DEP to City: Clean Up Leaky Trash

by Melissa Bailey | October 31, 2006 8:17 AM | | Comments (4)

Leaky trucks, oil spills, and waste flowing into a nearby river — that’s what the state Department of Environmental Protection found this summer at the city’s transfer station. The state sent a list of 11 violations, with orders to clean up. City Hall’s top lawyer (pictured) has hired an outside firm to investigate the findings.

The city’s Transfer Station and Refuse Vehicle Building, at 260 Middletown Ave., is where garbage trucks get unloaded and where city vehicles get hosed down.

The DEP paid a visit to the station in June and returned to Hartford with a host of complaints about unfettered spillage and waste, and their effect on nearby Little River.

“The trash washed out of the garbage trucks is left on the storm drain grate and is scattered around the site by wind and animals (mainly birds),” reads a June memo from Marshall Hoover, the DEP environmental analyst who inspected the site. Wastewater was being discharged into the Little River without a permit, reported Hoover.

In the parking lot, Hoover found oil stains from leaking vehicles. “Staff blame the leakage on the age of the vehicles and lack of maintenance caused by funding shortages,” wrote Hoover in the memo. “The spills have not been adequately cleaned up.”

In the South bay of the refuse building, Hoover found pools of leaked oil running out of the building into the parking lot.

In the trash truck “tipping room,” which is operated by Connecticut Waste Processing, a division of Manafort Brothers, Inc., a hole in netting allowed floatable trash to flow from a drainage pipe into the Little River.

The DEP also found that the city had failed to properly train staff on how to manage waste.

On Sept. 18, the DEP sent the city a letter with orders to pick up wind-blown trash, stop solid trash from flowing into the Little River, and create a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, a required site plan that the DEP said was incomplete.

DEP gave the city 30 days to describe how it would respond to violations, with a warning that the DEP may issue fine of $25,000 for each day of violation.

The city’s top lawyer, Corporation Counsel Tom Ude, said Monday, over a month later, the city is still working on its response. He said the city had hired an outside law firm, Robinson & Cole of Hartford, to tackle the case. Ude declined to comment on specifics in the report: “We are working on a response. It would not make sense to comment on it until it has been finalized.”







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Comments

Posted by: Steve- New Haven | October 31, 2006 10:52 AM

Why do we have a Corporation Counsel that cost the city taxpayers huge amounts of money for staff?It seems everytime a issue like this comes up Mr. Ude opens up the checkbook and runs off to Robinson and Cole or Shipman and Goodwin, all Hartford based by the way. Perhaps Mayor Johnnie, can get Ed Marcus and the notorious Marcus Law Firm back on the take, when he returns to his office after years on the campaign trail. The scary thing with this issue is that Ude is capable of, once again, costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines by ignoring the demands of the DEP. It would be clear to me that fixing the equipment and safeguarding the river might cost less than asking a high priced law firm if such actions make sense!! I am really interested in exactly what the city has paid to outside legal counsel over the past 5 years, perhaps the Independent could follow this smoking gun!! Thanks

Posted by: MIke Yates | October 31, 2006 11:20 AM

I've an idea. Instead of hiring a bunch of lawyers to "work on a response," why doesn't the city clean up the trash and oil, train the staff, and put in place procedures to prevent further pollution. Then the response to the EPA can be written by the Mayor's secretary. Here, I'll give you a draft.

"City to EPA,
The problems cited in your report have all been fixed."

No charge
Mike

Posted by: JP | November 1, 2006 8:27 PM

I have to agree with the other commenters on this one. Why does the city have a corporation counsel if they cannot investigate these matters themselves? Let's take the money that is paid to these law firms and fix the environmental problems.

Or the city could hire an attorney to work in-house on this. I know just the person.....

Posted by: Jim | November 6, 2006 3:48 PM

Or the city could hire an environmental consultant to modify the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, develop and implement a plan for cleanup and compliance, instead of hiring a high-priced law firm to review everything, make phone calls, hold meetings, negotiate with DEP over trivialities at $250 an hour and then hire an environmental consultant to modify the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, develop and implement a plan for cleanup and compliance.

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