Boston loves that dirty water, even if cleaning it up goes over budget.
Wynn Resorts has completed the cleanup of the environmental contamination at the site of Encore Boston Harbor, its casino resort under construction in Everett. The $68M cleanup of its Mystic River property is well above the original $30M estimate, the Boston Globe reports. The property was once home to a chemical plant.
Cleaning the property entailed removing 840,000 tons of contaminated soil via 11,900 truckloads and 4,700 rail cars. Improving the Mystic River involved dredging 41,000 tons of sediment into an offshore inlet. The river bed was then topped with 30,000 tons of clean sand, and the resort company then planted a living shoreline to support the return of native fish and wildlife. Wynn Resorts also plans to spend an additional $14M on landscaping a 6-acre harbor walk park.
The higher cleanup costs bring the overall cost to Encore Boston Harbor to $2.5B, up from $2.4B. The property improvement is a bright spot amid several turbulent months for Wynn Resorts. The Everett casino still runs the risk of being canceled amid an ongoing investigation by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission into how much the company knew of former CEO Steve Wynn’s alleged sexual misconduct.
The company changed the name of the casino from its former name, Wynn Boston Harbor, as a way to put distance between itself and its former leader.
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