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09/14/2021 02:28 PMTown officials in Chester took a step forward in assessing and possibly remediating any environmental contamination at a former industrial site at 59 Winthrop Road.
At its Sept. 8 regular meeting, the Chester Board of Selectmen voted to request an appropriation of $20,000 from the Board of Finance for the project, which will allow the town to contract with an East Hartford-based engineering consultant firm, Atlas Technical Consultants.
The property was acquired by the town on July 19, 2018 through a tax sale, according to Chester Town Clerk Debra Calamari.
Although the town has paperwork that notes environmental concerns for the property, there are “no real pointed inspection or inspection results for environmental pollution,” said First Selectwoman Lauren Gister.
There has been interest, over the years, to purchase the property.
“We have several people, or we did have several people, I’m not sure who is interested right now, interested in buying that property, which we would like to get back on the tax rolls, but none of them want to take the risk not knowing what the environmental issues might be with it,” Gister said.
The 3.19-acre parcel of land, which abuts the Chester Airport and Route 145, includes a one-story former industrial building.
Occupants of the site from 1960 to the early ‘90s used and disposed of solvents and petroleum products as part of their operations, with documentation of spills and discharges, noted Atlas in its statement of work.
These include Kenyon Laboratories from 1960 to 1965, Lear Siegler from 1965 to 1970, General Telephone and Electronics Corp. from 1970 to 1974, Advanced Electronics Development from 1974 to 1979, Austin Electronics from 1979 to 1984, and New England Machine from 1987 to 1991.
The site has been vacant since 1991. Prior to the tax sale, the last owner of the property was Skyview Properties, LLC, a property development firm based in Wyoming, which purchased the property in 2006 from Chester Airport Inc.
The State of Connecticut’s Brownfield Inventory lists the property as a brownfield. A brownfield is a former industrial, manufacturing or commercial site that has been abandoned or underutilized because of known or suspected environmental contamination.
The extent to which the property is environmentally contaminated, “that is what we’re trying to find out now,” said Selectman Charlene Janecek in a phone interview.
Janecek said that the town solicited proposals from two firms for an Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) of the property, “which would tell us just how polluted the property is. If it shows that it is still a brownfield, we could apply again for help in cleaning it up as a municipality. It doesn’t mean we would get it.”
The state lists a variety of grant relief programs for different agencies and municipalities that have acquired brownfields to clean up environmental contaminants on the properties and redevelop them.
“At the point that we’re at now, we have no idea what the condition is, or how bad,” said Janecek. “There’s a possibility that it’s just seeped into the ground and cleared itself up, not that I’m encouraged by that by any means.”
Several areas of environmental concern noted by Atlas include an underground storage tank, a former drywell, a former leaching field, a former septic tank, a manhole structure, former drum storage, a floor drain discharge area, and interior portions of the building.
In addition to a Phase I ESA, Atlas will conduct a geophysical survey of the property as well as waste material sampling.
“I want it done,” said Janecek. “I personally as a resident and a selectman, I just want to see this done and taken care of, getting that property back on the tax records.
“If it’s something that can be done easily, all the better,” she added.