DEP Newhall Community Blog

Democracy Works: Senator Crisco's Proposed Residential Soil Standards

2007-01-25T06:35:00.000-05:00

We have always felt that the Newhall Community was fortunate to have gifted legislators, men who not only served us and our neighbors, but also the broader public interest.

Never has this been more clear than now. Indeed, our legislators have just initiated several new bills that, when passed into law, are going to mean very positive changes not only for Newhall, but for the State of Connecticut as a whole.

At the beginning of January, Senator Joe Crisco put forward a remarkable set of bills in the Connecticut General Assembly to revise the state's soil standards. He has proposed that Connecticut adopt the EPA standard for lead in soil (1200 mg/kg) and set the acceptable level for carcinogens in soil at the point where the lifetime risk of getting cancer from your soil is less that 1 in 20,000 (the general lifetime risk of cancer is about 1 in 2). Senator Crisco, Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney and State Represenative Peter Villano have also put forward legislation demanding that the CT DEP take the recommendations of our community into account and that funds be earmarked to address structural problems in several homes. Our legislators have also set a firm 90-day deadline for the finalization of a DEP clean-up plan for Newhall. After years of delays and suffering on the part of Newhall residents, it is hard to imagine a package of environmental legislation that would better serve our community and our State.

All of these steps are tremendously positive. Those of you who have followed the prior discussion of the soil standards on our site will surely see just how beneficial the new residential soil standards will be. For those new to the topic, we thought it might be helpful to provide the following:

Three reasons to support Senator Crisco's proposed residential soil standards

Reason 1: It's good policy

As pointed out in an op-ed piece by Yale Professor Keith Darden in the Hartford Courant last September, the current soil standards are so strict that ordinary residential soils that pose no risk to public health are classified as "waste" requiring removal or cleanup. In fact, the current lead standard used by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (500 mg/kg) is below the average levels found in typical neighborhoods in Connecticut. If the law were applied, hundreds of thousands of Connecticut homes would require costly soil cleanup. Indeed, full and consistent enforcement of the existing law would have cost trillions of dollars (soil removal and remediation are very costly) and produced no appreciable improvement in public health. There is no question that the current regulation is flawed.

In practice, this meant that even a simple cleanup like Hamden's Newhall site rapidly became prohibitively costly and unlimited, expanding into new neighborhoods with safe soils and no prior history of any dumping or contamination. For years, this project has drawn down DEP's scarce financial resources and occupied personnel that are needed to tackle the real environmental problems that we face. The law clearly needs to change. The reasonable standards proposed in Senator Crisco's bill on carcinogens in soil will protect us from any risks greater than the prospect that we will be killed by lightning (also a 1 in 20,000 lifetime risk). And the EPA's lead guidelines are based on decades of careful research and are already considered to be quite strict. By adopting these new rules, the State will now be able to focus on those sites that are truly contaminated and present a risk. In this way, paradoxically, a less strict standard will mean a much improved environment, since we won't be wasting our time and money "cleaning up" ordinary harmless dirt. Even better, the new law can actually be implemented and enforced, cleanup will be feasible, and the DEP can devote its resources where they are most needed. That's good policy.

Reason 2: It's good law.

One of the central foundations of any society based on the rule of law is that all are equal before the law and that "like cases should be treated alike." Under the current law, that just can't happen. Because the current Connecticut soil standards are so extreme, nearly every neighborhood in Connecticut is in violation (they just don't know it yet because they haven't been tested). But since our state does not have the means to test the soil in every yard in Connecticut, nor does it have the capacity to pay for enforcing the law with so many in violation, the DEP can only enforce the law selectively. Under the current system, any neighborhood where the DEP choses to test the soil will be saddled with a multi-million dollar cleanup, whether it truly needs one or not. In such unlucky neighborhoods, homeowners must live with the stigma of "contamination," find themselves unable to sell their homes for their genuine value, and, ultimately, be evicted from their homes for the months when the soil from their yards is physically removed. Most significantly, because virtually every neighborhood was in violation of the Connecticut environmental regulations, the arbitrary selection of one neighborhood for testing is an act of injustice. With such overly-strict standards, "like" neighborhoods could not possibly be treated "alike": To do so, we'd have to spend trillions of dollars to remove most of the residential topsoil in Connecticut.

When only a few neighborhoods are targeted for multimillion dollar remediations projects, there has been a real danger that the selection of neighborhoods will be based on criteria other than public health or environmental need. As pointed out earlier on this site, Bushnell Park up in Hartford is probably more polluted than Mill Rock Park in Hamden and poses a greater risk to public health, but no one talks about digging it up and evicting the Governor and Legislators from their offices for the duration of the cleanup. The danger that strict soil regulations will be abused to stigmatize and seize the land of people less wealthy or powerful is very real. Newhall is really the first residential neighborhood where the law has been enforced, and it has been a disaster. We have seen how corrupt state environmental contractors can use arbitrary or selective enforcement of the current flawed law to pad their pockets with lucrative investigation and remediation contracts. This is what happened on Prospect Hill. The proposed legislation, because it creates laws that can be enforced fairly and equally, will insure that all homeowners are treated equally under the law.

Reason #3: It's good for the Newhall Neighborhood

As we have pointed out repeatedly, the adoption of more reasonable soil standards is precisely what Newhall needs to move forward. With the new standards, we can focus on cleaning those few areas of the neighborhood that really do have contamination as a result of historical dumping. By setting reasonable standards, we can clean the neighborhood fully, quickly, and at much lower cost. This will mean that no land use restrictions will be necessary, the neighborhood will not be destroyed, and the genuine threat of pollution from trucks and dust will be kept to a minimum. Changing the state soil standards also provides the glue to unite the plans put forward by Dr. Hamid and Dr. Darden. Hamid's plan called for the full remedation of all soil that does not meet the state standard. Darden's plan called for the full remediation of all soil to the EPA lead standard and the "lightning standard" (1 in 20,000). By changing the state standards to reflect the EPA and a more reasonable risk level, Darden and Hamid now support the same plan.

The Perfect Solution for Connecticut and a Model for the Nation

What Senator Crisco has proposed is truly positive, innovative legislation and will place Connecticut in the vanguard of environmental protection nationally. We will be a model for others. Environmentalists like ourselves are pleased that resources currently being wasted to clean up harmless soil will now be channeled to the pressing task of cleaning our air and water, and soils that genuinely pose a risk to public health and the environment. Communities and developers can be pleased that as a result of this legislation, thousands of acres of contaminated land can now be cleaned without prohibitive cost, making new areas available for residential development in a state that has a crisis in affordable housing.

We strongly support our Senators and hope that these proposed bills will move rapidly through the environment committee to the floor of the Connecticut General Assembly.

The People v. Loureiro Engineering Associates (Part I)

2006-12-27T23:10:00.000-05:00

After keeping its report safely in bureaucratic limbo for the past eight months, the CT Department of Environmental Protection has finally released the official findings of its internal investigation on the soil investigation of the Prospect Hill neighborhood in Hamden, CT. The report, which examines the attempted eastward expansion of the Newhall site by the DEP’s lead Newhall contractor, Loureiro Engineering Associates, was written by Diane Duva and edited by Bureau Chief Betsey Wingfield and others in the DEP before its official release. The internal investigation was handed to Duva after Commissioner Gina McCarthy refused requests from our legislators to have LEA's work audited by an external environmental auditor, even one of her own choosing. For obvious reasons, Commissioner McCarthy wanted to keep the investigation of her department's lead contractor within the agency and under her direct control.

An Internal Investigation

Yet despite working under these considerable constraints, Diane Duva has delivered some remarkable findings. Like many works written under the censor’s gaze, Duva’s report has been carefully crafted; it reveals as much from what it does not say as from its stated findings. Even so, the report is damning. Most important, it shows that there are some people within the DEP who, at potential cost to themselves, still have the integrity to report findings that reveal actionable information about their agency and its powerful contractors. Commissioner McCarthy may not know it, but Diane Duva has given us the gift of truth.

THE TRUTH

Far and away the most important finding in the DEP’s internal report was that the massive, overly-costly soil investigation done by Loureiro Engineering Associates outside of the Newhall Consent Order was not designed to identify landfill or industrial wastes of the type found in some parts of the Newhall neighborhood. Instead, it was targeted to pick up the low-level “contamination”—lead paint chips, old pesticide usage, the occasional old rusty nail—typical of ordinary urban and suburban soil conditions and no different from what one would find in any older residential neighborhood. The soil investigation done by Loureiro Engineering Associates’ was rigged to target ordinary properties for a multi-million dollar remediation, a remediation which LEA knew it would be overseeing for the State of Connecticut.

