SOUTH HADLEY — Mount Holyoke College’s proposed site for a new Energy Center on Woodbridge Street — a key piece of a long-range plan to install a new geothermal heating and cooling system to serve campus — is drawing criticism from residents who worry that noise and potential gasoline fumes from the power plant will impact their health and quality of life.

“I’m a Mount Holyoke graduate and I grew up on campus,” Woodbridge Street resident Melissa Gagne told the Board of Health at a public hearing last week. “I got married there, I graduated high school, graduated from college [there]. I love Mount Holyoke, but I don’t love what they’re doing in town.”

Mount Holyoke has already begun production of its $180 million geothermal system on its property, which includes 200 wells below the rugby field, insulated piping running underground on campus and chilling and heating pumps under Kendade Hall. The geothermal plant will not create its own electricity, but rather source energy from the South Hadley Electric Lighting Company.

While most of the system will be located on campus, the proposed site for the Energy Center, which will house most of the system’s heating and chilling pumps, is off campus, next to the All Saints Episcopal Church at 7 Woodbridge St.

Residents in the neighborhood, specifically those who live in the apartment building across from the proposed site, expressed apprehension about a geo-technical engineering report that warns of potential gasoline fumes seeping into the building from contaminated soil.

“I remember that it was a gas station and a bicycle shop, and there was contaminated soil. They cleared some of it, but not all of it,” resident Sandra Zeminsky said. “By their own admission in the report, the vapors will be spewing up from the ground into the building and out of the building. That concerns me immensely.”

According to a report conducted by O’Reilly, Talbot & Okun Associates Inc., the site underwent a 10-year remediation process to clear about 990 tons of gasoline contaminated soil in the 1990s. In 2006, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection declared that the college, which owned the site, achieved a “permanent solution.”

However, engineers recently found contaminated soil samples from 10 feet below where the building would be constructed. While it’s unlikely that workers will encounter these soils during construction, it’s possible that vapors from the soil will migrate into the new building and nearby structures, the report found.

“The migration of soil vapors into the proposed building could potentially result in a risk to building occupants,” the report reads. “Therefore, to mitigate this potential risk and prevent the migration of soil gas into the new buildings, we recommend that a subsurface venting layer be installed beneath the new building slab.”

Gagne, who lives at the apartment complex on Woodbridge Street, said she’s worried that the toxic fumes will further irritate her chronic health issues.

Rita Petithory, who lives in the same building, added that the Center Church preschool classes use an outdoor playground near the site, and Steven Markow said that people may be deterred from visiting local businesses with a geothermal plant possibly emitting fumes and noise in the center of town.

“It’s really the noise, the toxic VOC [volatile organic compounds], the excessive decibels we will hear as 12 people living in our building, plus other people living adjacent it and the congregants of the church,” Petithory said.

Mount Holyoke College acknowledged both the remediation efforts and the decision to add a subsurface venting system in a statement. The decision, the college said, is “out of abundance of caution” in the “unlikely” scenario that vapors will enter the building.

“We are in the early stages of the Energy Center project, an important component of the College’s transition to geothermal energy, and appreciate the community’s engagement and input,” the statement reads. “The site was selected based on a combination of technical feasibility, environmental conditions and logistical considerations.”

Residents also discussed possible noise bylaw violations when the building’s propane backup generator runs. A sound study conducted by Salas O’Brien from Bloomfield, Connecticut, found the equipment is predicted to not exceed ambient sound levels, but the propane backup generator exceeded the noise ordinance on every property line. In addition, residents noted that the ambient noise measures were taken at 2 a.m. and not during high-traffic hours.

“They were relying on vendor data for what the decibels would be for various pieces of equipment, air handling and what it would be on the roof,” Joanna Brown said. “That is completely unacceptable to me.”

The next hearing on the project will take place during a June 23 Planning Board meeting.

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.