Demolition On Hold—

Asbestos, Lead Found In Litchfield Hall Window Grout

By John Voket

“...Two hundred, twenty-four, and they are load bearing.”

Those words, from Public Works Director Fred Hurley, deftly described the number of windows in Litchfield Hall. At the same time, they telegraphed to those who understood the terminology, the scope of additional abatement that might be required to remove lead- and asbestos-laden grout around those many windows at the Fairfield Hills demolition site.

The information came during a report by First Selectman Pat Llodra to the Legislative Council October 20, following a presentation made to selectmen by Mr Hurley two days earlier about the new and unwanted roadblock that has temporarily halted all demolition at the site.

And while Mrs Llodra said she had just concluded the last meeting with all parties engaged in what is expected to be a highly involved and lengthy abatement process, she was loathe to fix a price tag on the extra cost.

The Litchfield Hall demo was originally budgeted as part of a larger bond initiative, with a price tag in excess of $600,000. But Mrs Llodra warned the council to expect a special meeting to hear a special appropriation request for any extra funds required to complete the project. That meeting will be noticed as soon as the first selectman is able to sort out all the implications, both financially and logistically.

“The original cost for this project was in combination with [bonding for] the design of a community center,” she said. “That was expected to be about $400,000, and $600,000 was identified for demolition of Litchfield Hall and Yale Lab. Yale Lab has been demolished successfully.”

To the casual eye, many of the looming and empty buildings remaining at the town-owned facility may seem the same. But according to both Mr Hurley and Mrs Llodra, Litchfield Hall was constructed in a way the first selectman described as “dissimilar” to all the other buildings that had been abated, and in some cases already demolished.

“So we have quite a complicated process in place to unravel,” she said. “Who is going to do the work, how much is that work going to cost us, and how are we going to integrate that work with the existing contract we have for demolition.”

Cost Estimate Expected

During the earlier meeting, which Mrs Llodra said included project managers from O&G Industries, the town attorney and the town’s environmental consultant were all on hand to hammer out the finer details that will eventually yield a price tag.

“We don’t have a final number, but we can tell you the million-dollar appropriation for this work is insufficient,” the first selectman said.

Mrs Llodra said remaining work, which is expected to take six to eight weeks, is pressed against a natural timeline that could compromise the contractor’s ability to finish taking down and removing the remnants, backfilling the site and seeding a new lawn that will cover the area where Litchfield Hall currently stands in mid-demolition.

Councilman Benjamin Spragg said he could not image, given the timeline and approaching winter, that the project could be completed including the grading and lawn seeding as scheduled.

Mrs Llodra said she was struggling with that concept as well, but assured the council that the demolition contract did include all the work including the seeding. She added that the final touches might have to be delayed until spring.

Mr Spragg also suggested that element could me modified out of the contract, with town crews handling the grading and planting in the spring. Mrs Llodra agreed that the contract modification was one option to be considered.

No Remaining Funds

Finance Director Robert Tait said he did not believe the funds earmarked for the community center had been fully expended, but the bonded funds for the contracted demolition of the two Fairfield Hills buildings has already been fully committed.

Two nights earlier, under questioning from Selectman William Rodgers, Mr Hurley reported that some of the challenges presenting to the demolition crews now that the additional abatement is required, will be a need to abate the lead and asbestos from the frames and lintels of each window from the top of the building on down.

Mr Hurley said that this required top-down process interferes with the way the demolition company would normally handle the dismantling process.

Mr Rodgers questioned why the material was not identified in inspections of the building before the town purchased the former state hospital. Mr Hurley replied that the waterproofing around the windows, which contains asbestos, was not used in any other buildings on the campus.

“We have not run into the same situation,” Mr Hurley said, adding that the question has already been asked about why the hazardous materials went undiscovered during the original inspections of the remaining buildings.

“There was no reason to inspect this,” he said. “The only way this could be discovered was if we had done destructive tearing down of window systems around the campus.”

He said since exterior walls are load-bearing walls, the abatement process is much more complicated than “just going in and knocking them out with a hammer.”

During the selectmen’s meeting, Mr Hurley said the town was presented “with some workable options,” but admitted that another separate contractor might be required to come in and handle the work.