Joe Walko didn’t want a relic of how treacherous the crumbling Quin-T advanced on Erie’s east facet had develop into over time.
However in the future whereas visiting the property, Walko grabbed a memento anyway.
After work crews first began demolishing parts of the Quin-T web site at East sixteenth and French streets in 2016, Walko, who at the moment was the Erie Bureau of Fireplace’s chief, stopped by to pluck a crimson brick from the particles.
Many of the demolition was accomplished in 2021 after the Erie County Redevelopment Authority bought the constructing with an eye fixed towards revamping the property.
That souvenir sat for years inside Walko’s fifth-floor workplace at Erie Metropolis Corridor, a logo of the dangers he and different metropolis firefighters frequently confronted on the vacant industrial web site.
Between 2013 to 2016, in response to the Erie Bureau of Fireplace, metropolis firefighters responded to just about 20 fires on the Quin-T property that have been both by chance or deliberately set. In some circumstances, firefighters fought the fires completely from the outside due to security considerations.
No firefighters have been significantly injured battling the Quin-T blazes.
“When a name got here in for that constructing, we have been instantly very involved,” mentioned Walko, now 69, a 40-year metropolis fireplace bureau veteran who retired in early March.
The Erie Instances-Information reported in July 2023 that, for many years, tons of doubtless harmful supplies have been left inside each the dilapidated, unsecured Quin-T web site and one other vacant industrial property the county Redevelopment Authority owns, the previous Erie Malleable Iron web site at 603 W. twelfth St.
Hazard zones: Asbestos, toxic chemicals among hazards left at Erie’s Quin-T, EMI sites
Supplies left on the properties embody asbestos and chemical compounds or substances which have been linked to numerous cancers.
“It was an enormous construction. Many of the fires occurred or have been reported at night time,” Walko mentioned. “We knew it was unstable. We knew homeless individuals have been at occasions dwelling in there. The flooring had huge gaping holes in them. There have been every kind of chemical compounds and stuff inside. With that constructing you have been all the time apprehensive about firefighter security.”
Requested why he needed that brick, Walko mentioned: “As a result of we spent numerous hours there. It’s a reminder that a whole lot of occasions, with some fires and in some buildings, you’re working at a deficit from the minute you arrive.”
Quin-T property: A timeline of environmental, safety concerns
‘Drawback web site’
Lengthy earlier than backhoes and wrecking balls arrived on the Quin-T property, Erie firefighters, code enforcement officers and regulatory companies just like the Division of Environmental Safety and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been conscious of the doubtless harmful state of the sprawling 4-acre advanced, at 160 E. sixteenth Avenue.
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These companies had taken numerous authorized and regulatory actions towards the property’s house owners over time, both trying to have the crumbling property made safer, stating alleged security violations or in search of to have doubtlessly hazardous supplies recognized or faraway from the property by the advanced’s house owners.
A few of these points, in response to paperwork and interviews, included
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an EPA quotation for Quin-T’s mum or dad firm on the time for violating federal asbestos laws on the plant;
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the DEP taking motion in Erie County Widespread Pleas Court docket to drive two Quin-T-affiliated entities to determine and get rid of the contents of greater than 100 drums on the manufacturing unit;
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metropolis of Erie officers in 2014 demanding that the house owners make the property safer after a number of fires on the web site; and
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town submitting a variety of code enforcement violations towards Quin-T’s house owners in 2015, which have been later withdrawn.
The Quin-T buildings date to 1890, in response to Erie County property data. The advanced initially operated because the Watson Paper Co., manufacturing constructing and roofing supplies and pipe and boiler coverings, amongst different supplies.
GAF Corp. additionally operated out of the location for many years earlier than Quin-T’s possession. Quin-T produced asbestos millboard, a cardboard-like product that may be inserted between steel to supply gaskets.
Tina Mengine, the county Redevelopment Authority’s govt director, mentioned that after the company acquired the Quin-T property and commenced a preliminary web site evaluation, authority officers “shortly started to grasp the enormity of what we have been taking up. We began to grasp why different companies and town of Erie had had considerations concerning the property for a very long time.”
An entity referred to as 140 E. sixteenth St. Inc., of Depew, New York, bought the Quin-T property to the Redevelopment Authority in 2021 for $10,000, county property data present.
Mengine described the parcel as a “downside web site that was of nice concern to the group and the neighborhood,” largely due to the property’s dilapidated situation and the supplies that had been deserted inside.
The location is situated in a residential neighborhood, throughout the road from public housing items.
“The potential risks that had been expressed over time, by many, have been really the first motive we acquired the location,” Mengine mentioned.
“I feel that what we’re recognizing on this group now could be that we’ve allowed too many industrial polluters to function for too lengthy with little consequence. And too usually this happens in poor neighborhoods,” Mengine mentioned.
The Instances-Information reported in December that soil and groundwater testing on the Quin-T property revealed that parts of the property are contaminated with doubtlessly dangerous chemical compounds together with arsenic and lead.
The Redevelopment Authority has entered right into a $142,683 buy choice settlement with Erie’s Perseus House Charter School of Excellence for the Quin-T property for an enlargement of its campus and packages, together with a gymnasium, occasion house, out of doors soccer and athletic fields, an outside kitchen and different facilities.
The varsity, headquartered at 1511 Peach St., is close to the Quin-T web site.
Nevertheless, that buy is contingent upon a full state-sanctioned environmental cleanup on the property.
The Instances-Information reported in Might that the EPA has awarded a $5 million cleanup grant to the Enterprise Improvement Middle of Erie County, an affiliate of the county Redevelopment Authority, for continued environmental remediation at each the previous Quin-T and EMI websites.
The cash can be used for continued environmental cleanup at both properties, in addition to “group engagement actions” associated to these redevelopment initiatives, in response to the EPA.
Former Quin-T worker: Firm’s house owners ‘had some duty’
Terry Fuller labored on the Quin-T advanced as a top quality management and analysis supervisor for each GAF Corp. and Quin-T between 1976 and 1994.
“I can’t perceive how somebody might let that occur and depart all these supplies in there,” Fuller mentioned throughout a latest interview at his Summit Township residence. “It might be like me abandoning a home with harmful issues inside. And I’d say that, sure, the previous house owners had some duty to handle that.”
A former Hammermill Paper Co. worker and Boston College graduate with a level in biology, Fuller mentioned the corporate manufactured roofing supplies, gaskets and different merchandise throughout his time there. He helped keep the plant’s high quality requirements and created laboratories to conduct product and supplies testing, amongst different duties.
“At any time we had 1,000 tons of asbestos in that plant,” Fuller mentioned. “For a very long time It was widespread for individuals to not put on masks. You used to smoke within the plant. It was a distinct time.
“We labored onerous to attempt to hold issues protected and ensure the machines and the merchandise and the whole lot else was dealt with accurately,” Fuller mentioned.
Fuller mentioned he was finally fired from Quin-T when the house owners needed to chop administration prices, and he didn’t really feel that his termination was justified. He went on to work for different native manufacturing corporations earlier than retiring.
He is happy to see redevelopment occurring on the Quin-T web site.
“In my thoughts, the best way the world ought to work is, you possibly can’t simply depart a web site sitting like that,” Fuller mentioned.
Developing within the Erie Instances-Information:
∎ The EMI property was quickly deteriorating for many years alongside the West twelfth Avenue industrial hall whereas doubtlessly dangerous chemical compounds and toxins sat inside, unsecured.
Contact Kevin Flowers at kflowers@timesnews.com. Comply with him on X at @ETNflowers.
This text initially appeared on Erie Instances-Information: Quin-T property in east Erie posed various dangers for years
