Washington takes down air-monitoring station
The city of Washington plans to terminate a lease agreement from the 1980s with the state Department of Environmental Protection for a fenced-off portion of a lot at the corner of Fayette Street and McCarrell Avenue in the West End.
Councilman Joseph Manning said the agreement was initiated in the late 1980s and allowed the DEP to put an air-monitoring station inside the fence that sits in the yard next to the former West End fire station, now owned by Jason Russell of Russell Brothers Contracting.
“The DEP put it up and put a fence around it,” Manning said. “I don’t think there was any money exchanged, but certainly it wasn’t a major financial consideration.”
Manning said the lease agreement expires at the end of this year, and the DEP doesn’t need the parcel anymore.
“The fence and monitoring station are still there, but it hasn’t been in use in many years,” Manning said.
The city plans to take down the fence and station and donate the parcel to the Citywide Development Corp., Manning said.
“It’s just a little patch of yard on the side of the building,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll be able to turn it around and see what the best course of action would be for it.”