What does this mean? It means that LEA should now be prosecuted by the State on a number of counts. Loureiro Engineering Associates was contracted by the State of Connecticut to look for landfill using EPA-accepted methods. When LEA instead sampled soil along the driplines of older homes and reported to DEP that they had found contaminated lead “waste” on these properties, they broke their contract with the State of Connecticut. By rigging its investigation, Loureiro Engineering Associates also violated the legal agreement that gave them access to private land, which only allowed LEA to look for landfill. In a gross violation of law and contract, LEA lied to homeowners both about what they were doing on their land and what they had “found.”

Needless to say, all of this reveals a very serious problem with Loureiro Engineering Associates, which continues to serve as the DEP's lead Newhall contractor. Contrary to public statements coming out of the DEP’s Dennis Schain, Diane Duva’s report reveals that there were significant problems with the entire perimeter investigation—an investigation that was designed, conducted, and reported by Loureiro Engineering Associates on behalf of the State of Connecticut. It is now a matter of record that Loureiro Engineering Associates not only botched its management of the remediation of Newhall in a way that is now patently obvious to our legislators, but they attempted a radical expansion of the site in 2005 through an investigation rigged to classify ordinary residential soils as contaminated waste. In doing so, they profited directly from the investigation of over a hundred properties and anticipated to gain from the illegitimate expansion of brownfield site that they knew would be placed under their management.

Indeed, despite what the summary of the DEP’s internal report says, Duva’s finding are NOT consistent with the State Auditor’s report. The Auditors knew how to follow the money, but they had no idea what a proper soil investigation should look like and didn’t hire any outside help…so they just said everything seemed fine and focused on the financial violations. Diane Duva’s report now makes it very clear that everything was not fine with LEA's perimeter investigation.

Diane Duva’s report suggests that LEA is either incompetent or corrupt. Either way, it is time for the Attorney General’s Office to intervene.

Is Gina McCarthy Dreaming of a Brown Christmas?

2006-12-16T20:50:00.000-05:00

Well, dear friends, it's that holiday season again...time for the DEP to put coal (and trace amounts of slag, ash, and porcelain) in the stockings of our Prospect Hill neighbors for yet another year.

Yes, that's right. It's now been a whole year since the DEP first lied to the folks up on Prospect Hill, telling people whose homes were built on harmless native soil that they were living on contaminated waste...and sending their homes, lives, and families into turmoil just in time for the holidays.

And they're just about to do it again.

So if you live up on Prospect Hill and you were hoping your property would be cleared by this Christmas, you are going to be very disappointed. Why? Well, little Timmy, if Commissioner Gina McCarthy were going to do that, she would have done it long ago. She probably would have done it in the Spring when Diane Duva actually finished her report, or perhaps even last January when she realized the nefarious things that Elsie Patton and her friends at LEA had done.

No, we've known for quite some time that the Commissioner is good at making nice in public and kissing up to her superiors, but won't hesitate to crush the commoners once the cameras are put away. Neither she, nor Diane Duva, nor Pat Bowe, nor the rest of the gang up at DEP really think there is anything out of the ordinary with the soils on Prospect Hill, but they are not going to let science, the facts, or a few pesky members of the public get in the way of their bureaucratic power and privilege. Those are the hard facts. The DEP just hasn't wanted to tell you yet.

Why not? What are they waiting for? It's simple: They know you aren't going to be pleased with what they have to say, and it doesn't look good for them to be siding with their crony contractors over a community of decent and honest homeowners. And in politics, that kind of bad news has to be delivered very, very carefully. If you release it at the wrong time, important people might actually notice.

That's right, if you really want to stick it to someone as quietly as possible, there is no better time than the holidays. The Governor, State legislators, the AG, and the press are on vacation and don't want to be bothered with bad news. By the time they all come back...well...it just isn't news anymore...and we're all so busy...and how was your vacation?...and, well...what do those implacable homeowners want with their crummy little properties anyway? This is the sort of thing that they pay Communications Director Dennis Schain for.

And let's not forget about our friends down in "Who-hallville," where that old Grinch Gina McCarthy is really stealing their trees this Christmas season...

It's not easy being green.

BURN THE WITCH!

2006-10-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

You know that your state agencies have failed when the fact that lead doesn't cause cancer comes as news to a neighborhood.

It was a sign of just how irresponsible the DEP has been that Assistant Director Rob Bell's comment that "lead does not cause cancer" was received with stunned silence and a tangible sense of shock in the room at last night's meeting at the Keefe Center. Even so, the broader point that all of the health risks have been wildly overstated at Newhall failed to sink in. Indeed, those of us in attendance were treated to a bizarre, almost medieval ritual of residents attributing everything from lupus to allergies and canine cancer to the dirt that lies under their homes. Had a stranger walked in, he might have drawn the reasonable conclusion that what was needed here was not soil remediation, but perhaps exorcism or the careful and systematic application of leeches to the body. Had it been Cotton Mather running the meeting rather than Dr. Hamid, we probably would have found a witch to burn. In fact, small as Rob Bell's step was, it was nice to finally see a state employee have enough courage to admit that there was at least ONE bad thing that the soil in Newhall was probably not responsible for.

Why this sudden act of courage from Mr. Bell? After all, up until now the DEP has seen fit to keep the fears of contamination swirling, and even to stoke them. They've brought in the Love Canal activists. They've paid Elizabeth Hayes and the Newhall Coalition to stoke the fires of delusion. They've encouraged wild claims of groundskeepers disappearing into 20-foot-deep sinkholes and an apparent epidemic among dogs, all in an effort to whip up concerns in the neighborhood to the point where the DEP can say that "the people" demand remediation. Why the sudden change of heart? Why come clean now? Why start telling the truth?

Because the DEP is in a difficult position: It's not easy to have your cake and eat it too. They need to scare people enough so that they demand a multi-million dollar remediation and don't question the DEP's absurd standards, but not scare residents so much that they aren't willing to leave most of the landfill under their properties. The DEP also can't admit that any real harm was done to anyone's health, because then someone might sue them for having waited over 20 years after their first environmental assessment before doing anything about the problem. You have to scare the people, but not so much that they can hold you responsible. That's a fine line.

It's also despicable. The role of a responsible state agency is to tell people what the real risks are. If the DEP had spent its millions of dollars in public involvement doing that, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be on the verge of losing our neighborhood. The Town of Hamden wouldn't be on the verge of a massive transfer of wealth to a few well-connected contractors who get paid to move dirt. We and our neighbors wouldn't be the first guinea pigs in a new generation of residential "brownfield redevelopment" that will keep the DEP and its contractors in business for decades to come. We wouldn't be living in fear. No, without the wild distortions and exaggeration of risks, we'd just be the same old folks who have to worry about eating too much, drinking too much, driving too fast, global warming, getting old, Dr. Hamid's efforts to construct a radical Islamic Madrasah in the neighborhood and all of the real things that might harm us before we die.

But who could make any money off of that?

Happy Halloween! Boooooooooooooooooo!

VOTE OCTOBER 30!

2006-10-17T22:52:00.000-04:00

On October 30, 2007, the members of our community will finally have a chance to express their opinions on what should be done with their homes.

That's right, matters have finally been taken out of the hands of the self-appointed community spokespeople, DEP lackeys, paid consultants, and others who claim to represent the neighborhood. On October 30th, at 7pm at the Keefe Center, the proponents of the three main plans for the neighborhood will have to make their case to the community...and the COMMUNITY WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO VOTE.

The Three Plans currently in the running are:

1. The DEP Plan:
In the spirit of fair competition, we wanted to make sure that the DEP had a second chance to make their case for saddling 137 homes in the neighborhood with Land Use Restrictions.

2. The Abdul Hamid Plan:
This plan proposes to remove all fill from the neighborhood regardless of how contaminated it is...including all of the structures on top of that fill. This would mean the demolition of the old middle school, many years of excavation, and the destruction of over 100 homes.

3. The Community Plan:
This plan, outlined previously on this site, proposes to remove all contaminated material from the site. Our neighborhood would be cleaned to the EPA's lead standards and to the point where the cancer risk was more remote than the risk of being killed by lightning.

It's your home, and it's your choice. Decide for yourself...

And stand up and be counted. Come to the Keefe Center at 11 Pine St. in Hamden at 7pm on October 30. If you go to only one meeting this year, let it be this one.

The Newhall Advisory Committee's Letter to Governor Rell

2006-10-03T08:22:00.000-04:00

At long last, Newhall is finally seeing a little bit of public involvement...

Make no mistake. We're not talking about the kind of "public involvement" that the DEP has been trying to buy with the hundreds of thousands of dollars in bond funds that they have spent on PR. The DEP's own efforts to organize public participation in the past month continue to be an utter failure and a waste of our state bond funds: In the DEP's four hour open house at the Keefe Center only 30 people showed up over the entire course of the evening, which meant that the members of the community were nearly outnumbered by DEP staff and contractors.

The NAC Steps Up

No, we're talking about genuine participation, the kind where people from the neighborhood actually participate. The kind which comes at no cost to the taxpayer. In fact, the Community has gotten more involved in order to prevent further waste of the state bond funds, as reflected in the Op-Ed article in the Hartford Courant last week by one of the NAC members. Indeed, the Newhall Advisory Committee, our volunteer community board, has finally stepped out from under the DEP's tutelage and has taken some critical steps forward.

