$1.5 Million Needed To Clean Up Fairfield Fill Pile Sites

FAIRFIELD, CT — Fairfield took the first step Monday toward issuing nearly $1.7 million in bonds to remediate PCBs, arsenic, lead and other contaminants from several sites in town.

The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to approve the $1.69 million to pay for the environmental testing and cleanup, the vast majority of which is connected to the town fill pile, which was at the center of a scandal involving contamination and corruption that erupted last year in Fairfield.

“We have this serious issue that has to be cleaned up,” First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick said at the board’s meeting Monday.

Remediation of the seven sites, which were categorized as solid waste facilities after they received material from the pile, has been pending state approval for months. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has finally signed off on the work, according to Kupchick.

The sites in need of remediation are: the Jennings Beach parking lot, McKinley Elementary School, the Osborn Elementary School parking area, Mill Hill Elementary School, Sunset Avenue, the tennis facility at Old Dam Road and Southport Beach, according to town documents. Also included in the bonds were environmental investigations at the fill pile, Penfield Beach and the town wastewater treatment plant.

The money provided by the 20-year bonds can’t come soon enough, according to Chief Administrative Officer Tom Bremer.

“We basically have exhausted the previously allotted funds that we received through our operating budget,” he said.

In 2019, the Board of Finance allocated $1.8 million for expenses related to the fill pile.

The town has already begun work on the Old Dam Road project, according to Bremer.

“Most of this is all shovel-ready work,” Conservation Director Brian Carey said of the sites.

The board opted to vote on the bonds in two resolutions, separating out the $202,000 budgeted for the wastewater treatment plant investigation, because it was the only item not associated with the fill pile, and allocating the remaining $1.48 million for the pile-related projects.

The pile is connected to charges brought last summer against two town employees and the owner of contractor Julian Companies. The trio is accused of participating in a conspiracy to illegally operate a dump for contaminated material at the site and to allow fraudulent billing. A former town employee was charged several months after the three initial arrests with stealing a file related to the fill pile case.

Around the same time the first three defendants were charged, asbestos at a local park was reported to police in connection with the use of town fill. Since mid-2019, more than 80 areas in Fairfield have been tested for contamination, with the vast majority deemed safe but others undergoing remediation.

The Board of Finance is set to consider the bonds Tuesday. The Representative Town Meeting is not scheduled to take up the matter until its meeting in early December, but selectmen Monday discussed the possibility of requesting the body hold a special early meeting to discuss the bonds.