Date: Fri 24-Oct-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

Mile-Hill-bypass-road

Full Text:

Work Continues On Bypass Road

(with photos)

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

Work is continuing in earnest on the Fairfield Hills bypass road, an east-west

connector planned to link Route 25 to Interstate 84 and to Route 34 to

alleviate heavy truck traffic in the town center.

Excavators this week mined large amounts of fill near the intersection of Mile

Hill Road and Oakview Road to improve the sight lines for motorists exiting

Oakview Road.

Workmen have cleared and excavated a swath of land extending from the main

entrance of the Fairfield Hills campus to the Pootatuck River in preparation

for constructing the bypass.

Huge piles of soil have been amassed across Mile Hill Road from Kent House, a

former residential building at the closed state psychiatric hospital.

To keep Mile Hill Road open while the bypass is under construction, workmen

have installed a temporary bridge over the Pootatuck River, near Oakview

Drive. Alternating one-way traffic over that bridge is controlled by a traffic

signal, flagmen, and police.

A key aspect of bypass road construction will be building a modern raised

bridge over the river. That structure will replace a former deteriorating

concrete bridge which workers removed before they installed the temporary span

recently.

David Anderson, an inspector for the state Department of Transportation, is

overseeing the $4 million project.

Mr Anderson said Wednesday some movement of buried utility lines will be

required.

Piles will be driven next week in preparation for building the new bridge over

the Pootatuck River, he said.

Traffic will be able to flow over the bypass road by the end of 1998. The

road, however, won't receive its final layer of asphalt until 1999. Also, a

clean-up project at the site and landscaping work will be done in 1999.

The new bridge now under construction over the Pootatuck River should be

completed in the spring of 1998, according to James F. Sullivan, commissioner

of the state Department of Transportation (DOT). During the coming winter, the

relocation of existing public utilities alongside the bypass road is

scheduled.

Although some gasoline contamination of soil near the Pootatuck River has been

found, it is not expected to delay the bypass road schedule.

An estimated 35 cubic yards of soil contaminated with gasoline has been

removed and stored elsewhere in plastic at Fairfield Hills, Mr Anderson said.

The material will be inspected for contamination levels and then disposed of

properly, he said.

Officials believe the rollover of a gasoline tanker truck on the on-ramp of

I-84 at Exit 11 in October 1986 is the source of the soil contamination. The

crash spilled 3,900 gallons of gasoline overall.

The bypass road project is unusual in that the connector is being constructed

in an area over the Pootatuck Aquifer, the "sole source" underground drinking

water supply for the United Water public water supply system.

As such, the state is taking special care to prevent contamination of the

stratified drift aquifer, including the installation of specialized drainage

structures to contain chemical spills, oil spills and stormwater runoff.

The long-awaited bypass road is being built as a result of a 1991 agreement

between the town and state which settled a lawsuit the town had filed against

the state over the construction of Garner Correctional Institution, a

high-security prison on Nunnawauk Road.