Much has happened on the Newhall Advisory Committee in the last month, but here are the highlights:

1. In a vote of 10-1, with one abstention, the Newhall Advisory Committee voted to reject the DEP's plan unconditionally and in its entirety. With a total rejection of the DEP's plan by the community it was ostensibly intended to serve, the DEP's plan is now off the table.

2. In a unanimous vote, the Newhall Advisory Committee voted to end the services of its "facilitator", Ms. Kathleen Conway, a subcontractor of Loureiro Engineering Associates. We also learned that Community Mediation, a corporation in which Ms. Conway serves as the Vice President, was partnering up on an EPA grant application for Newhall without informing the community or the NAC. More on this later...

3. After many hours spent drafting, discussing, and refining the letter, the Newhall Advisory Committee sent a letter to Governor Jodi Rell informing her of our community's rejection of the DEP's plan "and the failure of the flawed process that created it -- a process in which we were given only the illusion of involvement." The letter is printed in its entirety below.

It speaks for itself.

September 18, 2006

Honorable M. Jodi Rell
Governor of Connecticut
State Capitol
Hartford, Connecticut 06106

Dear Governor Rell:

On August 17, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) released its proposed cleanup plan for our neighborhood, the Newhall Remediation site in Southern Hamden. On August 31, we, the members of the Newhall Advisory Committee, a body formed by the DEP as a pillar of the State-mandated public involvement campaign, voted with near unanimity to reject the DEP’s proposed plan unconditionally, and in its entirety. We are writing to you at this time to explain why, after waiting patiently for many years for the DEP to put forward its proposed plan, we have taken this course of action.

First and foremost, as a body created to represent our community, we had a responsibility to act on the evident wish of the vast majority of residents in the neighborhood. As was readily apparent to all in attendance, the DEP’s proposed plan was broadly rejected by our neighbors at the August 17 meeting; not one voice was raised in support of the plan. The sense of dismay with what the DEP put forward was also expressed to us by the many unable to attend the Commissioner’s staged meeting. In summary, our community has made it quite clear that the proposed plan was unacceptable, and we would have been remiss in our duties if we had not rejected it.

Moreover, as residents who have studied the matter carefully over the years, we also felt our own impetus to put an end to a plan that, if implemented, would have done permanent damage to our community and would not have addressed the problems it was intended to solve. What the DEP has offered is at best a temporary solution to a small part of the problem, one that would disrupt our lives tremendously and is likely to permanently lower the value of the homes in our area.

It is absolutely essential that following the implementation of any remedy, each one of us will be living in a home that is safe, and on a property that is clean and has been legally cleared of any environmental restrictions on its purchase, sale, and use. The current proposed plan does not achieve this outcome. We have many concerns, but several stood out in our decision to reject the DEP’s proposed plan.

Our community has consistently asked for full cleanup, and the DEP has repeatedly committed to providing a complete and final resolution, yet the DEP’s proposed plan will not provide a full and permanent solution. Instead, Commissioner McCarthy’s plan proposes to replace the top four feet of soil in our yards and to put legal restrictions on how 137 of our neighbors can use their properties (an environmental land use restriction/ELUR). In this respect, the DEP’s proposed plan is the worst of all possible options. According to this plan, many homes with significant contamination at a depth of greater than four feet will not have this matter resolved and will permanently bear the scarlet letter and lingering fear and stigma of contamination (ELURs).

We cannot accept a plan that leaves significant contamination below four feet in place, destroying the value of our properties and potentially putting our health and homes at risk.

In addition, after promising for many years to address the problem, and after allocating substantial state funds to study and assess it, the DEP’s plan was silent on the pressing issue of how to deal with the steady and impending collapse of many of our homes. There are several people in this neighborhood who currently live in homes that have suffered severe settlement from the instability of the underlying landfill. Some of these homes are now in a state of collapse. Commissioner McCarthy, in her ceremonial walk through the neighborhood over a year ago, visited many of these homes and promised to make matters right. Yet when the time has come to act, she now claims that the problem is not her responsibility. For a community that has invested great time and effort on this issue, the Commissioner’s reversal was taken as a betrayal and an affront. Any remedy must solve this problem as its first order of business. In some cases, immediate action must be taken, even before the development of a plan.

Given how long we had to wait for its arrival, we were not eager to reject the proposed plan when it finally appeared, but Commissioner McCarthy left us no choice. After an unjustifiably long delay since the Department wrote its preliminary assessment of the Newhall site, they have failed to deliver a workable plan.

The Process

The failure of the proposed plan is also a failure of the flawed process that created it—a process in which we were given only the illusion of involvement.

In principle, and by State mandate, our community was to play an important role in resolving the problems stemming from the fact that large parts of our neighborhood were built on a landfill. Indeed, according to the “modifying” criteria set out by State and Federal guidelines, no plan can move forward without our support. With our participation in mind, the State Bond Commission, under your guidance and direction, allocated close to four million dollars to the Newhall remediation, with much of it earmarked for “public involvement.” Since 2003 alone, the DEP has spent more than $600,000 on public relations at Newhall, approximately $2000 per property. We, as members of the NAC, have devoted countless hours to meetings and reviews of documents. We have written letters and provided suggestions and recommendations. In short, without any compensation whatsoever, we have devoted a substantial portion of our lives to act as citizens in the service of our community.

With the development and release of its proposed plan, however, the DEP confirmed that it sees our community’s role as nothing more than empty ceremony, a mere formality. The proposed plan was put forward without any consideration given to the required modifying criteria. As they developed the plan, the Department’s staff refused to share even the broadest outlines of what they were considering. The proposed plan itself was only delivered to our homes just hours before the meeting took place, allowing us no time whatsoever to review it in advance of a meeting that was initially intended to be an opportunity to answer questions on a plan that could have been distributed weeks in advance. And despite the fact that we requested that the community be given several weeks advanced notice of the meeting, residents in our area received word of the meeting in the mail only a few days before it was scheduled to take place, allowing us little time to adjust our schedules so that we could attend.

It is disheartening to think of how easily the valid concerns with the central elements of the proposed plan could have been aired early on, and the plan revised, if there had been a genuine process of engagement with the community. Instead, the DEP chose to cloister themselves with their contractors up in Hartford, and to unveil a proposal that was not only patently flawed, but which disregarded virtually every recommendation or request made over the past years by our community. In this respect, the plan bore the marks of its creators. Like so much in DEP’s management of the Newhall site, it benefits their contractors but not our community.

For our part, we have continually strived to make our participation in the process more active and meaningful, only to be rebuffed. On the grounds that funds are not available, Commissioner McCarthy has repeatedly denied our requests for an independent scientific advisor to help us to make more informed decisions, and yet she has insisted on subcontracting $74,420 for a highly-paid lawyer to “facilitate” the monthly meetings of our small community board.

Moreover, when we learned of significant problems with the management, contracting, and misallocation of state funds at the site, we brought this to the attention of the appropriate authorities. Many millions of dollars in State Bond funds earmarked for this community have found their way into the hands of a few select state contractors, generally using uncompetitive contracts, a matter that is now being pursued by the Attorney General’s office. We believe that the current environmental consultants are entirely inappropriate for the largest residential remediation in Connecticut’s history, and hope that this can be resolved before any more remediation funds are spent needlessly.

In the past, we have also been gracious and patient with the DEP’s patronizing and, at times, contemptuous attitude towards our community. Unfortunately, our patience appears to have been perceived as passivity, and has met with no good ends. It has become clear that the DEP has never felt that they needed any input or information from this community, or that we had anything valuable to add to the process. Sadly, yet predictably, the process has been impoverished by our exclusion from it.

Moving Forward: A Community Plan

Given the failure of the DEP’s proposed plan to find support from the community it was ostensibly intended to aid, or from the taxpayers and elected representatives who are expected to fund it, our community has taken matters into our own hands and, with the help of independent consultants, is in the process of building consensus on an alternative plan. The DEP has had many years to resolve the problem, and they have failed. We hope that you will give us an opportunity to have our turn at the wheel and to put forward our own solution. If our community succeeds in the endeavor, as we expect to, we hope that we will find you among our strongest supporters.

