NORWAY — The results of an environmental study on two downtown properties show that both should receive further review.

The recommendation is based on a report by the Campbell Environmental Group on a vacant lot at 250 Main St., formerly the site of the Color Center, and property at 1 Pikes Hill Road, which is owned by the C’s Inc., a real estate company affiliated with the Sun Media Group, publishers of the Sun Journal and Advertiser-Democrat.

The Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments, which retained the Campbell Environmental Group in 2008 to do the study, and the town will hold a meeting at the town office on Danforth Street on Dec. 6 at 6:30 p.m. to detail the report.

According to an executive summary of the 100-plus page report, both the Sun Media Group property, which has been associated with printing since 1885, and the former Color Center site, which housed paints and solvents prior to a 2003 fire, showed a “limited to moderate threat to human health and the environment.”

The environmental group has recommended that both properties undergo further study to identify the specific health and environmental issues.

The study was funded by a $200,000 grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency under its Brownfield program. Sites were selected in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties.

“We selected five sites based on their location and the willingness of the owner (to undertake the first phase study),” Janet Cummings, community and environmental planner for AVCOG, said. The study at the Sun Media Group property did not include the Gingerbread House or two other properties in the triangle of land owned by the company.

The first phase includes a historical and records review of the property and interviews to determine what activities occurred on the site and the type, quantity and extent of potential contamination that could potentially pose environmental concerns. The study in part helps communities address the issue of redevelopment of vacant or underutilized commercial and industrial sites, Cummings said. Participation is voluntary and can be stopped at any time.

Further environmental study would involve water and land testing.

Although no cleanup funds are available for private land owners, the program does provide the owner with a letter that clears the land for certain activity under the Voluntary Response Action program.

Brownfield sites are identified as “real property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse which may be complicated by the presence or potential of a hazardous substance, pollutant or containment,” according to a definition from the EPA.

“It’s a development mechanism to alleviate concerns that if it looks bad it must be bad,” Cummings said.

In the case of the Sun Media Group building, the combination of space being used for many years for a printing plant, the age of the building and its proximity to Pennesseewassee Stream pose a potential threat, according to the report. In the Color Center property, the building that burned down in 2003 housed paint, stain and solvents. It is now a gravel parking lot.

“We like to start with downtown properties. We want people to stay downtown. Encourage what once was to be again,” Cummings said of the selection process for site reviews.

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