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State To Hire Firm For FFH Soil Study

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

The state Department of Public Works (DPW) plans to hire an environmental

engineering firm to gauge the extent of ground contamination at Fairfield

Hills, the former psychiatric hospital which the state has placed on sale for

private mixed-use redevelopment.

DPW spokesman Pat Nolan said Tuesday the major environmental study is expected

to take about three months to perform and cost about $100,000. DPW has not yet

selected a firm to do the work, he said.

How soon a company can start the project will depend on the format which the

DPW uses to seek and select an engineering company for the job, Mr Nolan said.

The state's decision to perform a detailed environmental study of

contamination at Fairfield Hills comes on the eve of a Tuesday, September 21

public forum at which the three development firms seeking to acquire and

redevelop the property will present their proposals. The forum is slated for 7

pm at Newtown High School auditorium, 12 Berkshire Road. (See Related Story)

"This is a big study," Mr Nolan said, explaining that the environmental

investigation of contamination will involve extensive testing. Work will

include the analysis of soil samples, subsurface borings, the digging of test

pits, the inspection of subsurface drain lines, and the inspection of areas

where there are or were subsurface fuel storage tanks.

Mr Nolan said 40 to 50 locations on the 186-acre site will be checked for

contamination.

The results of the testing will provide the state with environmental

information that will ultimately simplify the sale of Fairfield Hills, Mr

Nolan said.

The three firms which want to buy Fairfield Hills from the state have

submitted purchase price offers based on their own estimates of how much money

it would cost to rectify contamination problems at Fairfield Hills. By

performing the environmental study, the state will obtain independent

engineering information on the cost of such property reclamation work.

"This will be a much quicker selection process in the end and probably much

fairer" as a result of the planned environmental testing, Mr Nolan said.

The DPW's general government properties unit will determine the means to seek

and select an engineering firm to do the testing, Mr Nolan said.

Initially, the joint town-state Fairfield Hills Selection Committee had hoped

to select a firm by late September to acquire the 186-acre parcel which

includes 1.2 million square feet of enclosed space in 17 major buildings.

But the complexities of selecting a development firm to put Fairfield Hills to

new uses became apparent when state officials saw the depth of detail

described in the three competing redevelopment proposals.

Richard Nuclo, who heads the state Office of Policy and Management's (OPM)

assets management unit, has said the state will not rush to make a decision on

the disposition of Fairfield Hills, noting that it is a major decision which

will have broad implications for the state and town in the future. Mr Nuclo

has said the eventual redevelopment of Fairfield Hills may come in the form of

modifying one of the three competing proposals.

Firms which have submitted redevelopment proposals are: Becker and Becker

Associates, Inc of New Canaan; SBC Associates, LLC, of Greenwich; and Wilder

Balter Partners, LLC, of Elmsford, NY. Copies of the three development

proposals are available for public review at Booth Library, 25 Main Street.

Detailed summaries of the proposals are available on The Bee 's World Wide Web

site on the Internet at: www.thebee.com.

The town has the right of first refusal on acquiring the property from the

state.

A preliminary study performed earlier this year found there are 27 potential

areas of environmental concern on the site. Maguire Group, Inc, the New

Britain consulting firm which prepared that environmental report for DPW,

assigned "moderate" environmental concern to soil and groundwater on the site.

"However, the buildings are assigned a `high' rating for encountering

environmental concerns, due to the suspicion of numerous materials containing

asbestos and possibly lead," according to Maguire. Asbestos and lead paint

were common building materials during the time that Fairfield Hills was built

between 1933 and 1956.

Maguire Group recommended that the state further study the site to verify the

presence or absence of environmentally harmful substances within the buildings

and surrounding areas. Last April, however, Mr Nuclo said he did not expect

the state to do any additional environmental studies on the core campus at

Fairfield Hills.

Besides the asbestos and lead paint contamination in the buildings on the

site, Maguire voiced environmental concerns about four open pits on the

eastern side of the site; two unauthorized debris collection areas; two open

discharge points from underground pipes; a vent pipe near Trades Lane; and the

greenhouse located between Cochran House and Plymouth Hall.

The report documents a variety of fuel and chemical spills and releases on the

property which occurred since 1980, describing what occurred and how the

problem was handled.

The sprawling state mental institution which once housed more than 3,000

patients closed in 1995 in an era of patient "deinstitutionalization."