When Jay Jaffer took his evening kayak ride Wednesday, he noticed a tangled mess in the middle of the Naugatuck River.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be one of those tube-like things emergency crews throw into the water to contain oil spills and other liquid hazmats — a “containment boom.”
That freaked Jaffer out a bit. Were there chemicals in it? Wasn’t it supposed to be containing something somewhere? Did anyone know it had gone missing?
“I said ‘This is a boom. What’s it doing here?” Jaffer recalled Thursday afternoon.
Boom
The boom looked like one emergency officials placed in the Naugatuck River near the Route 67 overpass while the department fought a fierce fire at the Housatonic Wire Co. factory.
The factory — now destroyed — is about two miles up-river from Jaffer’s Derby Avenue home, where Jaffer has access to the Naugatuck River and spends a lot of his time fishing and kayaking.
To get to his portion of the river, the boom had to travel quite a ways and pass the treacherous waterfall underneath the Route 8 overpass.
Jaffer happened to have photographs of the boom in place up river and compared them to his find by his home. Same color and shape.
He checked the original boom site to be sure: Wednesday evening, no boom remained at the site.
“This thing broke free,” Jaffer said. “It apparently came down over the falls, through the river and ended up hanging up on this tree here.”
As rain made the Naugatuck River rise, Jaffer began calling around — town officials, Department of Environmental Protection hotlines, anyone who would listen. He felt he was being ignored.
“It seems like the state has a lack of care for this issue,” Jaffer said. “You’re telling me there’s a chemically laden boom that has washed down stream two miles from where it was, and you’re just going to leave it here, or do it at your convenience?”
“I’m not one of these environmental freaks, but come on — it’s not right,” Jaffer said.
Resolution
The calls paid off, Jaffer said late Thursday.
After the Valley Indy made a round of calls, the DEP and town officials both contacted Jaffer Thursday evening to tell him the boom would be taken care of right away.
So What Happened?
The boom was placed in the river as a precaution during the fire, because firefighters didn’t know if the factory had any contaminants left in it, according to Seymour Fire Chief Tom Tomasheski.
The Department of Environmental Protection indicated it would handle removal and clean-up of the boom afterward, Tomasheski said.
The DEP planned to leave the boom in the water until after the factory was demolished, as a further precaution, according to a DEP spokesperson Cyndy Chanaca.
As recently as Sunday, the boom was still secured, according to Housatonic Wire Co. owner Alex Budzinski.
But then the heavy rain came, loosening the boom from its place at the opening of the Little River.
Chanaca said someone from the DEP plans to inspect the boom today (Friday), if the weather permits.
The DEP does not plan to put another boom in the water during the demolition of the building, unless Budzinski requests it, Chanaca said.
That demolition — delayed for a number of reasons, including the fact the road in front of the factory may have to be dug up to access a water main — is tentatively scheduled for next week.
Chemicals?
It doesn’t appear that any chemicals actually washed into the river the day of the fire.
Chanaca said the DEP didn’t find any ongoing release into the river as a result of the fire clean up.
Budzinski said the building was vacant and didn’t have any machinery or equipment in it during the fire.
“There wasn’t oil coming from anywhere inside the building,” Budzinski said. “The fire didn’t hit the oil tank for heating. Any oil that would have come downstream would have been old oil still in the wood. It would have been minimal.”
