Cleanup work is underway at the Mason Station powerhouse, the only part of the peninsula currently owned by Mason Station LLC, according to Steve Dyer at Ransom Engineering, the company performing the work.

Dyer said the cleanup involved previously identified materials that needed to be removed from the powerhouse. He said as far as he was aware, Mason Station LLC did not have immediate plans for the powerhouse property. “Usually when we are doing work like this, the company is trying to get it in shape to sell it or use it for another purpose. But in this case, it appears that they are just doing the work that was identified as needing cleaning up with no plans in mind.”

The most recent plan Mason Station LLC floated to the town, in December 2016, was to renovate the building for an indoor marijuana growing operation, dispensary, and production facility. The town did not respond, and Dyer said he was unaware of that proposal. A couple of months later, the town turned down a residential rental development plan put forward by another developer that would have built 60 rental homes on the site, choosing instead to focus on light industrial projects.

The cleanup came up briefly with selectmen Feb. 5, when Ransom asked to discharge filtered wastewater into the town’s treatment plant. That request was denied. Dyer said the water is being trucked to a disposal site elsewhere. He said the water being moved is purer than drinking water after Ransom performed a filtration process on the wastewater.

The town took most of the peninsula over time for back property taxes. Some of the properties, including the former ash ponds, are being cleaned up with help brownfields grants the town and the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission obtained. A few lots were sold to Peregrine Turbine Technologies. The only property Mason Station LLC still owned was the powerhouse, which had more significant pollutants than most of the surrounding landscape.

Attempts to reach Mason Station LLC at its Wiscasset number were not successful, as the telephone number has been disconnected. Mason Station LLC was part of a brownfields renovation project that once involved the entire area, known as Point East, which a Greenwich, Connecticut company called National Re/sources owned. Messages to National Re/sources were not immediately returned.