Source: http://www.myrecordjournal.com, July 18, 2017
By: Matthew Zabierek

A Hall Avenue company is working with an engineering firm to control soil contamination around abandoned underground oil tanks.

A 2009 environmental assessment conducted at Times Microwave Systems, a division of Amphenol Corporation, found excessive amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil on the property at 358 Hall Ave. Petroleum hydrocarbon refers to any chemical compound that originates from crude oil.

The contamination was produced by two abandoned 10,000 gallon underground oil tanks installed in 1947 and 1951, prior to the company’s arrival. It was detected during an assessment performed after Amphenol purchased Times Microwave Systems and moved its headquarters to the Hall Avenue building.

Times Microwave Systems has contracted with engineering firm Arcadis to install a geomembrane cap over the oil tanks to prevent the pollutants from spreading and mitigate the “potential exposure to and infiltration of rainwater through the contaminated soil,” a legal notice for the project stated.

The firm filed an application with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection earlier this summer to install the cap, which would cover the petroleum-impacted soil and “render it environmentally isolated,” the application states.

A water supply survey conducted in 2009 showed “there does not appear to be a significant risk to drinking water supply wells,” Arcadis said in its application to DEEP.

A spokesman for DEEP did not return a request for comment Tuesday. A representative for Times Microwave Systems could not be reached for comment.

The property is located adjacent to the Quinnipiac River. The proposed area for the geomembrane cap is separated from the river and “the risk to these ecological receptors is judged to be minimal,” the application states.

According to the application, the soil contamination may have also been caused by oil spills during fuel deliveries. From 1892 to 1955, the facility manufactured silverware and then bomb casings during WWII.

“There is anecdotal information from employees and past reports that indicates that spills occurred during fuel deliveries,” the application states. “These spills were apparently to the ground surface and were cleaned up, but no specific information regarding the number, nature or volume of these spills was found during our research.”

Putting a cap over the polluted soil will cost about $172,000 less than the cost of removing the oil tanks, according to the application.

The legal notice states that public comments on the application can be submitted to DEEP employee Baffour Kyei. His mail address is DEEP headquarters, 79 Elm St., Hartford, 06106. Comments must be submitted within 45 days of publication of the legal notice, which occurred Sunday.