Sincerely yours,

The Members of the Newhall Advisory Committee

The EPA Lead Standard: 1200 ppm

2006-09-13T13:52:00.000-04:00

Ever since we learned that the DEP had set an artificially strict lead standard for the soils at the Newhall site, there has been considerable discussion with the DEP, our legislators, and neighbors about what should be done to remedy this problem. That discussion is still ongoing, but here are five reasons to adopt 1200 parts per million (ppm) as the lead standard for the Newhall site:

1. Because it is what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends

The EPA's lead hazard regulation “establishes the following standards for bare residential soil: a hazard standard of 400 ppm by weight in play areas based on the play area bare soil sample and an average of 1,200 ppm in bare soil in the remainder of the yard, based on an average of all other samples collected.” (see the Federal Register, January 5, 2001, p.1211: "Lead; Identification of Dangerous Levels of Lead; Final Rule")

The DEP continues to mislead us, our legislators, the Governor, and the State Auditors by claiming that the artificial lead level of 400 ppm (which it applies to all soil samples, regardless of location or depth) was selected because it is the EPA’s standard. To confirm that we are telling the truth, just type in “EPA soil lead standard” in Google and you will find yourself at the EPA’s own Lead Hazard web page. On that page, you will find confirmation of the EPA standards and also a link to the Federal Register so that you can see the full legal document for yourself. As that Federal record makes clear, the EPA only added the 400 ppm caveat for bare soil in children’s play areas if such areas were clearly marked—like a playground—and could be readily identified. The EPA is quite explicit that 400 ppm should not be applied to the whole yard and that the samples should be averaged.

2. Because a 1200 ppm standard already goes well beyond what is necessary to protect our health and the health of our children

Even the current levels of lead in the soil—without any remediation at all—have not led to any lead contamination in Newhall. Extensive tests have shown that blood lead levels in children (and adults) in Newhall are well below the minimum risk levels set by the EPA. In fact, in the thirty years since the Quinnipiack Valley Health District began testing the lead levels of blood in the residents of our area, only three children have ever shown blood lead levels above the minimum. Two of those children had recently been moved to homes in the Newhall neighborhood as part of a lead decontamination program, and their blood lead levels dropped dramatically after they moved to Newhall from lead contaminated homes in New Haven. The third child had suffered contamination from lead paint within the home. All children in Connecticut are now screened for lead, and there are proportionately fewer cases of lead contamination in Newhall than there are in the rest of Hamden, or in most cities in the State (see the DPH data here). There is now overwhelming evidence that the relatively low lead concentrations in the soils of our neighborhood have not, and do not, pose any risk to our health. In light of this, even 1200 appears an excessive standard if public health is our concern. A 1200 ppm standard is more than safe.

3. Because the DEP's artificial standard is set below the average soil lead levels in the Northeastern U.S.

The EPA has studied the problem of health risks from soil lead for decades and they have reams of data on lead levels in residential soils. During the extensive research and analysis that went into developing the 1200 ppm lead standard, the EPA determined that the average soil lead concentration for all homes of this age in the Northeastern United States were 542 ppm for homes built prior to 1940 and 573 ppm for homes built between 1940 and 1959. If the artificial standards that the DEP applied in this case were applied throughout the Northeast, the vast majority of homes built prior to 1959 would be classified as lying on contaminated waste and slated for remediation.

4. Because using the EPA standard will allow us to clean up all of the contamination in Newhall while saving many millions of dollars, and leave us and our properties with a clean bill of health and no land use restrictions.

By adopting the EPA’s 1200 standard, the vast majority of homes currently slated for remediation would be cleared. Most homes have been labeled as "contaminated" falsely, due to the artificial standard. As a result, by setting the EPA standard of 1200 ppm we would be left with an affordable, manageable, and non-intrusive cleanup. There are better ways to spend $72 million on this community than digging up clean soils that have been shown to be harmless through repeated testing over many decades.

5. Because it's the right thing to do, and the Commissioner can do it easily.

The Commissioner has already set an arbitrary site-specific standard of 400 ppm, claiming that she did so on the grounds that 400 is the standard used by the EPA. We are simply asking her to adopt the true EPA standard. If she had the authority to adopt a false standard, she surely has the authority to adopt the real thing. In fact, she is not the only one who can make the change. The Commissioner has extended the authority to set “site-specific standards" to the Director of Remediation, a post currently occupied by Patrick Bowe. The Connecticut Remediation Standard Regulations even explain, on page 15, how to request the Commissioner’s approval of “Alternative Soil Criteria.” It can be done today.

To our elected representatives:

It is rare in politics that we are presented with good solutions without significant tradeoffs. By simply adopting the EPA’s recommended standard, we—as a state, town, and community—will save millions of dollars, prevent many people from being turned out of their homes, protect the health of ourselves and our children, and solve the problem fully and finally.

Governor, we are hoping that you, in particular, will take up our cause. Please help us turn this around before more damage is done. At this point, only a few million dollars in State funds have been lost, and the disruption of our lives and the damage to our neighborhood is nothing compared to what will happen if you do not act soon. Please ask the Commissioner to adopt the EPA’s lead standard for our site.

A Community Plan

2006-08-30T17:35:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it's amazing how much better citizens function than state bureaucracies.

Less than two weeks after the DEP released its own plan, a draft "Community Plan" is now circulating the neighborhood and people are being encouraged to provide comments and suggestions. Unlike the DEP's plan, the Community's draft is being circulated well in advance of the next public meeting on September 19.

Here's the basic idea: Set reasonable soil standards, clean up the genuinely contaminated homes in our neighborhood fully, and compensate people (at no additional cost to the taxpayer) for the inevitable disruption of their lives.

If it sounds simple, that's because it is. This was never a particularly complicated problem. That's why average citizens in our community, people who aren't interested in creating work for the DEP's contractors and consultants, were able to come up with a plan that works so much better for the community it was intended to serve. We all probably have some good ideas about how to improve it, but even in its existing form this plan solves the problem more quickly, fully, and justly than the DEP's proposal. It even costs less than what the DEP proposed and will not leave our community permanently stigmatized and saddled with land use restrictions.

How can that be? Here's an edited version of the proposal that is going around the neighborhood:

A Community Plan

Our Community Plan proposes to remove all soils from the site that do not meet reasonable environmental and health standards, and to leave all properties in the area with a legal certification that they are clean. The plan we have drafted eliminates the many harmful elements of the DEP’s plan, provides a better and more lasting protection of human health and the environment, takes steps to permanently remove the stigma from our neighborhood, restores our homes to their true value, and will allow us to live without lingering fears of contamination or disruption of our lives.

Our Community Plan is based on three basic principles:

1. Full clean-up

There should be no contaminated soil left on any residential property. No resident should have to live with an environmental land use restriction, and the neighborhood as a whole should not have to suffer the continued stigma, dislocation, and loss in home value that the DEP’s plan would entail. The demand for full clean-up and a final resolution to the problem has been the most basic and consistent request of people in our community from the very beginning. It must be honored.

2. Reasonable standards

To attain this goal, the DEP must set reasonable cleanup standards. We propose setting a lead level of 1200 mg/kg for our properties, which is what the U.S. EPA recommends. We also propose setting our soil standards for cancer-causing contaminants at the level at which the risk that you might get cancer from the soil in your yard would be equal to the risk that you might be killed by lightning (1 in 20,000). Both of these standards are extremely protective of our health and the health of our children.

These standards can be adopted easily, with the stroke of a pen. The Commissioner of the DEP has the full authority to set any standards that she wishes for a site. The DEP's current levels are extreme and go well beyond any reasonable protection of public health.

Instead of doing a partial and temporary replacement of the top four feet of soil, which would leave our neighborhood stigmatized and insure that the DEP and its contractors will be back digging up our yards again in the future, the DEP should adopt a more reasonable soil standard (the “lightning standard”) and then clean up the few genuinely contaminated homes in our neighborhood fully. This will allow us to have a final and permanent removal of the contaminants in our yards and set us free to live healthy lives and to buy, sell, and use our homes as we wish.

3. Clarity, closure, and compensation.

People have suffered in this neighborhood as a result of the years of delays, the mistakes made, and the endless uncertainty about whose home lies on landfill and about what will be done. Because of the way that the DEP has mishandled this, a terrible stigma now hangs over all of our properties, whether our soil is contaminated or not.

To remove this stigma and to bring clarity and closure to all concerns about contamination in the area, our plan proposes that the DEP enter a clear legal statement (a “memorandum of understanding”) into each of our land records. This legal statement would describe what, if any, contamination existed on our property, detail any and all mistakes that the DEP or its contractors might have made in reporting their findings, describe how any cleanup that took place served as a permanent and binding resolution of the problem, and give each one of our properties a clear and clean bill of health with no restrictions on its use.

To compensate our neighborhood, if only in small part, for the disruption to our lives, we propose that a special fund be established. The basis of this fund will be the approximately $1,500,000 in State bond funds that were transferred illegally to the DEP’s contractor, Loureiro Engineering Associates, beyond the 60-days allowable under its contract. This money can be recovered by the State of Connecticut and transferred to the members of our community, much like the mechanism that operates in the Federal Government under the False Claims Act. It would present no further cost to the taxpayers of the State or the Town of Hamden. We will also request that the Olin Corporation match those funds in exchange for our support for this alternative plan. Assuming that there have been approximately 500 affected households, we would each expect to receive a check for approximately $6000. Needless to say, all $72 million dollars of the DEP’s plan were earmarked for its contractors. Not one of us would have received a single penny under the DEP’s plan.

