The town is in the final stages of securing $850,000 in bonding to demolish buildings and remediate hazardous materials at two Sandy Hook center properties. Both properties — at 7 Glen Road and 28A Glen Road — are town-owned, having been foreclosed on years ago for back taxes.

The property of significant focus will be 28A, which has six run-down structures and barrels of hazardous waste on-site. Bonding will be used for demolition of the buildings as well as removal from the properties of a number of containers with hazardous materials.

The 28A property is occupied by six buildings and/or structures. The structures include one private residence, three industrial buildings and two shed structures. The residence was constructed in 1824, and the three industrial buildings were built in the 1940s. The construction date of the sheds is unknown.

Deputy Director of Economic and Community Development Christal Preszler told The Bee May 31 that two Environmental Site Assessments were done by the town in conjunction with the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments.

According to a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment done by EnviroAudit in 1992, the site, owned by R.S Watkins & Sons, was residential until the Watkins family added industrial buildings and began metal machining operations on cast iron and steel in the early 1930s.

From 1974 to 1990, R.S. Watkins & Sons added welding, and brass wire drawing and annealing operations. Wire drawing operations required the use of acid baths to remove scale and lubricants during the drawing process. EnviroAudit’s report documented the presence of acids, caustics, oils and large vats of “green solution.”

The green solution may have been a wire drawing lubricant containing copper sulfate, which is a commonly used lubricant and rust preventative.

EnviroAudit’s report documented the presence of soil staining inside the buildings and acid pitting on the concrete floors. They also identified that a “chemical holding tank” was in poor condition. The size and/or contents of the tanks were not further described.

A 2016 Phase II Environmental Site Assessment by GeoDesign Incorporated found that four buildings have containers with volatile organic compounds, petroleum hydrocarbons, cyanide, metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and nickel); there are “four or five” 1,000 gallon underground tanks on the property containing petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, which are 24 to 47 years old at the time of the report; and drywells, pipes, sump pumps and septic systems also containing volatile compounds and metals.

The 2016 report said that four 1,000 gallon fuel oil tanks had been removed from the site in 2014 that were in “good condition.”

The original environmental assessment did not find the soil or nearby water to be contaminated; however, the 2016 study found chromium, copper and lead in exceedance of remedial levels at the sump pump, dry well, septic area, and slab sludge areas. Petroleum residue was found in soil at one building, adjacent to the basement floor drain, but not in exceedance of an amount requiring clean-up.

Preszler said that when an investigation is down, the assessment is “always limited by money,” and may not be the “end all and be all” of contaminants on the site.

She noted that clean-up for the properties has been in the town’s Capital Improvement Plan for a number of years.

“We now have a significant amount to get through a significant portion of the clean-up,” said Preszler.

The $850,000 appropriation has been approved by the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance; approval was also expected by the Legislative Council at its June 1 meeting.

Associate Editor Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.