Chautauqua County wants to lower the assessment on the former Keywell plant, while the state investigates environmental concerns on the property. P-J photo by Matt Spielman

Chautauqua County is looking to make some assessment adjustments on a former industrial facility in Frewsburg, while it’s being studied for environmental issues.

During the legislature’s Administrative Services and Audit and Control Committee meetings, county lawmakers discussed the property, which is located on Falconer Street, in the town of Carroll. It was previously the Vac Air Alloys Corporation and in 1987 was acquired by Keywell, an aerospace metals and specialty steel recycling business.

In 2013, the OBSERVER and Post-Journal reported that Keywell was closing the plant, laying off 49 employees.

Since then, the property taxes on the facility have piled up. According to Stephen Abdella, county attorney, the former industrial site is the subject of a state Department of Conservation brownfield remediation effort, which is expected to take a while.

“At this point it has a significant amount of delinquent tax that has accumulated on the property,” he told members of the Audit and Control Committee.

According to the resolution, the property already has nearly $500,000 of unpaid taxes, which the county guarantees payment for the town of Carroll and the Frewsburg School District.

Abdella is recommending the legislature stop the piling up of additional taxes on this property by issuing a “certificate of prospective cancellation,” due to the environmental issues.

“We would essentially bring the assessment to zero for the time being. It can be put back at a later date,” he said.

The legislature could cancel the back taxes on the property, but Abdella isn’t recommending that. He noted the goal is to get the property remediated and cleaned up so it can be developed again.

As long as the liens are in place, the county has a chance to collect at least some of those back taxes. Also, it helps the county steer what development could be placed there in the future. “In essence, it gives us a partial ownership in the property,” he said.

Abdella shared that there is interest in the property once the environmental issues are identified. He did not identify any potential buyers, but said the county Industrial Development Agency is involved. “There’s hope for this property for sure,” he said, adding it could take a number of years before its ready.

Abdella also noted that sometimes potential developers are willing to at least partially fund the clean-up as long as the environmental concerns have been identified.

So far, it appears there is groundwater contamination but the DEC has not been able to pinpoint the source. “It’s bad, but we’ve had sites like this before,” he said during the Administrative Services Committee meeting.

One example he gave was the Roblin Steel/Edgewood Warehouse Brownfield Site in Dunkirk, which became a cold storage freezer facility for Fieldbrook Foods. Abdella noted the DEC cleaned up the majority of the site, but the new buyer did some work on the Edgewood Warehouse property, including tearing down the former building. “The developer had enough confidence, and the DEC had specified the required plan that they took that on and they did get tax credit benefits,” he said.

County Legislator John Davis, R-Frewsburg, recently toured the facility with the DEC and other county officials at the request of the town of Carroll. “There was some damage done on the property and it was hard to find who to assign a complaint when damage was done,” he said.

Both committees backed the resolution for the certificate of prospective cancellation, regarding property taxes. The resolution now heads to the full county legislature for final approval.

Meanwhile the DEC is expected to continue to try to identify what is causing the groundwater contamination. No timetable was offered as to how long this could take.