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More testing is ahead this year before Six Lakes will get its cleanup plan. That’s the major takeaway from last week’s second annual community update from the CT Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The May 21 meeting was attended by 110 neighbors, community leaders, and elected officials, who turned out to hear from DEEP’s remediation team for Six Lakes, a.k.a. Olin Powder Farm, a.k.a. Pine Swamp. Six Lakes Park Coalition organizers Elizabeth Hayes and Justin Farmer, along with Hamden mayor Lauren Garrett, welcomed the crowd.
“This is going to be a project that will take a lot of time, and I think it’s important that we’re patient and we make sure that it’s done right,” Mayor Garrett said in her opening remarks. “But I also want to thank the advocates for helping to drive this project forward, particularly Save the Sound and the Six Lakes Coalition. Without their advocacy, this project, I’m sure, would have still been stalled.”
The evening began at the front door, where many attendees were happy to sign the Six Lakes petition (scroll down to do so yourself!), while others who determined to wait until the end of the meeting stopped to sign on their way out. There was a sense of momentum, and neighbors seemed eager to learn what comes next. As it turned out, they learned a lot.
DEEP’s John Duff, the project manager supervising site testing by property owner Olin Corporation, gave a detailed Power Point presentation on the “areas of concern” where contamination is known to exist on the site, results of last year’s testing, and what happens next. Among the takeaways:
· Testing has occurred in seven known “areas of concern” at the south and east ends of the property, five of which date back to the 1986 consent order. Further testing is needed in these areas in order to gain a three-dimensional model of contamination.
· Numerous additional areas may require testing, including known structures (machine gun mounts, brick bunkers, etc.), areas where debris has been dumped (both by Olin and outsiders), and the ponds themselves.
· In 2023 work by Olin included wetland mapping, inspections of existing monitoring wells and installation of new ones, sampling of soil vapor and soil borings, and evaluation of results, which were submitted in a 3,000-plus page report.
· Test findings for soil and water contamination were shared for each area. No immediate concern for public health was indicated by the results.
Following Duff’s presentation, Ray Frigon, director of the Remediation division of DEEP’s Bureau of Water Protection and Land Reuse, took questions from the audience for over an hour. On behalf of the Six Lakes Park Coalition, steering committee member Sue McDonald pressed DEEP to require Olin to report how the testing results compare not just to an industrial/commercial standard for cleanup but also to a higher residential standard. The cleanup level required for a park is currently residential, but that could change in the future. Regardless, the DEEP team made no promises.
McDonald also pressed for a meeting between the steering committee and DEEP before the next testing plan is approved, so that we can ask some deeper technical questions and discuss possible alternatives that will help us move closer to our objective: a public park open to all! That meeting is currently being scheduled.
So, what can you do to help?
· Get educated! If you missed the meeting, you can watch the recording of DEEP’s full presentation here.
· Educate your friends and neighbors about Six Lakes and get them to sign up for these emails.
· Read on to learn more about our Park Visioning Series! We need everyone to participate in creating a community-centered vision for a future park at Six Lakes! |
