Cleanup At Contaminated Fairfield Sites Set To Start This Week

FAIRFIELD, CT — Cleanup is set to start this week at two town sites tied to contamination at the Fairfield fill pile.

The remediation will begin at small areas along the parking lots of Southport Beach and Lake Mohegan, First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick said Friday in an email to residents. The cleanup will not disrupt use of the beach or lake, and will be completed in a few days.

Once school is out next week for the summer, the town will start remediation at Mill Hill, Osborn Hill and McKinley elementary schools, with the expectation that the cleanup will be done before students return for the new school year.

READ MORE: The Cost Of Contamination: Fairfield's Fill Pile, FEMA And More

“I know this entire issue has been a long and frustrating process for our community, but I am feeling encouraged that we are finally making headway,” Kupchick said in the email.

The sites set for remediation in the coming days and weeks are among seven locations that contain polychlorinated biphenyls and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons connected to fill from the town pile.

The fill pile problems began in 2013, when Fairfield hired contractor Julian Development to operate the site and reduce it by 40,000 cubic yards. Instead, the pile tripled in size over three years, and days before the agreement with Julian was set to end, contaminants were discovered on the property.

Police opened an investigation into activity at the pile in 2017, and seven people — most of whom are former town employees — have been charged. The defendants are accused of conspiring to run an illegal dump for contaminated material, allowing fraudulent billing, illegally disposing PCBs, and more.

Testing and remediation of the pile, the seven sites, and Penfield Pavilion are subject to consent orders from the state's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Cleanup is expected to take years and cost millions of dollars. As of last month, the town had spent $2.1 million on the fill pile crisis.