The Nonotuck Story

In December 2007, ECS participated in the purchase, through Nonotuck Mill LLC, of a 150,000 square foot brick and mortar mill building, located at 296 Nonotuck Street in the beautiful Florence section of Northampton, MA.

The site, which eventually became known as the Nonotuck Mill, is rich with history.  It attracted its first industrialists, who were drawn to the natural 25-foot elevation drop in the Mill River, in the 1830s.  The hydropower was soon expanded, and a silk plantation and processing factory was built.  But in 1837, a nation-wide credit collapse caused the Mill to fall into bankruptcy.  This created the opportunity for the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI) to purchase the property. 

The NAIE was a utopian society which attempted to deal with some of the moral challenges faced by an agrarian society that was transforming itself to an industrial powerhouse, focusing heavily on the themes of education, slavery, fair wages, democracy and religion.  Their choice to purchase the hydro-powered mill and grow silk was both practical and moral.  It was a profitable industry which did not rely on a morally troublesome slave trade to generate those profits.  Over the next half dozen years, the NAIE became an important stop along the Underground Railroad and a nationally significant center for suffragist discourse, drawing residents and visitors such as Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas. 

The Enduring Capacity of American Industry

As our nation's third great credit collapse unwinds, ECS hopes to use this same site as a demonstration of the enduring capacity of American industry to reinvent itself in an effort to mitigate the moral challenges it faces: unsustainable development, climate change and fossil fuel consumption.

Mostly as the result of 20th century manufacturing techniques, there are substantial amounts of waste oils and toxins on this property.  Although the documented environmental releases had achieved regulatory "closure" at the time of purchase, residual hydraulic oils contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were detected (after the building purchase) at thickness approaching several inches beneath the building, resulting in a reportable condition to the MassDEP.  ECS is performing its core services to clean up this Brownfield site, making it a wonderful and useful part of this old New England community.

Growing and Thriving

Our Mill continues to grow and thrive.  The complex has been mostly refurbished, with about 80% of the space currently leased as office space, including 4,200 square feet occupied by ECS and our Terraclime Geothermal Division.  DAX Transportation, who transports and stores fine art and antiques, has continued to grow and require more room.  Our largest tenant, they now occupy more than 17,000 square feet of warehouse and office space.  Pave Tile joined us in September 2010, leasing 9,000 square feet of space.  The tenant uses the space to stock reclaimed tile and new tile that they process to give it an older look and feel.  Ross Brothers Antiques also recently joined us.  The Ross family has been involved in the antique business for three generations in Northampton, and these days, they are focused on boats and canoes from the 1800s.  Service Net, which provides a wide range of mental health and human services, houses their corporate staff at the Mill.  They had started out as a small tenant, leasing space for a conference room for programs, and a space for a group that converts film to digital media.  But they eventually grew to love the charm of the complex and the unique opportunity to house their records, office space and program space all at one location in Northampton.  Finally, United Republic is a newer organization working with citizens who envision a nation where the needs and ideas of the many can be accommodated.  Additional current uses of the complex include exercise facilities and a practice arena for a local roller derby team.

Practicing What We Preach

ECS is currently implementing our remediation plan created by our talented engineers and construction group to reduce the oil, PCB and solvent contamination that remains under a portion of the former machine shop and high bay manufacturing facility. 

ECS has also installed three different name brand ground source heat pump systems and three very different earth energy harvesting systems.  The geothermal system was designed to provide a "pilot scale" evaluation of three different "flavors" of geothermal - 1) a traditional closed loop water system using U-loops in two 500-foot-deep wells to provide five tons of capacity; 2) DX geothermal using five copper taps drilled diagonally to a depth of 100 feet each to provide five tons of capacity; and 3) a Kelix Thermacouple, an innovative coaxial, turbulent flow heat exchanger using one 300-foot borehole to provide five tons of heating and cooling.  All three systems were completed and activated in July 2009. 

For additional information on Nonotuck Mill, please email dmcvey@ecsconsult.com.