It’s your choice

No one has the right to tell you what to do with your own property, but if you prefer this Community Plan to the plan put forward by the Department of Environmental Protection, it is important to express that opinion before the end of the 60-day comment period on October 20.

If you have comments or suggestions on the Community Plan, you can send them to the email address linked to this site. Unlike the DEP, we truly want your input and will make changes based on your ideas before submitting it to the DEP at the end of the comment period.

THE TIME IS NOW

When it comes to public comment, Commissioner McCarthy has made it clear that there are only two opinions that she genuinely cares about. One of them is the opinion of Governor Jodi Rell. The other (and much less so) is the opinion of our Legislators. We will be submitting a final version of this plan to the DEP at the end of the comment period, but they will do nothing if the Governor and the Legislature do not take up our cause. If you do not want to see your neighborhood and your Town permanently harmed, you must write to these officials now. The Governor's staff must read and respond to emails within two weeks. So we need to start sending those emails now.

Here is the list of officials to whom you should send your response:

Governor M. Jodi Rell
Governor.Rell@po.state.ct.us

Senator Martin Looney
looney@senatedems.ct.gov

Senator Joseph Crisco
Crisco@senatedems.ct.gov

Representative Peter Villano
Peter.Villano@cga.ct.gov

And so they can't say that no one told them...
DEP's Thomas W. RisCassi
Thomas.riscassi@po.state.ct.us

It's Time for a New Plan

2006-08-25T06:38:00.000-04:00

Question: Does this Fitzgerald and Halliday diagram illustrate the end goal of the DEP's defunct remediation plan, or the problem that the plan was designed to remedy?

Answer: BOTH

That's right. After years of waiting, on August 18th Commissioner McCarthy unveiled a proposed "remedy" that was virtually identical to the department's explanation of the cause of soil contamination at Newhall: covering up a contaminated landfill. Did it really take the DEP and Loureiro Engineering Associates several years to come up with their proposal to replace the few feet of soil that were placed over the original landfill, at a cost of 72 million dollars? If nothing else, LEA found a brilliant way to extend the life of the DEP's Big Dig boondoggle. If this "plan" were implemented, the DEP and its contractors would have the opportunity to dig up our neighborhood again in 25 years.

It's no surprise, then, that the DEP's bizarre plan and the closed process that created it were universally rejected by our community and its legislative representatives at the public meeting on August 18th. Not one person voiced even conditional support. If you missed the meeting, you can relive it through Sharon Bass' excellent and vivid recounting of the events, or watch it on CTV, which has been rebroadcasting the meeting. Casey Miner also nicely captures the DEP's unique combination of bureaucratic arrogance and scientific incompetence in her story in this week's Advocate.

There was a general consensus that the DEP's performance at the meeting was no better than their plan. The DEP's responses to questions were only half-hearted. Director of Remediation, Patrick Bowe, and his Assistant, Rob Bell, first tried to claim that when the landfill had been covered initially, it probably hadn't been covered over with enough soil. Had they actually checked with the Town to identify how the site had been dealt with originally? Of course not.

Is There Any Risk?

But the big elephant in the room that the DEP was clearly afraid of, and which they tried to dodge at the meeting, was the question of what risk, if any, we face from the soils in our area. The DEP staff blushed and squirmed when the audience broke into applause at the calls by one of our neighbors not to dig up our soils to protect us from cancer risks that are 50 times more remote than the risk of being killed by lightning. Sharp criticism of their ridiculous standards is not something that the DEP are used to hearing, because it's not something that most people know about (the DEP hides the details in cryptic formulas like the ones shown here). The fact is that there are only a few areas of Newhall that present a significant risk to our health, and they can be cleaned up fully and completely. In fact, the DEP's own remediation plan presents a greater risk to public health and the environment than the current conditions do...which is why that plan is dead in the water.

The Community not only deserves better, but it can do better. It's time for us to develop an alternative plan.

AN OPEN LETTER TO COMMISSIONER McCARTHY REGARDING THE LANDFILL NOW KNOWN AS BUSHNELL PARK

2006-08-19T01:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Commissioner McCarthy:

At the public meeting held on August 17, 2006 at which you released your Plan for the clean-up of the Newhall neighborhood, you may recall that one of our neighbors stood up and asked you what you would do if it were your yard that lay on top of a former industrial dumpsite.

You never responded. But the question is more relevant to your situation than you might think.

Don’t worry. We’re not talking about the yard of your home in Canton, Massachusetts. We’re talking about the “yard” in front of your offices at the Department of Environmental Protection.

We’re talking about Bushnell Park.

That’s right, much like our much humbler parks here in Hamden and in countless other towns throughout the state, Bushnell Park was once an industrial waste dump, a site of such extensive contamination that it was described by the Reverend Horace Bushnell in the late 1800s as “hell without the fire."

Bushnell Park in 1850: “Hell without the fire.”

According to the website of the Bushnell Park Foundation, today’s Bushnell Park was once the wetlands of the “Little” or “Mill” River (later known as the “Park River”), but by the mid-19th Century, the area had become a polluted stretch of chemical-intensive industries (including two tanneries) and garbage dumps. During the mid-19th Century factories like the Pratt and Whitney Machine Parts Co. and, later, Col. Albert Pope's bicycle and automobile factory emptied their wastes into the river, which reportedly ran murky with industrial wastes. In the 19th Century, what would later become Bushnell Park was a contaminated wasteland…and Bushnell just covered it over to create the park that now bears his name.

And unlike Newhall, the contamination in Bushnell Park does not seem to have been contained very well. Well into the 1930s and 1940s, the befouled Park River regularly flooded the entirety of Bushnell Park and the surrounding streets, leaving a layer of contaminated silt on the surface of the greens. These are the very areas that the staff from your Department and the surrounding government offices now sit on the grass to eat their lunches each day during the warm weather.

So it seems that we are all in the same predicament. Perhaps now you can relate to our situation a little better than you initially thought.

Or to put all of this in the language familiar to your Department, our “Phase I” investigation suggests that your yard is on landfill waste to a depth of at least four feet, and you may be placing a significant number of people at risk from contamination from the fill materials.

What is to be done?

This brings us back to the question you were asked by our neighbor and we are very curious as to what you will do about the Bushnell landfill. Will you sound the alarm and begin to channel millions of dollars in State bond funds under emergency contracts (without competitive bids) to favored contractors like Loureiro Engineering Associates, as you and your staff have done at Newhall? Can we expect you to sign a Consent Order with United Technologies (Pratt and Whitney) and the Town of Hartford to pay for the removal of the top four feet of soil, including the removal of all of the historic trees and structures of the Park, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, to clean Bushnell Park up to your Department’s arbitrarily strict remediation standards? Will you draw out the process for years and then finally put forward a plan that evicts those working around the Park (including the Governor) from their offices for the duration of the remediation, while providing them with no compensation whatsoever for the utter disruption of their lives? Or can we expect to wait, as those of us in Newhall have, for 28 years following your Department's initial site investigation before any decision is taken about what is to be done?

Please let us know at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely yours,

The Residents of Newhall

A FEW QUESTIONS FOR THE AUDITORS...

2006-08-17T08:50:00.000-04:00

There were three excellent articles in the local press today about Hamden’s Big Dig following the release of the Auditors' report.

Casey Miner’s piece in the New Haven Advocate was a masterpiece in many respects. Of the many wonderful anecdotes, our personal favorite was the discussion of how LEA went to a historic home built in 1852 on Alling Street, took soil samples where the owner told them the old outhouse used to be, and then used those samples to claim that the home (which pre-dates the Winchester plant) was built on landfill waste. Perhaps, since the DEP appears to be so wedded to employing its lead Big Dig contractor, LEA’s services would be better suited to “remediating” the pit toilets in Connecticut’s State parks rather than managing the scientific investigation and clean-up of Newhall. Given the DEP’s creative “interpretations” of the law, they could probably even cover this work under an emergency spills contract.

High praise is also in order for today’s Hamden Daily News piece. More than anyone else, Sharon Bass was able to bore down to the essentials in the Auditors’ report and get beyond the happy press release that the DEP put out in the morning, which they hoped would substitute for an actual reading of the report. It almost worked. At the DEP’s request, the Auditors withheld the release of the report (dated August 14) until just before the close of business yesterday, long after most daily reporters would have needed to file their stories. Fortunately, our daily reporters were enterprising enough to track down a copy and Ann DeMatteo got a strong and well-balanced story into the Register for today’s paper.

