After decades of sitting vacant and creeping out commuters on London Road, the long-derelict Advanced Medical Systems plant in Collinwood is finally coming down. The former maker and service hub for cobalt-60 cancer treatment devices has been a neighborhood eyesore and environmental headache for years. Neighbors say the demolition, along with the soil testing that follows, could finally open the door to a full cleanup and a safer future for the block.
According to Cleveland.com, Partners Environmental Consulting is handling the teardown of the supermarket-sized structure and expects the work to take about a month. After that, crews will collect soil samples as part of the final remedial action. The outlet also reports that contractors asked to discharge water from inside the building into the public sewer but were turned down, and city and sewer officials maintain that any contaminated water never threatened Cleveland’s drinking supply. City public health staff and state officials are set to oversee the testing that follows demolition.
State money and cleanup timeline
As reported by Axios Cleveland, the Ohio Department of Health has put up nearly $12 million to finish remediation at the site, removing a major financial roadblock. Officials say that money, combined with the demolition now underway, should let crews wrap up soil sampling and other final remedial steps without further holdups.
How contamination reached the sewer system
According to the U.S. EPA’s 2016 pollution and situation report, vandals once cut power to the shuttered plant, creating a risk that its basement could flood and spread potentially contaminated water. That incident triggered an emergency pumping operation and tighter security at the site. The EPA report also notes that the regional sewer district plugged sewer lines from the plant back in the 1990s after earlier cobalt-60 detections, and that regulators have maintained sampling and containment efforts ever since.
Legal and regulatory background…