At Fairfield Hills––

Canaan House Fuel Oil Spill Causes Extensive Contamination

By Andrew Gorosko

Workmen this week began a major, around-the-clock environmental cleanup of spilled heating fuel at Canaan House at Fairfield Hills, which is expected to take weeks, if not months, to complete. Extensive soil removal and replacement is planned after 4,550 gallons of #2 heating fuel spilled from an external fuel tank.

The building’s pressurized heating system, which sprang a fuel leak sometime last weekend, apparently lost the red-dyed heating fuel during a snowstorm before Fairfield Hills security personnel discovered it.

The leak caused extensive soil and groundwater contamination near the northwestern corner of the sprawling state-owned, red-brick building, which houses offices for the town school system and several town departments. The spilled fuel flooded a basement room in Canaan House to a depth of six inches. The escaping fuel also found its way into underground storm sewer lines, which carried some fuel about 500 yards northward into a tributary of Deep Brook, in the vicinity of a natural trout hatchery. Deep Brook is a tributary of the Pootatuck River.

Ben Yorke, who is the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) official overseeing the cleanup, said December 10 that DEP is evaluating the spill’s adverse effects on groundwater. DEP is moving swiftly to resolve the pollution problem, he said.

A work crew is stationed during daylight hours at the tributary of Deep Brook to trap the spilled fuel carried there by storm sewers, he said. The sewer discharge point is on severe snow-covered terrain at the base of a ravine. The spill resulted in a “light [oil] sheening” on Deep Brook, Mr Yorke said.

The DEP inland fisheries unit is monitoring the fishery pollution problem.

The fuel spill does not appear to have contaminated the Pootatuck Aquifer, Mr Yorke said. The aquifer is a major local source of drinking water.

The fuel spill contamination appears generally isolated in the area where the spill occurred, Mr Yorke said. Soil near Canaan House will be excavated to remove contaminants. Excavation will occur in the area now occupied by the building’ western parking lot. The excavated area will then be refilled with clean soil.

“We will address the most saturated spot first,” he said. “We’re trying to address the bulk of the problem as fast as we can,” he added.

What makes the Canaan House spill more complicated than usual is that the area is served by an underground maze of utilities, which are housed in conduits, Mr Yorke said. When the spilled fuel comes into contact with those conduits, it may disperse into multiple directions, compounding the complexities of a cleanup, he said.

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, he said.

There are no known domestic water wells in the immediate area of the fuel spill, he said.

Soil testing may indicate the need to install equipment to pump out and clean area groundwater, he said.

“It’s not going to be cheap…It’s going to be a very expensive procedure,” Mr Yorke said.

Purchase Plans

The town is in the process of buying Fairfield Hills from the state. The deal involves acquiring 189 acres, plus many buildings, including Canaan House. Fairfield Hills was a state psychiatric institution until December 1995. Canaan House, which is more than 200,000 square feet in floor area, formerly was a psychiatric patient dormitory.

First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal said December 10 that the state, which still owns Fairfield Hills, will be responsible for cleaning up the spilled fuel. Mr Rosenthal spoke by telephone from Nashville, Tenn., where he is attending a municipal conference. The first selectman had toured the fuel spill site on December 8.

The town has its environmental consultant, R.W. Bartley and Associates, Inc, of Tolland, monitoring the spill’s cleanup, Mr Rosenthal said.

“We’re not going to close [the sale] on the [Fairfield Hills] property until we have satisfactory agreements in place that the state’s going to clean this [spill] up,” Mr Rosenthal said. The state’s sale of Fairfield Hills to the town is scheduled to occur by December 31. Mr Rosenthal said he will be discussing the matter with the town’s lawyers.

It is unclear how much it will cost for environmental cleanup work, the first selectman said. He termed the fuel spill “a very unfortunate incident.”

“We’re certainly working to protect the town’s interests,” he said.

Cleanup Work

Fleet Environmental Services of Bethel did cleanup work at the fuel spill this week for the state Department of Public Works, which oversees Fairfield Hills for the state.

In the initial cleanup, workmen repeatedly, laboriously hefted heavy shovelfuls of a sloppy mixture of melting snow, sand, absorbent clay, and heating fuel into the bucket of a power loader. The loader then dumped the contaminated mixture into one of several large plastic-lined dumpsters. A heavy petroleum stench hung in the area. Large suction trucks stood by to vacuum up spilled fuel that was in liquid form.

Following the initial cleanup work, which captured 1,320 gallons of fuel, other spilled fuel remained trapped in the soil near the western end of Canaan House.

The prospect of heavy rain, which was predicted for the night of December 10 and day of December 11, prompted cleanup crews to work swiftly to curb additional fuel from traveling via storm drainage lines into nearby surface waters.

Serious Spill

“It is a serious spill,” said Bill Halstead. Mr Halstead is the town fire marshal and emergency management director. “This is a big deal,” he said, noting the volume of heating fuel that spilled and the need to properly cleanup the area.

“It’s going to be big dollars. There’s no doubt about that,” he said of the cleanup costs.

“Everybody’s prime concern is to get the problem cleaned up,” he said.

Noting that the town is in the process of buying Fairfield Hills from the state, Mr Halstead said the environmental cleanup must proceed properly.

“We have to do what’s best for the town. The town’s buying that [property],” he said.

To that end, workers plan to reposition the external heating system to a different location along the western end of Canaan House. Doing that will allow heavy equipment to excavate the heavily contaminated soil from the area where the heating system formerly stood.

Unlike typical heating systems, which are housed in basements, the heating system at Canaan House is situated outdoors, adjacent to the building. When Fairfield Hills was run as a state institution, heat was supplied to the many buildings there by a central steam plant on the campus. After the facility closed, the state shut down the central steam plant. Buildings that remained in use at Fairfield Hills then had individual temporary external heating systems installed.

When some town offices relocated to Canaan House Fairfield Hills in the winter of 1997, it was thought the town would temporarily occupy the building for a year or two. Eventually, the town opted to buy Fairfield Hills from the state, resulting in a longer stay than initially planned.

Although some town departments did not report for work at Canaan House on December 8 due to the fuel spill, the town’s goal is to keep Canaan House open for during normal business hours, Mr Halstead said.

School system staffers remained on the job December 8, shifting their operations to a different section of Canaan House.