CORINNA – After more than four years of working closely with the community on the 25-acre Eastland Woolen Mill Superfund site, Rick Leighton is leaving.

Leighton is the Environmental Protection Agency remediation construction manager at the site and has watched as 600 tons of contaminated soil were removed and treated each day, the Sebasticook River was moved from its original path, Route 7 was destroyed and rebuilt in a new location, and every building on Main Street – including the enormous mill – were removed.

It’s been a pleasure, he admitted Friday. “If I could get away with it, I’d hide out and spend the rest of my federal career here,” Leighton said.

But the reality is that federal involvement in the project is nearing completion while the local movement to rebuild is just beginning.

“This has been an amazing project from the start,” said Leighton. “It has been a creative cleanup in a short amount of time.”

Leighton said Project Manager Edward Hathaway will remain on board.

But Leighton is headed to Florida.

There are still some details to be completed, he said. Geological and hydrogeological testing is being done on the site.

Later this fall, EPA will inject chemical reagents into the ground. Leighton explained that under the Eastland site, fractured bedrock still holds pockets of contamination that would that nature alone 150 to 600 years to cure.

But emerging technology can shorten that cleanup time to 30 to 60 years. That can be done by injecting the bedrock with chemicals that can react with the chlorobenzene deposits and allow EPA to pump and treat the contamination,

Meanwhile, “two great things” are happening, said Leighton.

“The town is preparing for redevelopment and has installed water, sewer and storm-water drainage systems,” he said. “The base coat of asphalt has been laid down for the roads. It is beginning to look like a town again.”

“It is amazing that Corinna’s Department of Public Works, with limited help, did this work by themselves. That is somewhat unheard of for a town this size,” he said.

Leighton also said bids have gone out for the first major project on the site, a 21-unit Penquis CAP senior housing complex. “They hope to break ground in November,” said Leighton.

Because of the unusual partnership between EPA and Corinna residents, Corinna’s downtown will be restored several years earlier than other Superfund projects.

During the initial planning stage, it was estimated that the project would take 18 months, cost $10 million and require removing 22,000 cubic yards of soil.

Once the project got under way, the contamination proved much more extensive and more than 102,000 cubic yards of soil were eventually removed.

The budget was revised to $48 million with a completion date of December 2006. The excavation and treatment of the soil were completed ahead of the original projection, however, allowing site redevelopment to occur ahead of schedule.

Some towns may have lost their spirit when they lost their downtown, but not Corinna.

Galen McKenney, chairman of the Board of Selectmen for the past three years, said the town was able to implement its redevelopment plan a year ahead of schedule.

“We received an $80,000 EPA grant to do a reuse plan for the reclaimed area, which is now done. The end result will be a mixed-used development of retail shops, housing and green space,” he said. “We’re hopeful that this will bring in more jobs and increased tax revenues. This project saved our town and is the greatest thing to happen here in 100 years.”