redevelopment projects, former industrial sites that are being remade for new uses. Former factories, schools and commercial buildings can be repurposed for modern office and residential spaces, but need to be cleared of industrial wastes by licensed companies.
Resource Controls, owned by Robert Atwood and Mark House, is licensed in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island. About half of the work is conducted in the home state of Rhode Island.
In Massachusetts, the company has offices in Sharon. In the future, the company may expand into New York and Connecticut, said Atwood, the company president. But its headquarters will remain in Rhode Island, where both of the company principals have taken on positions in volunteer organizations that promote economic development.
In the past five to 10 years, the company has seen a movement in its project locations from rural areas to more urban settings, Atwood said, with development requests focused on remaking old spaces, such as manufacturing plants and schools. “Now there’s a lot of focus on that. People are interested in moving back into the cities,” Atwood said.
Among recent projects, Resource Controls has conducted an environmental assessment for redevelopment of 10 residential properties in Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston; and of a former warehouse on Kinsley Street in Providence, for the Isle Brewers Guild. The company also designed and supervised excavation of oil-contaminated soils at the former Lonza chemical plant in Lincoln.
In a project for Johnson & Wales University, the company managed the removal of PCBs in building materials.
In some recent projects, the firm conducted an environmental assessment and remediation of the Admiral Metals plant in Taunton, and an environmental investigation into contamination at the Highlander Charter School site in Providence. The charter school is located in a former mill building.
As part of its site-design services, the company provides planning, permitting and design services. Recent examples of its work include design and planning for Richmond Commons, a 300-acre, mixed-use development in Richmond.
With clients, the company emphasizes the combined skills of its civil engineering and environmental-design services, and the fact that they can dovetail on projects. The plans for growth in the future are focused on increasing market share, he said.
After 30 years, the diversity of projects keeps the work interesting.
One of the highlights, for Atwood, was the work on a project in Taunton for a nonprofit community-development company, the Neighborhood Corporation.
Resource Controls was hired to assess the environmental contamination at a former manufacturing plant, the former Nu-Brite Chemical Co., which had produced paints and varnish. After an extensive remediation of the site, Resource Controls’ civil-engineering arm prepared design plans that converted the former industrial site into a mixed-use development, featuring open space and housing.
“It went from a messy nothing … to being back on the tax base,” he said. Although often complicated, contaminated sites can be remade into new uses.
“There is a fix,” Atwood said. •

COMPANY PROFILE
Resource Controls
OWNERS: Robert Atwood and Mark House
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Engineering design, environmental consulting
LOCATION: 474 Broadway, Pawtucket
EMPLOYEES: 11
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1986
ANNUAL SALES: $2 million

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