Town Penalized For Reed School Fuel Spill

 By Andrew Gorosko

The town and federal environmental officials have reached a settlement under which the town will pay a $5,000 cash fine and spend an additional $10,000 toward two environmental projects as a penalty for violating antipollution provisions of the US Clean Water Act, which occurred during a 4,000-gallon heating fuel spill at Reed Intermediate School at Fairfield Hills last December.

The settlement was reached this week between the town and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA fined the town because an estimated 100 gallons of the spilled #2 heating fuel entered Deep Brook and the Pootatuck River.

The two environmental projects are joint efforts of the town and Trout Unlimited, a private nonprofit conservation group, which works to protect the coldwater habitat of trout fisheries.

One environmental project, which will cost the town $5,000, involves riverbank stabilization work along the Pootatuck River intended to enhance the environmentally sensitive trout habitat there, according to EPA spokeswoman Sheryl Rosner.

The project involves restoring and stabilizing an 80-foot-long section of eroded riverbank on the Pootatuck River, just downstream of the point where the Deep Brook joins the Pootatuck River. The site is near the municipal sewage treatment plant.

Also, the town will provide $5,000 toward a scientific analysis of the presence of large insects both upstream and downstream of the points on Deep Brook where spilled heating fuel spill entered the brook during the Reed School fuel spill in December 2004, and also during a Canaan House fuel spill in December 2003.

That research will probe the environmental impact of the two fuel spills on insect life in the area. Trout feed on such insects. Insects to be studied include mayflies, caddis, midges, and stoneflies. The presence of such insects is an indicator of water quality.

The effect of the December 2004 fuel spill on Deep Brook’s aquatic life should be known soon, when the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) conducts its annual trout census there.

In late December 2004, approximately 4,000 gallons of #2 heating fuel leaked from fuel lines in Reed School’s basement. An estimated 100 gallons of that fuel, which flowed along the crushed-stone bedding of a sanitary sewer line, eventually entered Deep Brook at the point where the sewer line crosses beneath the brook.

Deep Brook contains Class A water and is one of only eight Class 1 Wild Trout management Areas in the state, where native trout reproduce naturally.

A fuel spill cleanup project is continuing at Reed School, where more than 1,600 gallons of the heating fuel have been recovered. Wells have been drilled through the school basement floor to recover what may be 2,000 gallons of fuel remaining below the building. Cleanup work is expected to continue for a number of months.

Town officials have designated up to $1.2 million in town spending for the fuel spill cleanup. Town legal action against a firm or firms that built the school is anticipated as a means to recoup the cleanup costs.

If litigation is pursued, the town would seek to recover the $15,000 EPA penalty, First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal said June 29.

Haynes Construction of Seymour was the general contractor for school construction. Reed School, which houses Grade 5 and Grade 6 students, opened in January 2003.

Since July 2003, the EPA has responded to six different fuel spills from schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts.