Razing The Former Sewage Treatment Plant At Fairfield Hills

By Andrew Gorosko

Powerful earth-moving equipment this week continued work to demolish Fairfield Hills’ former sewage treatment plant, destroying several buildings, a series of holding tanks, and a maze of underground piping that were used in the past to cleanse the wastewater discharged from the erstwhile state psychiatric hospital.

State Department of Public Works (DPW) project manager Natalina Raimondi said March 29 that the several buildings at the plant were the first structures to be demolished at the sloping site, which is near Deep Brook.

While it was in operation, the treatment plant cleansed wastewater from Fairfield State Hospital, which housed more than 4,000 mental patients at its height. The hospital closed in December 1995.

When a joint town-state sewage treatment plant started operation in September 1997, the wastewater that was still being generated at Fairfield Hills was routed to the new treatment plant off Commerce Road. The antiquated Fairfield Hills sewage plant off Old Farm Road was then shut down.

When the Fairfield Hills sewage plant demolition and site reclamation project is completed in several months, the property will be left as a sloped, open field planted with vegetation, Ms Raimondi said. Existing grades will remain.

Demolishing the sewage plant will eliminate an “attractive nuisance,” thus decreasing the state’s liability, she said. The sewage plant site, which is more than five acres, lies across Old Farm Road from the Governor’s Second Company Horse Guard.

James Belden, vice president and spokesman for the Candlewood Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, said the DPW has taken suitable steps to control stormwater drainage flow while demolition is underway. A sedimentation basin was built to prevent the adjacent Deep Brook from receiving sediment contamination from stormwater flow.

Deep Brook is a Class 1 trout stream, one of eight such brooks in the state where wild trout reproduce naturally in its cold, clear waters.

Trout Unlimited members are glad that the former sewage treatment plant is being demolished because the plant’s absence will tend to improve Deep Brook water quality, Mr Belden said.

The elimination of the sewage plant may eventually allow a woody vegetation buffer to be planted on the site, which would improve brook water quality, he said.

 Town Public Works Director Fred Hurley said the state may eventually give the sewage plant site to the town. The town might use the site for stormwater control purposes, he said.

In August 2004, the town bought the 189-acre Fairfield Hills core campus, including many masonry buildings, from the state for $3.9 million.