The Community and Economic Development Authority needs to get the go ahead from the Road Commissioners before completing construction in the access road between Cumberland Farms and the Hess gas station on Main Street, but questions about who actually owns the property and unexpected environmental concerns have halted the project.

The commissioners on Monday met with Russ Kleekamp, vice president of municipal infrastructure for Green Seal Environmental, Inc., which serves as the clerk of the works for the project.

The roadway is between the two businesses and connects Main Street to Merchants Way.

"My concern is that we're getting to the point where we're getting a little too far ahead," Selectman Alan Slavin told the Road Commissioners.

Slavin pointed out that in 1954, a large piece of land was given to the Town of Wareham by the railroad, and it's not clear whether or not the road between Cumberland Farms and Hess is part of that land.

The Community and Economic Development Authority has proposed building a rain garden in the space, and making the road one-way to traffic. The goal of the rain garden is to stem the flow of storm water runoff from the road into the nearby Agawam River.

If approved, work would begin around the summer of 2014.

"The property that was given to the town by the railroad is private property," said Slavin.  "We need to make sure that piece of property didn't come from the original railroad piece."

Slavin added that if it is not designated as a public way, the Road Commissioners wouldn't have jurisdiction over it.

Town Planner John Charbonneau expressed concern that as the project moves along, problems continue to crop up: "No one's even done a legal background check to see if they can do work on this property."

Soil and water contamination are also an issue. The $700,000 second phase of the Main Street "Streetscape" beautification effort, which covered the area of Main Street between Center Street and the Narrows Bridge, has been held up by the discovery of soil contaminated by gasoline and by the uncovering of an underground gas tank. The cost of the first soil cleanup was $30,000, and the cost for removing the gas tank and potentially cleaning up more contaminated soil is not yet known.

Approximately $100,000 in contingency funds is budgeted within the $700,000 to take care of such unexpected issues.

"We're in the process now of determining the extent of the contaminated soil," said Kleekamp.

In addition to figuring out how much soil has been tainted, monitoring wells will be installed in the area to measure groundwater contamination, according to Kleekamp.

The Road Commissioners also expressed concern about conflicting plans, saying that the last time they met with Community and Economic Development Authority Director Salvador Pina, they were told the road would be one-way from Main Street to Merchants Way, rather than from Merchants Way to Main Street as it does in the plans the commissioners saw on Monday.

"From a police standpoint on this, we'd rather have the one-way coming from Main Street to Merchants Way," in order to alleviate congestion, said Lt. Kevin Walsh who was at the meeting representing the Wareham Police Department.

Cumberland Farms Project Manager John Martley said the company is willing to work with the town, but doesn't want to hinder business at its Main Street location at the same time.

"In my opinion, the rain garden is a good idea on paper, I just question the longterm maintenance," said Martley. "We can still accomplish the surface water treatment that I fully understand is an issue in that area."

Martley also expressed concern about narrowing the roadway and making it open only to one-way traffic: "From a business standpoint, Cumberland Farms would like to keep as much vehicular traffic as they can."

Kleekamp said that in addition to building a rain garden to alleviate water pollution, one of the goals of the project is to "eliminate the chaos in the area."

Charbonneau pointed out that it was clear that there were too many unanswered questions to take a vote on whether or not to approve the work. The commissioners will revisit the issue at a later date.