But after reviewing the Auditors’ report in more detail, it is clear that it raises more questions than it answers. Even for a document that is intended to be the first step in an investigation, it left too many inconsistencies and loose ends for the Attorney General’s office to follow up on. We’ll be providing a full list of questions and a correction of several errors in the Auditors’ report to our elected representatives in the coming weeks, but here are a few questions our friends at the Attorney General’s office (and in the press) might want to ask the Auditors while we finish our work:

Question 1: A Protracted State of Emergency at Newhall?
Your report points out that LEA’s billing for services under the Spills contract “exceed[ed] the sixty (60) day maximum for emergency service contracts by almost three years.” (p.5) Even if we were to assume that Elsie Patton had the authority to hire LEA without receiving competitive proposals, and to extend the contract for an additional 30 days (although your reasoning here is sketchy), is it not the case that neither she nor anyone else at the DEP had the authority to extend the contract beyond 60 days? Was there any legal contractual basis for the “services” which LEA performed beyond the sixty days allowable for an emergency contract under the laws of our State, services for which LEA was provided over $1.5 million? Since the extended use of an emergency contract for non-emergency purposes appears to be the most significant violation of the laws of our State, one that renders all other contracting issues moot, why is it buried on page 5 and not referenced in the introduction or conclusion?

Question 2: An Appropriate Scientific Assessment?
Throughout the report, you repeatedly attest to your lack of scientific qualifications to evaluate aspects of the work done by LEA. You state, for example, that:

"We reviewed these communications even though we recognized that we do not have a scientific background that can allow us to reach any scientific conclusions regarding what actions were required."

"We wish to emphasize again that we do not have a scientific background that can allow us to reach any supported conclusions regarding what the factual information presented means in terms of what remediation will be required."

"We emphasize that we do not have the expertise to reach scientific conclusions regarding the interpretation of these test results in terms of what remediation actions are necessary."

It is not at all clear to us how the areas where you repeatedly profess a lack of scientific qualifications differ from the other areas where you felt comfortable assessing LEA’s soil sampling work. We are very disturbed by information that you relied on the DEP’s own staff (Diane Duva) to evaluate certain aspects of LEA’s investigation (particularly regarding the soil sampling protocol and the expansion of the investigation to the Prospect Hill). It is also a matter of concern that several of the most important claims demonstrated in the Prospect Hill Residents’ Report were never addressed in your report. Was this, too, because you felt you lacked sufficient scientific background to address them? In addition to examining the financial problems at Newhall, you were tasked with evaluating an apparently flawed scientific investigation. If you lacked the necessary scientific expertise, why did you not hire qualified experts that would allow you to perform the assessment rather than leave matters unaddressed or rely on the staff of the very department that you were investigating?

Question 3: What Are the State’s Legal Standards for Cleaning Up Residential Properties?
In the report, you discuss the lead standard, and claim that the “printed” State of Connecticut Regulations of the DEP should not be seen as the applicable standard. Is there some “oral” regulatory tradition that you consider to have more legal validity than the printed regulations of the State? You refer to the EPA standards, but it would appear from your report that the EPA’s suggested lead standard for residential yards is 1200 mg/kg. There appears to be no legal, scientific or health basis for the DEP’s Newhall lead standard of 400 mg/kg, which is below the average soil lead levels for homes of this age in the Northeastern United States. The Department of Public Health suggests that blood lead levels in children only reach a point of concern if they are playing in soil contaminated with lead at a level of 1500 mg/kg, 365 days per year, for 100% of their playtime hours. Given this information, wouldn't the DEP still be protecting public health and the environment if they used a more reasonable standard?

ATTEND THE MEETING TODAY AT 6:30. WE HAVE LEARNED THAT THERE WILL BE A COMMUNITY PRESS CONFERENCE PRIOR TO THE MEETING AT 6:00pm, OUTSIDE THE BALLROOM WHERE THE DEP MEETING IS BEING HELD.

THE AUDITORS' REPORT

2006-08-16T03:26:00.000-04:00

The Connecticut State Auditors have now released their report on the financial violations and other concerns regarding the work done by Loureiro Engineering Associates for the Department of Environmental Protection at Hamden's Newhall site. Once you cut through the Auditors' typical benign, deferential tone, there are some very disturbing findings in this report. It will be interesting to see how the DEP tries to spin the fact that the Auditors have now asked the Attorney General’s office to take the next step and open up their own investigation into the DEP's illegal contracting and misuse of state funds.

As is often the case with politically-sensitive bipartisan reports like this one, the more important information is buried deep in the middle of the document. As a public service, we thought it might be helpful if we ferreted out some of the essentials. The full report is available on the Auditors’ website, but here are some of the critical passages:

1. “Our review disclosed that the Loureiro Engineering Associates has been billing the DEP for services rendered as far back as April 2003 exceeding the sixty (60) day maximum for emergency service contracts by almost three years.” (page 5 of the Auditors’ Report)

This confirms the fundamental concern we have raised from the beginning, that DEP illegally transferred funds to LEA by extending a no-bid contract designed for emergency response to hazardous spills (the Spills Contract). Legally, services were to be provided under the Spills contract for no more than 30 days, with an additional 30-day extension possible with the written approval of the Commissioner. No one, not even the Commissioner herself, has the authority to extend the contract beyond the 60-day maximum for emergency service contracts. Nonetheless, through seven addenda “approved” by a DEP employee with close personal ties to LEA staff, the supply of “services” under the contract lasted for over three years.

What does this mean? It means that every dollar spent on LEA beyond that sixty (60) day period, a sum totaling over $1.5 million dollars, was spent in violation of state contract and Connecticut state law.

2. The Auditors’ report also confirms that LEA was self-dealing the interim clean-up contracts at Newhall to its wholly-owned subsidiary, LEA-Cianci, and that LEA-Cianci billed the State for five times the small amount for which those services were originally contracted.

Regarding LEA’s award of a contract to LEA-Cianci, the Auditors’ report states the obvious: “a subsidiary of a prime contractor should not be hired as a subcontractor.” (p.5) The report also identifies a significant problem with LEA-Cianci's unauthorized work. According to the report, “although the original subcontract was for $18,050 and the scope was included under addendum four to the contract, as of July 11, 2006, LEA-Cianci had billed LEA a total of $92,499.” (p.5) We can only hope that this self-dealing won't continue as the multi-million dollar remediation of Newhall finally starts.

3. The Auditors also report that DEP employees have channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars in state bond funds to LEA without using any contracts or authorizations at all. According to the Auditors’ report:

“Our review disclosed that LEA has invoiced the DEP $1,641,241 for work completed through May 2006 [on contracts totaling only $1,177,804]. Written approval for this additional work totaling $463,437 has not been obtained as of June 28, 2006. However, what we found was that payments of $193,084 were made to LEA beyond the approved addenda and that the remaining amount of $270,353 apparently represents work already completed but for which written approval has not been granted and for which payment has not been made. As of June 28, 2006, LEA has submitted addenda 7A and 8 increasing the total contract value by an additional $590,152 which will cover services through June 30, 2006 (page 5)…We believe that the DEP should not allow its contractors to expend or commit funds without first obtaining written authorization to do so.” (page 6)

In summary, nearly half a million dollars was earmarked for LEA without even the semblance of official authorization. If prosecuted fully, that is the sort of thing that might put someone in jail and should certainly lead to a prohibition on all future contracts to LEA.

4. The Auditors report also reveals that the contracting improprieties continued even while DEP and LEA were under investigation. For example, a special provision in the new $5 million remediation contracts that the DEP began awarding in June allows the State to request a proposal from only one bidder, i.e. without any competition at all. According to the Auditors' report:

“This provision appears to have been included so that DEP could hire LEA to continue working on the Newhall Perimeter Project. As we stated above, we always question whether a decision that does not provide for multiple proposals is in the best interests of the State.” (page 9)

This is deeply disturbing. We’re quite certain that the State, our town, and our neighborhood are harmed by the fact that LEA's work at Newhall has never been put out to competitive bidding and its cozy ties with DEP employees have been enough to secure its steady supply of State funds. We are heartened by the Auditors’ decision to “refer this and other matters to the Attorney General’s Office for his review and consideration.” (page 9)

We hope that the AG's office will also hire some independent experts to examine the scientific flaws with LEA's work, not just its illegal contracting. That's something that the Auditors were not given the resources to do. They had to rely on the DEP's "expertise," and it's no surprise that the fox didn't tell them about all the trouble in the henhouse.

But the indictments of the Auditors' report are an important first step. The rest will come...all in good time.

THREE THINGS THE DEP DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT HAMDEN'S BIG DIG

2006-08-10T08:52:00.000-04:00

1. The chances of getting cancer from the soils in Newhall are many times lower than your chances of being struck by lightning

That’s right. As an American, you have a 1 in 600,000 chance of being struck by lightning in any given year. Over thirty years, your risk of being struck by lightning is 1 in 20,000. That’s not very high. Most of us never give it much thought.

As a Newhall resident, even if your soil had “contamination” levels double the artificial standards being used by the DEP at the Newhall site, and you ate a 100 milligram tablet of your soil every day of your life, the probability that it would give you cancer within your lifetime is only 1 in 500,000.

Needless to say, that’s not the sort of risk that would make most of us want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars digging up the neighborhood.

