1265 Main St. in Waltham

This week, Sean (another intern) and yours truly went on a tour of an abandoned Polaroid facility undergoing redevelopment.  If you drive by 1265 Main St. in Waltham, MA, the first thing you will notice is this giant shell of a building: (looking particular ominous under dark clouds).

This is the abandoned Polaroid factory, and the launch-off point for our tour.
Here are our tour guide gurus:

They are currently undergoing the ambitious effort of turning this abandoned Polaroid facility into a thriving space of offices and retail, with smarter ways of treating storm water.

In order to appreciate what they are doing, we have to first backtrack to the same site under the Polaroid regime.  During that time, large volumes of storm water would be flushed off the premises without undergoing important filtration processes.  As a result, pollutants attached to sediments would ultimately be discharged into the Charles River; which is bad news if you’re a fish – or anything that lives in, plays in, and depends on clean river water.

Because pollutants attach themselves to sediments (which are then washed into the River), a good way to tackle water pollution is to get a hold of the sediments before they can do their damage.  At 1265 Main St., different methods are utilized to do just that.  One way is by literally lining sewage drains with “blankets,” which collect particulates.  Another way is through wetland replications. Water flows slowly through wetlands, sediments settle, and plants uptake contaminants.  Wetlands do much of the dirty-work for us, and are scenic to boot!

In addition to these important methods of filtering pollutants, the 1265 Main St. team recycles materials produced during construction for other purposes, such as storm water management.  In order to level the site (which is currently on a gradient) so that new buildings can be built, the ground is blasted and giant piles of rocks of various sizes are produced.  There are currently so many piles of rocks that the site resembles a quarry – or in some parts, as one of the tour guides described, a Martian landscape.  Here is a storm water barrier recycled from a portion of these rocks.

  

Getting a sneak peak of this work-in-progress site was pretty cool – and I am excited to see how the site pans out.  I have just touched the tiniest surface of the construction efforts at 1265 Main St in this blog, and urge you all to check out their website (http://www.1265main.com/) for much more info and pics about the project.

Til next time!
Pam