DEP Says Hamden Toxic Clean-Up Will Protect Health

The state Department of Environmental Protection began today the largest residential toxic-waste clean-up in Connecticut’s history. As WNPR’s Nancy Cohen reports the state is removing contaminated soil from more than 300 properties in Hamden.

 

Back in the mid to late 1800's, long before these homes were built, people were concerned about mosquito-borne illnesses, like malaria from swampy areas in town. So the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which manufactured guns in Hamden, and which burned coal for heat, dumped its coal ash into the swamps to quell the mosquitoes. But the ash contained toxins like lead and arsenic.
 

After World War II, houses were built on top of these filled-in swamps. Exposure to lead in the soil can put children at risk of behavioral disorders or a lowered I.Q. Ray Frigon of the D.E.P. says now the first truck loads of contaminated soil  are being removed from Hamden’s Newhall neighborhood

 

“This is a very large effort being undertaken in this 18-block area, roughly 300 home within this area, 234 of those homes have waste fill.” 

 

The D.E.P. is digging up four feet of contaminated soil. The clean up includes restoring homes with clean soil, fences, trees and shrubs. And relocating some residents while the work is being done. The state and the Olin Corporation, which bought the old Winchester site, are sharing the cost of the clean up, which could run as high as $70 million dollars. Again, Ray Frigon of the DEP.

 

“The remedy that we are implementing fully protects human health. The excavation from ground surface to four feet of waste fill, and then replacing with clean soil, eliminates, completely eliminates the on-going exposure that these residents are experiencing.”