2. During the “remediation” residents will kicked out of their homes

Believe it or not, people from the neighborhood have never been told by the DEP that they will be forced to leave their homes for the duration of the remediation of their property and the properties of their neighbors. The DEP is planning to remove the top four feet of their soil from the neighborhood, engineer a soil cap for the area, and then fill the area with non-native dirt to bring it back up to the original surface level. That’s not just going to take a lot of money. It's going to take a long time, and people won’t be happy about being evicted from their properties while they are "remediated"…so the DEP decided not to tell us.

In truth, the DEP hasn’t figured out what to do about the inconvenient fact that people happen to live on the “parcels” that they want to pay their contractors so much money to “remediate.” They’ve never really had to deal with this problem before. But they’re learning. We’ve certainly seen an improvement over the plan the DEP was working with back in December, before people got wise to what they were up to. At that time, they were planning on razing over 100 homes and evicting the current residents permanently.

3. The DEP’s “remedy” will only worsen the problem it claims to be trying to solve

That’s right. By the DEP’s artificially extreme standards for determining which soils need to be remediated, the proposed "remedy" will simply recreate or even exacerbate the “problem.” After the beautiful historic trees of our area are uprooted, after our gardens are destroyed, after the buildings on our property are razed, after hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of our native soil are excavated and hauled away in trucks, what will have been accomplished? Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars will have been spent, several years will have passed, our property values will have been destroyed, a few select contractors will have been enriched, but there will have been no “remediation”. In most cases, uncontaminated soil will simply have been replaced with uncontaminated fill. If we were to apply, perhaps as much as a decade from now, the standards that are being applied by the DEP on our properties today, the whole area would be again identified as “waste” and again require remediation. At great taxpayer expense, the DEP will have returned us to the status quo.

Don't like it? Neither do we.

Come to the meeting on August 17. It will be held in the ballroom at the Michael J. Adanti Student Center at Southern Connecticut State University at 6:30 pm.

DEP's ILLEGAL CONTRACTS (Part 1: The Subcontractors)

2006-08-07T00:14:00.000-04:00

In case you were wondering how it was possible that Connecticut taxpayers ended up spending over half a million dollars on PR subcontractors at Hamden's Big Dig, we have the answer:

It was done illegally.

That’s right. The entire pyramid of subcontractors that Loureiro Engineering Associates (LEA) built with our state bond money had no legal basis. In fact LEA, the DEP's lead Newhall contractor, did not have the legal authorization to hire any subcontractors at all.

As we embark on our foray into the netherworld of state contracts at the Newhall site, let’s start at the beginning, with the special contract that the DEP used to channel funds to LEA and all of its subcontractors...

The "Spills Contract"

LEA was hired on at the Newhall site under the Department’s contract for “Hazardous Spill Response, Recovery, Removal, and Disposal,” a now-infamous contract that has been the focus of an investigation of the DEP by a Grand Jury and the CT Attorney General's office. The “Spills Contract,” as it is known at the DEP, created a coterie of pre-approved contractors who could be assigned jobs by the DEP at any time without competitive bids.

Now don't get us wrong. We aren't obsessive about competitive contracting, and if used properly for its primary intended purpose there would not be a problem with the Spills Contract. If there is an overturned tanker on the highway, we understand that there is no time to hold a proper competition for contracts to clean up the spill.

Needless to say, however, it did not make sense to use this contract to select the State’s lead contractor for the largest residential remediation in Connecticut history, where the last “spills” occurred more than 50 years ago, were “discovered” in 1979, and where the investigation and remediation are slated to last at least a decade. There was plenty of time for normal, competitive contracting at Newhall. But let’s leave the discussion of the assignment, extension, and expansion of LEA’s own contract to a later posting and focus on the subcontractors.

The Spills Contract had several safeguards embedded in it to limit the obvious risk that it could be abused. One of those safeguards was an explicit prohibition against the hiring of subcontractors. According to Section 7.1.1 of the contract, “A contractor shall not employ the services of a subcontractor, or allow labor, equipment or materials to be provided on a subcontract basis, unless such use is authorized by the Commissioner of DEP in writing or is authorized pursuant to section 5.5.1 or 5.5.2 of this Bid and Contract [Sections 5.5.1 and 5.5.2 also require the explicit authorization of the Commissioner in his or her sole capacity.]”

But the Commissioner did not authorize LEA to employ the services of a subcontractor. She also didn’t delegate the authorities under Section 7.1.1 of the contract to Elsie Patton, who signed off on the contracts, or to anyone else at the DEP. Nonetheless, Patton and LEA just went ahead and created a massive pyramid of subcontractors (and subs of subs) without legal authorization.

Why would Connecticut taxpayers pay for all of this unauthorized work, especially since it was not done on our behalf? The good news is that we don’t have to. Because all of this bond money was allocated by DEP and LEA illegally, the citizens and our elected representatives have the right to take it back. The state is not responsible for the payment of its subcontractors, only Loureiro is…and rightly so. It is only fitting that a bunch of subcontractors who are in LEA’s pocket should be paid for out of LEA’s own pocket.

The PR Campaign: $572,496.62 and counting...

2006-08-03T00:10:00.000-04:00

The problems at Hamden’s Newhall site began to get a little bit more public attention this past week with excellent articles in the New Haven Register and the Hamden Daily News, and some informed discussion on Ann Altman’s list. We are very grateful for these reputable papers for calling attention to our site.

We hear that the press (and the blog) also led to quite a bit of unpleasant behind-the-scenes activity between the DEP, LEA, FHI, and the other Big Dig subcontractors. The only public voice, of course, was Dennis Schain’s, with a futile attempt to present the Auditors' investigation to the Register as if it were just another day at the office. Schain, who came to the DEP after serving as spokesman for Governor Jodi Rell, predictably repeated the DEP’s mantra about protecting public health and the environment, but he never did explain why two long-serving, established legislators like Martin Looney and Peter Villano thought it was important to request an investigation of the DEP’s relationship with its lead Newhall contractor, or what it was that the Auditors found in DEP’s files that has kept them so pre-occupied for the past few months. What will it take for the DEP to make a public admission that there is a very serious problem in the Department? We’ll have to wait and see…

…But in the meantime, we thought we’d share some more of our own findings. To facilitate the flow of information to the public, we’ll be putting up new postings every two or three days between now and the Commissioner’s visit to our neighborhood on the 17th of August.

Let’s start with the enormous sums spent on public relations at the Newhall site...

The "Public Involvement" Boondoggle

You might think it wouldn’t cost much to pay someone to say, “Hold on, we’re hard at work on a plan that will be protective of human health and the environment,” for three years running, but between August 29, 2003 and March 31, 2006, the DEP spent $572,496.62 on public relations subcontractors. That comes out to $1889.43 spent for each of the 303 residences that are listed as part of the Newhall site.

That kind of money should be able to buy a highly informed public, but most people in the neighborhood are still completely in the dark about what is going on. Most people in the neighborhood have no idea whether their home lies on waste, or about the nature of the risks from their soil, or what remediation will mean for their lives and property. And even though money from the State Bonding Commission was earmarked for the implementation of a "public involvement plan" (see p. 64 of this linked document), the only sustained public participation in Newhall is the Newhall Advisory Committee, which is a monthly meeting of (unpaid) community reps whose requests and suggestions the DEP consistently rebuffs. Indeed, the only request that the neighborhood has made of the DEP—for an independent scientific expert to help evaluate the different remediation options—has been repeatedly denied by Commissioner McCarthy. In short, none of the extraordinary “public involvement” funding seems to involve the public.

So what happened to the money? Let's take a look...

$337,038.04 went to Jill Barrett and her firm, Fitzgerald and Halliday, Inc. (FHI)
(August 29, 2003 through March 2006).
We genuinely have no idea how this enormous transfer of public funds to FHI can be explained. FHI produced a handful of summaries, put up a website that was virtually identical in design to one used at another FHI project, filed written reports to DEP about some of our neighbors, and sent out a few mailings...but produced no known tangible results and nothing that would appear to cost this much.

$112,721.99 went to Health Risk Consultants and its subcontractors
(Beginning August 29, 2003)
HRC seems to have virtually the same job description as FHI, unless there is a clear difference between “public outreach” (FHI) and “facilitating public involvement” (HRC). Both firms were employed simultaneously. Given how little was conveyed to the public during this time, one PR firm would have been too many. Two looks like a boondoggle, or worse...

$42,861.54 went to Pamala Moore
(May 16, 2005 through April 21, 2006)
Moore was subcontracted to serve as the DEP’s Community Office Manager. According to the job description, Moore spends 37 hours per week disseminating information to community residents. In point of fact, Moore serves as a mouthpiece for LEA and DEP on the NAC, at public meetings, and with the media, posing as an ordinary resident and keeping hidden the fact that she is on LEA’s payroll.

