Two Months Later—

Canaan House Fuel Spill Cleanup Continues

By Andrew Gorosko

Workers used heavy excavating equipment this week to tear up a driveway alongside Canaan House at Fairfield Hills, in continuing a massive environmental cleanup project that started in early December, after 4,550 gallons of #2 heating fuel inadvertently spilled onto the ground from an external heating system.

The spill occurred on the snowy weekend of December 6–7 and went undetected until December 8.

Workers used a large, noisy rock-crusher attached to a heavy excavator to fracture and extract frozen soil and rock ledge from beneath the asphalt driveway, near the former entrance to the public school system’s offices.

Some of that fragmented ledge and soil suspected of contamination was stockpiled nearby in a heaping pile behind Shelton House, where plastic tarpaulins covered the material to seal it from the wet winter weather.

After excavation at the driveway is completed, a temporary gravel driveway will be created for use until the area is repaved in the spring, according to the state Department of Public Works (DPW), which manages Fairfield Hills for the state.

To secure the excavation site, chain-link fences have been installed at three nearby road intersections, changing the normal traffic flow at Fairfield Hills, where the town has a variety of municipal offices in the 208,888-square-foot Canaan House. The restrictive fencing, which closes off former parking areas from public use, has resulted in some new, congested parking patterns near the sprawling red-brick building.

Workmen this week wrestled large sealed steel drums of material off the site and onto a flatbed pickup truck for transport from Fairfield Hills, the former state psychiatric hospital, which closed in December 1995. The town plans to pay the state $3.9 million to buy 189 acres, including 17 major buildings, at Fairfield Hills, including Canaan House. The fuel spill and other issues have delayed that sale.

First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal has said the town’s purchase of Fairfield Hills from the state will not occur until the town is assured that the state has appropriate safeguards in place to provide for the fuel spill cleanup. The town has its environmental consultant monitoring the cleanup.

During the lengthy cleanup project, some school system employees have moved to new quarters within Canaan House to get away from the noise and odor stemming from the project.

Recent air sampling done within Canaan House indicated air quality within the building met federal standards, according to DPW. Some school system workers have found the conditions bothersome.

As of early January, workers had excavated and hauled away more than 400 tons, or 800,000 pounds, of fuel-tainted soil for incineration and cleansing. Work has continued since then, but the total amount of earthen material that has been hauled from the site is unclear.

Spill Inspector

Ron Wofford, a spills inspector for the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said this week that DEP, DPW, the town, and Fleet Environmental Services, among other interested parties, will soon meet to assess the status of the ongoing fuel spill cleanup project. That session is as yet unscheduled.

As excavation continues at the site, soil samples are taken and tested to gauge the degree and extent of the contamination problem, Mr Wofford said.

“We’re really going where the oil leads us,” Mr Wofford said of workers’ pursuit of excavation into subterranean areas where the spilled oil has drained. “We’re delineating the [pollution] plume,” he said.

“It’s more ‘surgical’ digging now,” he said of excavators’ probing of specific areas where the oil has traveled.

A yawning pit, which formerly was opened in the ground near the school office entrance, has been refilled. Multiple vertical white plastic pipes extend upward from it to vent fumes from fuel that remains underground. Some of the spilled fuel found its way beneath Canaan House’s foundation. Some of that fuel also reportedly found its way beneath Fairfield Hills’ elaborate underground pedestrian tunnel network.

“The emergency phase is over,” Mr Wofford said of the continuing excavation work. “It’s remediation now,” he said. “It’s a work in progress, ongoing,” he said.

It is unclear how much longer excavation will continue at the site, he said.

The leaking fuel never got into the Pootatuck Aquifer, a major underground source of local drinking water, Mr Wofford said. The subterranean water supply is a major local source of drinking water, providing water for two public water supplies and many domestic water wells.

Also, spilled fuel has long been undetectable in an area trout brook, he said. During the spill, fuel was carried about 500 yards from Canaan House via an underground storm sewer to a brook where trout breed. The brook is one of eight places in the state where trout breed naturally.

Asked how it is known when such a cleanup project is completed, Mr Wofford said the DEP has a series of standards that describe permissible pollution levels.

The project’s completion will be determined by the property owner, he said. The state was on the verge of selling Fairfield Hills to the town when the fuel spill occurred, but the property was still in state ownership, so the cleanup responsibility lies with the state.

If nothing were done to remedy the problem, the spilled fuel would eventually find its way into the subsurface water table and into area surface waters.

Cleanup costs are expected to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.