Oil Spill Bills May Top Half Million Dollars By Month’s End

By John Voket

School officials unveiled a resolution of intent to bond to reimburse current and future costs to clean up and remediate an underground oil spill that occurred December 30. Those costs could hit $500,000 or more by the end of the month, according to the school district’s business director.

The financial implications of the spill from an underground fuel storage tank at the two-year-old Reed Intermediate School may be as massive as the spill itself, according to school Business Director Ronald Bienkowski.

In statements to the Newtown Legislative Council Wednesday evening, Mr Bienkowski said environmental contractors and professionals from the state Department of Environmental Protection have already estimated at least 3,000, and possibly as much as 5,000 gallons, of oil may have seeped from the tank, pooling beneath the school. The leaking fuel oil eventually leached into the ground and began to flow, following a drainage culvert downhill to Deep Brook and eventually into the Housatonic River via the Pootatuck River.

Although legal consultants have advised town and education officials against discussing specifics of the spill itself, beyond information already released to The Bee, council members were presented with some hard numbers relating to work already performed by Fleet Environmental Services and others working on the cleanup phase of the project.

School board member David Nanavaty told the council that current bills for contractors and services rendered are piling up, and that the resolution to bond would provide access to funds to cover expenses going back as far as the day of the discovered leak.

“[The resolution] is something we should have in place,” he said.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said putting forth the resolution at this early juncture in the process was the right thing to do.

“As long as they file the intent to bond within 60 days of the spill, it can cover expenses reaching back to the date of the incident,” Mr Rosenthal said. “But it does not commit the Board of Education or the town to any action at this time.”

Mr Rosenthal told the council that the town has two possible sources for insurance claims to help cover some costs: a limited municipal policy, as well as additional coverage for certain hazardous materials tied to the boiler, but capped at $250,000.

Mr Bienkowski then explained some of the possible contingencies related to long-term monitoring and maintenance related to the cleanup.

“The initial phase was emergency response,” he said. “After [responders] determined where the oil came from, they began the second phase of determining where the oil may have gotten in the ground.” Mr Bienkowski said environmental consultants estimated that the remediation phase could take one to two years, and that potential costs were impossible to estimate at this early stage.

“We can’t determine what the cost will be until we determine what the extent of remediation will be,” he said. “I’ve been told that there is a significant amount of oil under the building.”

Mr Bienkowski told the council that contractors should be drilling test holes in the floor of the school this week to find out if there are still significant pools oil underneath the building.

He added that depending on the results of test borings, consultants may have to put recovery systems into the classroom areas. “And we will be putting pumps under the school, which may be there for up to two years,” he said. He also said that as part of the long-term remediation process, monitoring sheds would be erected near a manhole above the oil tank, and beside Deep Brook where leaking oil first broke through the ground.

Then Mr Bienkowski related news about anticipated short-term costs.

“Right here I have invoices for $330,000. Fleet [Environmental Services] estimates the probing and test wells will be another $200,000,” he said. “By the end of February, we’ll be looking at over $500,000 in invoices outstanding.”

Board of Education member Paul Mangiafico told the council members that his priority was seeing that any outstanding bills for responding contractors are paid on time.

“They’ve got to be paid,” he said. “They came when we needed them, and they deserve to be paid.”

He went on to say that the Board of Education should try to pay whatever bills it could.

“Based on what we just heard from Ron, this could be huge,” Mr Mangiafico said. “These amounts of money are very significant, and we haven’t even started remediation yet. We’re not going to be able to take care of this ourselves. It doesn’t mean we’re not responsible for paying the bills. This [resolution] document lays the groundwork so funds can be obtained if we need to.”

While council co-chair Timothy Holian expressed concern about the amount of pending invoices, he also said that there was no way council officials could act on the resolution, even if they wanted to.

“We can’t act on this tonight because it’s on the agenda for discussion only, it will be on the agenda for discussion and possible action February 16,” Mr Holian said.