NEWTON FALLS – The St. Lawrence County Planning Office will announce that demolition at the old Jones and Laughlin iron mine is finally underway nearly 40 years after it closed.

“They closed in 1977, so it’s been 39 years,” said Planning Office Deputy Director Jason Pfotenhauer.

“So it’s continued in a state of disrepair for a few years,” he said. “A demolition team is on site and will continue their work,” he said.

A press event to announce details of the demolition is set for 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 22 at the J&L site at the corner of State Rt. 3 and County Rt. 60 in the Town of Clifton.

According to a summary from the Planning Office, the site in Newton Falls sits at the edge of the Benson Mine, once the largest open pit mine in the world. Over 1,200 people worked there during its peak, and is now “an industrial graveyard.”

A lot of what was there has been stripped, leaving numerous contaminants and the remnants of large, deteriorating and unsafe structures and tunnels.

Over the years, the summary says, 14.1 acres of the site’s total 58.1 acres have cleaned up and been deemed suitable for immediate reuse, and ongoing oil spill and hazardous materials cleanup on the rest.

The most evident remainder of its thriving industrial past are the pale blue buildings along the adjacent roadway.

Planning Office Director Keith Zimmerman is expected to speak about how the towns of Clifton and Fine, bearers of the brunt of responsibility for the site for so long, have been joined by several wielders of resources in the effort to get the buildings demolished and the site cleaned up. Among those entities is the current owner of the site, St. Lawrence County, local foundations, the economic development agencies of the county, the region and the two towns, and state and federal agencies.

All of those entities are working on more funding to finish the demolition and removal of the buildings, and then working with the Adirondack Park Agency and the U.S. EPA on reuse of the site.

Dan’s Hauling and Demo from Wynantskill has been awarded the contract for demolition and disposal of 11 structures, and Atlantic Testing Laboratories of Potsdam has the contract for monitoring environmental conditions during demolition.