$39,875.05 went to Kathleen M. Conway
(March 4, 2005 through March 2006)
Most community boards are self-governing. They elect a chair, somebody keeps the minutes, and everything usually functions just fine. For some reason the DEP thought it was more important for the Newhall Advisory Committee to have a “facilitator” to perform these simple functions than it was to have a scientist to advise them. For this purpose, they chose a highly paid lawyer, Ms. Kathleen Conway, and contracted with her for $74,420. The truth is that Conway is the NAC’s official handler, whose true job appears to be to steer the committee in whatever direction the DEP wants it to go. You can count on her to call on pre-selected “ordinary residents” at the August 17 meeting to voice support for DEP’s plan.

And since all of these are LEA subcontractors, LEA takes home a percentage as well.

THE PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT PLAN HAS BENEFITED THE CONTRACTORS, NOT THE PUBLIC

Four Things Everyone Should Know About Hamden's "Big Dig"

2006-07-24T16:24:00.000-04:00

(With warm thanks to our neighbors up on Prospect Hill for sharing the results of all their hard investigative work)

1. THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION IS NOW UNDER INVESTIGATION BY THE STATE AUDITORS’ OFFICE FOR ITS WORK AT THE NEWHALL SITE.

The Auditors’ office has been investigating since mid-April and their report should be out later this summer. We expect that the AG’s office will soon step in as well. Hopefully they can figure out how to recover some of the $2,455,000 in bond money squandered by the DEP at the Newhall site.

2. THE DEP CHANNELED THE NEWHALL FUNDS TO A FEW FAVORED CONTRACTORS, WITH WHAT APPEAR TO BE BLATANT VIOLATIONS OF STATE CONTRACTING LAWS.

Much of the State’s bond money went to the DEP’s lead contractor at the site, Loureiro Engineering Associates (LEA), under a limited Contract that was designed to provide rapid, short-term (30 day) response to hazardous spills. Through seven unauthorized “addenda” to a modest original work proposal of only $48,229.95 submitted in May 2003, LEA was ultimately paid $1,306,682.03 (as of March 2006) by the State of Connecticut over a period of more than two and a half years for work on the Newhall Remediation site in Hamden, CT. Because LEA was initially hired to do some soil sampling at a couple of neighborhood plots, it never had to compete against other potentially much more qualified bidders for its jobs, such as:
1. Serving as the lead Contractor overseeing the investigation of the Newhall site.
2. The lucrative soil investigation of over 120 homes when DEP expanded the site.
3. Serving as the Contractor responsible for the development, cost analysis, and evaluation of alternative remediation plans.

Moreover, through a bidding process that LEA administered, LEA also awarded contracts to perform “emergency remedial measures” at the site to its wholly-owned subsidiary, LEA-Cianci.

And this is apparently only the beginning. Department emails obtained by one of our neighbors under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Department planned to allocate large sums to LEA in this manner, several times per year, until at least 2009. In June of this year, in the midst of the ongoing investigation by the State Auditor’s office, LEA was awarded a $5 million remediation contract by the DEP.

3. INSTEAD OF CLEANING UP THE SITE SEVERAL YEARS AGO, THE DEP EMBARKED ON A COSTLY AND UNNECESSARY EXPANSION OF NEWHALL.

The few genuine areas of contaminated landfill were already well defined in 2003. Instead of cleaning these areas up three years ago, the DEP spent much of its $2.5 million of State Bond funds expanding the site to include new residential neighborhoods and homes that were known NOT to be former landfill areas. By doing so, the DEP:

1) Created the many years of unnecessary delays that have so frustrated residents

2) Squandered the millions in bond money that were earmarked for planning the clean-up of the contaminated areas

3) Took a clean-up that should be manageable and affordable and artificially bloated it in size by throwing in over 100 homes and neighborhoods that could not possibly be on landfill.

Among the areas that the DEP now claims fall within the boundaries of a former “dumpsite” are: a) One of Connecticut’s oldest Jewish cemeteries, established in 1855, currently operated by Temple Beth Sholom of Hamden; b) The Alling Street neighborhood, a historic neighborhood of homes built between 1850 and 1870, long before any dumping of contaminated waste occurred in the area; c) Prospect Hill, the regional highlands, where maps, aerial photographs, and documents tracing back to the middle of the 19th century confirm that this area was never a dump or landfill of any kind, and where the DEP found no subsurface contamination or waste at any of the 63 homes of the neighborhood.

4. THE DEP’S SOIL STANDARDS AT NEWHALL ARE DESIGNED TO CREATE MORE PAID WORK FOR STATE CONTRACTORS, NOT TO PROTECT HUMAN HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT.

For example, the DEP set an artificially low lead standard (400 parts per million) for the Newhall site, guaranteeing that ordinary residential soils would be identified as contaminated wastes. Not only was this lead standard well below the true State and Federal standards (the EPA standard is 1200 ppm), but it was far below the average soil lead concentration for all homes of this age in the Northeastern United States (542 ppm for homes built prior to 1940, 573 ppm for homes built between 1940 and 1959). If the artificial standards that the DEP applied in this case were applied throughout the Northeast, the vast majority of homes built prior to 1959 would be classified as lying on contaminated waste and slated for remediation. The DEP also deliberately lied to residents, telling them that this artificially low level was the State’s standard.

DEP’s standards have nothing to do with public health: The Department of Public Health has determined that even much higher levels of lead in soil pose no significant risk to human health. And it isn't just lead. The levels that the DEP has set for cancer-causing agents at the Newhall site are so absurdly low that the probability of getting cancer in your lifetime from what the DEP is calling “contaminated” soil is fifty times more remote than the likelihood you will be killed by lightning—and that’s only if you ate a 100 mg tablet of your soil every day for thirty years. These ridiculously strict standards are clearly not about “environmental protection,” but they will generate millions of dollars in work for the select group of state contractors who get paid a lot of money to remove contaminated dirt.

IF THE DEP SET REASONABLE STANDARDS AND FOCUSED ON THE AREAS OF GENUINE CONTAMINATION, THE FULL AND COMPLETE REMEDIATION THAT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD HAS DEMANDED WOULD BE POSSIBLE, AFFORDABLE, AND COMPLETED ON SCHEDULE.

INTRODUCTION

2006-07-24T15:41:00.000-04:00

Until very recently, most of us had very positive ideas about the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Like most Americans, we believe in preventing Global Warming, saving whales, and keeping our lakes and rivers clean. We have warm feelings for Smokey the Bear, and believe that no child should be left inside. But unlike most Americans, we have been forced to make a sharp distinction between the important task of protecting human health and the environment—the stated purpose of the DEP—and the actual reality of our State’s Department of Environmental Protection. The inconvenient truth is that the Connecticut DEP enjoys a national reputation for corruption. Not long ago it was profiled by the country’s leading environmental magazine in an article appropriately entitled "The Department of Environmental Corruption." And as Carole Bass has shown in the series of fabulous investigative articles in the New Haven Advocate that sparked an ongoing Grand Jury investigation, the DEP is one of the Connecticut bureaucracies where the Rowland legacy is still alive and well. It has been quite painful to learn the extent to which Ranger Rick (and Ranger Regina) have had their hands in the public till.

How did we come to this rude awakening? Because we live in Southern Hamden, where the DEP is about to embark on the largest remediation project in its history and its first experiment in “cleaning up” a large residential neighborhood. Millions of our tax dollars are about to flow to the DEP for its “Big Dig” at Hamden’s Newhall site and the prognosis is looking grim: Spades haven’t even hit the dirt in our neighborhoods, but the Department is already under investigation for misdirecting millions of dollars to favored state contractors and rigging its expanded site investigation so that many ordinary homes were wrongly stigmatized as former dumpsites in need of a multi-million dollar cleanup. As residents of the neighborhoods that are the object of the DEP’s first residential remediation, and as taxpayers and principled citizens of the State of Connecticut, we are now on high alert. Our experience to date tells us that if the DEP is left to its own devices, the very best we can expect is ineptitude—they simply lack the necessary expertise to handle a project like this. We also have good reason to fear the worst—that like so many of its past projects, the DEP will simply use this project to put more money in the hands of some politically-connected cronies, favor its contractors over its responsibility to our community, and put our lives and homes at risk.

But that will only happen if good people sit by idly and do nothing…and that’s not going to happen. From the moment people in the neighborhood began to figure out that something was terribly wrong and brought it to the attention of our elected officials, Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney and State Representative Peter Villano have been nothing short of heroic in their efforts to defend the community and bring the DEP to account. Mayor Henrici has begun to get more actively involved, and we hold out the hope that appeals to conscience and principle will bring Senator Joseph Crisco to rally to our cause as well.

All of this brings us to this site and the reason why we are here. In the last three years, the DEP has already spent over $400,000 of State bond funds on public relations firms for the Newhall site to keep our community in the dark. More money is already on its way. But money doesn’t buy truth, and the façade is cracking. We hope this site will widen the cracks and let the light shine through. Please join us in keeping a vigilant watch and helping to get the word out.