EPA Superfund Site on Walnut Street Is Cause for Concern at City Hall

The Finance and Government Operations Committee heard from Planning Director Bill Warner that the Environmental Protection Agency is aggressively pursuing the cleanup of a toxic waste superfund site between Route 9 and Walnut Street. The city may bear a multi-million dollar responsibility for the cost of this clean-up, because the site was used as a city dump in the 1950s.

The site was formerly owned by OMO Manufacturing Company, which was famous as a manufacturer of "dress shields" (advertisement photo from The Courant in 1896), and also made rubber and plastic apparel.

According to Warner's presentation, in 1935 OMO deeded 12 acres to the city, and in 1957 the City deeded some of this land back to OMO. When the city returned the land, they retained dumping rights, "Said property is conveyed subject to the right of the City of Middletown to continue to use said area for dumping purposes until the said city of Middletown shall have acquired other dumping privileges." The land is currently owned by JR Marino, who bought it in 1999, the property has an assessed value of about $600,000.

Warner allayed concerns that contamination on the site might get into the water supply. He said it is over 2,000 feet from the aquifer recharge area, and that both the Water Department and the EPA have tested water samples and found no contaminants. The EPA began to investigate the site for contamination in 1990, and some time after that placed it on the superfund cleanup list. However, it is not on the "National Priorities List" of dangerous sites.

The EPA is aggressively pursuing assessment of contamination on the site, and has already spent $400,000 on this. They have budgeted $2M for the cleanup, but Warner said the EPA made it clear to the city that this preliminary estimate could be exceeded, depending on what they find in the site.

By law, any entity found to be responsible for contamination is also responsible for the cost of clean-up. The committee extensively discussed the process of finding other "Potential Responsible Parties" (PRPs) to get the City off the hook for the millions that might be spent on clean-up. Warner expressed little hope that the City would have in the 1950s recorded what was put in the city dump and by whom, much less retained those records.

Unless other PRPs can be found, the City will be the PRP with the deepest pockets, an alarming prospect for the City's finances. Councilman Gerald Daley suggested the state as a PRP because they may have moved some of the dumped material in building Route 9.

Warner explained that the City has the right to undertake the clean-up itself (with EPA supervision), and that this would likely be considerably less expensive than letting the EPA take the lead on clean-up. Although alarmed at the cost of an EPA-led cleanup, the Council members were not enthusiastic about the City taking on a complex toxic fund clean-up. Additionally, they balked at putting about $150,000 into the budget for next year to retain an environmental professional.

Warner cited the experience of Southington, which paid $3.8M out of a $30M clean-up cost for toxic waste at their closed landfill. The payment was about 20 years after the clean-up had commenced.

Council members Daley and Klattenberg expressed a preference for letting the EPA undertake the clean-up, with a hope that the bill would not come due for a long time, and that other PRPs would be found, and that insurance might cover some portion of the bill. The matter will be considered at a special meeting of the Common Council in the middle of May.