Like many old New England buildings, the picturesque brick Roundhouse in Northampton, Massachusetts, has a history—but few people would guess that it once served as a manufactured gas plant.
Beginning in the mid-1800s, plants like these—which provided light and heat by converting coal to gas—were common, especially in the Northeast, at least until the 1950s, when the process was no longer economically viable.
NiSource has spent decades remediating the plants for various uses—anything from rehabilitation centers, like the main tenant of the Roundhouse, to a shelter for the needy, as in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. One site in Portsmouth, Virginia, is now a riverfront park, and another in Brockton, Massachusetts, became New England’s largest solar array.
“It takes a lot of work to clean up these sites, but it’s the right thing to do. It’s part of our environmental commitment to the communities in which we operate,” Kelly Carmichael, vice president of environmental, NiSource, told American Gas. “As with any construction project, the sights and sounds can be a bit of a nuisance, but in the end, we’re turning a potential eyesore into something that the community can be proud of or reuse beneficially.” — Carolyn Kimmel