Fairfield Hills

Environmental Questions

To the Editor:

There are serious questions regarding the environmental issues at Fairfield Hills. Both Barry J. Piesner and Erwin Potter, board members of NPOA (Newtown Property Owners Association), have spent a substantial amount of time reviewing documents that we retrieved last week from the first selectman’s office.

They include the Phase II Environmental Investigation by HRP Associates, the Environmental Cost Estimate (removal of asbestos, lead paint, PCBs and chemicals) by TRC Environmental, and the letter for R.W. Bartley & Associates dated June 7, 2000, which reviews external environmental concerns and estimates that cost.

Both Erwin Potter and Barry Piesner have had extensive experience in both Phase I and Phase II environmental studies. Erwin does them for a living and Barry has reviewed and critiqued over 400 such studies for his commercial mortgage clients.

NPOA brought our concerns to the Legislative Council because we are greatly concerned that the primary document, the Phase II study done for the State of Connecticut by HRP Associates on April 7, 2000, is very narrow in its scope. It does not evaluate enough of the Fairfield Hills complex to be used for estimating costs for remediation (cleanup) of existing environmental problems and the writer of this document states this clearly.

Without knowing the actual depth of the problems and the cost to clean up the problems, how can the town negotiate the purchase of Fairfield Hills?

Our recommendation to the Legislative Council was to invite the principals of HRP Associates to their next meeting to discuss the completion of the study which HRP suggests themselves in their report. It is our understanding that this issue is on the agenda for the next council meeting on December 13, 2000. A step in the right direction.

It is inconceivable to NPOA that the residents of Newtown would agree to our town negotiators entering into a purchase of Fairfield Hills that could conceivably lock us into a remediation cost that some have estimated as over $40 million.

Negotiations should be postponed until we have a real estimate of the cost of cleaning up Fairfield Hills. Newtown residents do not have unlimited resources. Let the State of Connecticut clean up their mess, they created it.

Barry J. Piesner

Newtown Property Association

38 Underhill Road, Sandy Hook      December 5, 2000