Soil sampling is underway at O’Sullivan’s Island, city-owned open space that has been closed to the public since January.
The Derby Board of Aldermen closed the property at the confluence of the Naugatuck and Housatonic rivers after the Valley Council of Governments went public with concerns over possible ground contamination at O’Sullivan’s Island.
While the federal Environmental Protection Agency did an extensive removal of PCB-contaminated soil and drums in 2009, and the property was opened to the public in October of that year, VCOG executive director Rick Dunne and the consultants at VCOG pointed out that the EPA action did not deal with non-PCB contamination which Derby had data showing was in the ground.
Some of the non-PCB soil contamination is thought to be from an old firefighter training facility there.
The testing now underway is attempting to find out just what’s under the ground, if anything, and how much of it. The data will help VCOG and the city come up with a way to “remediate” the situation.
A crew from with HRP Associates, an environmental firm, started working at O’Sullivan’s Island on Monday.
They divided O’Sullivan’s Island into grids and began collecting soil samples from all over the property. The crews are also using ground-penetrating radar to look for things like underground tanks or drums.
Arthur Bogen, an environmental planner working for VCOG, said the soil samples will be sent off to a lab to be analyzed.
“We won’t have any of those results for at least two-and-a-half to three weeks,” Bogen said Tuesday.
VCOG and the company will review the data with the state Department of Health, along with the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. A report will be prepared within the next two months or so to share with the O’Sullivan’s Island Advisory Committee, a group formed by Mayor Anita Dugatto in February.
The soil testing is being funded through grants.
In July, the Derby Board of Aldermen voted to pay the EPA $675,000 for the work the feds did in 2009 at O’Sullivan’s Island.
The EPA had been sending letters threatening to file a lawsuit against the city, because the city was allegedly stiffing them on the $4 million 2009 PCB removal action.
