NORWAY – Salvage work has begun on the former C.B. Cummings & Sons mill property.

The town and Western Maine Development, owners of the property, are working together on the cleanup, said Rhea Kennelly, project manager for Western Maine Development.

Cement retaining walls for the salvage work have been donated to the town by Kennelly’s organization, the real estate arm of the Growth Council of Oxford Hills. They are in place on the mill site.

The town is also donating fill from the recent Beal Street project to help with the salvage operation. Other persons involved in salvage work are removing unneeded parts and pieces from the property to help clean it up, Kennelly said.

“This shows the community working together,” she said, to make the property commercially viable despite the state’s rejection of the town’s bid for $400,000 in grant funding to begin redevelopment of the mill. It closed in the fall of 2002.

Some of the buildings will be razed; others need a great deal of renovation. But the former mill office and adjacent workshop on Bridge Street are in good condition and could be leased without many changes, depending on the tenants, growth council spokespeople have said.

A local trails committee hasn’t given up on the notion of developing a trail along the property, which borders Pennesseewassee Stream, according to Debra Partridge, Norway’s recreation director and a committee member.

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