Seekonk Officials Ponder Dam Removal

Seekonk town officials are considering whether to repair or remove the dam at the former site of the Attleboro Dye Works, situated next to the former Attleboro Dyeing and Finishing site off Maple Avenue.

The 105,000-square-foot building caught fire on May 1, 2012. The property consists of three parcels, including the dam and three industrial settling ponds, and abuts the Ten Mile River. Asbestos was found in samples taken from the burned building debris. There were also reports mixed and discharged metals and petroleum waste had seeped into settling ponds. Twelve metal drums containing hazardous waste were removed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in the fall of 2016.

The following year, the Town was successful in securing $450,000 grants from both the MassDevelopment and U.S. EPA Brownfields programs to complete assessment activities over a three year period. In 2019, the Town pursued a tax-taking of the abandoned site to facilitate cleanup efforts. According to Town Administrator Shawn Cadime: “In 2021, the Town was awarded an additional $750,000 in grant funding from state and federal partners to remediate all three contaminated wastewater lagoons, moving the Town one step closer toward site development and revitalization of the Baker’s Corner neighborhood.”

An assessment revealed the dam to be in poor condition, according to Kim Armstrong, a structural engineer for Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. (GPI). The Office of Dam Safety is requiring either rehabilitation or removal.

“The dye basins always had water but once you don’t have those dye basins which the town has been actively cleaning out, the purpose of the dam has really kind of just disappeared. If (the dam) fails, any damage that occurs the town is liable for,” Armstrong told the Select Board on June 21.

The dam is considered to be “low hazard” since there is no potential loss of life associated with the failure of the dam, Armstrong noted.

Armstrong said the cost of removing the dam would be approximately $1 million. Repairing the dam would cost $1.8 million. Other uses would be restricted and the dam would require continuous maintenance.

Removing the dam would result in a more channelized riverbed as well as the development of a pathway along the water, said Sage Winter, a landscape architect for GPI.