Date: Fri 13-Dec-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Batchelder-health-district

Full Text:

Health District Awaits Analysis Of Batchelder Test Results

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

The Newtown Health District has received the results of tests conducted at the

site of the former Chales Batchelder Company on Swamp Road, but exactly what

the results mean, no one yet knows.

"It's just a pile of data which doesn't say yes, no or maybe," said Jim Smith,

chairman of the health board, at the board's meeting Tuesday morning.

Mark Cooper, the district's director of health, said the inch-thick report

from Thomas O'Connor, environmental analyst at the State Department of

Environmental Protection (DEP), indicated that the US Environmental Protection

Agency's (EPA) Region 1 office in Boston now must analyze the test results and

decide what should be done.

"We haven't been given any hint of what the test results mean," Mr Cooper

said. "It's just raw data."

The former aluminum smelting factory has been on federal/state hazardous waste

site lists for several years. EPA investigators visited the 30-acre site in

late August, at the request of the DEP, to oversee the removal of samples for

laboratory testing. The testing came as a response to requests by the district

health officials, State Rep Julia Wasserman and First Selectman Bob Cascella.

In his letter to the health district, Mr O'Connor said a copy of the lab

report also has been sent to Jennifer Kurtanis of the State Department of

Health. The state health department is reviewing the Batchelder site under a

contract with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

(ATSDR).

"We are currently awaiting EPA's determination of what, if any, actions they

may take," Mr O'Connor said.

He said that, on October 9, he and Ms Kurtanis did some asbestos testing at

the site and it appears that asbestos is not a problem in the factory

building. A small pile of siding-type shingles outside the facility near the

fire pond in the southeast portion of the plant did test positive for

chysotile asbestos, however, he said.

Mr O'Connor said earlier testing had indicated an asbestos problem in the

building but based on the more extensive testing by the state health

department, he concluded that the most recent tests were more accurate.

The Batchelder company, which employed 125 people at its peak in the late

1970s and early 1980s, closed its doors in February 1987 and filed papers to

reorganize its debts under the bankruptcy laws later that year. Within several

months the DEP investigated the site and the state attorney general's office

sued the company and issued a mandatory injunction to clean up the

environmental problems on the site.

Under an agreement approved by the Board of Selectmen and the Legislative

Council in January 1992, the company agreed to make $300,000 available to

assess pollution at the site and do limited cleanup work including the removal

of oil tanks. The money ran out about halfway through the project.

The DEP has been monitoring water wells in the area for years and so far has

found no contamination.

Once the only smelting plant of its kind in New England, Batchelder operated

for more than 30 years in Newtown. But it never fully recovered from an April

1984 explosion which killed one worker at the plant. At that time, the company

was cited for violations which included excessive noise, airborne

concentrations of hydrogen chloride, inorganic arsenic, lead and dust.