A Stain On Our Stewardship

Two weeks ago, Newtown learned that Deep Brook, where trout have run naturally in cold clean water from prehistory to the present, was liberally laced with #2 heating oil. The news came after a stalwart band of volunteer conservationists had spent the summer and fall celebrating and safeguarding Deep Brook by planting nearly 300 native trees and bushes along its banks to slow the advance of any errant contamination and to enhance breeding conditions for the trout.

The oil slick, which could be seen and smelled as it coursed its way to the Pootatuck River toward Lake Zoar, was especially sickening to those who had worked so hard to prevent such a stain on the town’s stewardship of this natural treasure. It was a poor start for a town committed to fulfilling its environmental responsibilities at the newly acquired Fairfield Hills.

Just over a year ago, another massive leak of heating oil at Canaan House at Fairfield Hills spared Deep Brook but contaminated hundreds of tons of soil, which had to be dug up and carted away. That cleanup cost the state — the property’s owner at the time — an estimated $1.5 million. As experts continue to probe the extent of the contamination of the Reed School spill and assess its consequences, no one is willing to guess what this environmental mess will cost the town. And now the attorneys are circling. Town officials have begun to restrict their public comments about the spill for legal reasons.

At some point, however, the public will need a full accounting of how oil from a heating system in a brand new school leaked into an enclosed concrete trench designed to contain such leaks, and drained through holes in that newly constructed containment trench into the ground beneath the school’s foundation, along the underground trench for a sewer line where it emerged at the point where the sewer crossed under Deep Brook.

We need to understand how a state-of-the-art school building presented such porous protections for the extraordinarily vulnerable surrounding environment — and not just because it might allow the town to sue someone for damages. We need this information to help us prevent future environmental disasters. We don’t want to be remembered by future generations merely for our competence in laying blame. We would prefer to be recognized for our competence as temporary keepers of Newtown’s valuable natural resources. If that is to happen, we have to do better than we have done.