
NORWALK, Conn. – The minimum cost for the cleanup of three Oak Hills Park leaking oil tanks is currently estimated to be $33,000, but could escalate depending on the amount of environmental damage, Oak Hills Park Authority members said last week.
Department of Public Works Director Hal Alvord is working on determining how deep contractors will have to go to remove contaminated soil, members said at Thursday’s meeting.
The last of the three tanks was removed in December, OHPA acting Chairman Clyde Mount said. Two other oil tanks were removed earlier last year, he said. All date back to the 1960s, he said.
Former OHPA Chairman Bob Virgulak said in June that golfers would not pay for the remediation. The city would have to pay for it, he said. Current members have not commented on the topic in as emphatic terms, but OHPA member Ernie Desrochers did mention, with a slight grin, at last week’s meeting that the tanks should have been taken out when the authority was formed in 1999.
Mount said they should have been removed 15 years after being installed.
Golf course Superintendent Jim Schell delivered the report of the updated estimate from Enviroshield, the company selected to do the remediation.
“The company came onto the property and did the three sites with nine total truckloads removed from the property and the cost was about $33,000 and change,” he said. “I think that’s reasonable. It could escalate. … There is no guarantee, it could be nine trucks, it could be less, it could be more. I think that’s as best as we can expect from any company.”
He expressed faith in Enviroshield.
“Everything they have submitted to us has been very thorough, including anything you could possibly think of,” he said.
The Finance Department and DPW are reviewing the proposal, members said.
The sites have been capped and backfilled in compliance with Department of Energy and Environmental (DEEP) standards, they said.
“We know for sure there are no other tanks underground,” park Executive Director Shelley Guyer said. “Every other tank is above ground and is relatively new.”
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