nothin Suspected Trespasser Gets A Scrub-Down | New Haven Independent

Suspected Trespasser Gets A Scrub-Down

Thomas MacMillan Photo

The run-off, bundled.

As city and state officials met at English Station to discuss keeping people out of the abandoned former power plant, they spotted two men climbing over the fence.

Police nabbed one of the men, who had to be stripped and hosed down by the fire department to make sure he wasn’t contaminated with dangerous chemicals.

Jaquelyn Holiday, a case investigator with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), said she met Thursday morning with staffers from the city health department and Livable City Initiative outside English Station to talk about the problem of people breaking into the property to try to steal scrap metal. The shuttered power plant looms over the Mill River on an island between Wooster Square and Fair Haven.

As Holiday and city officials were talking, they spotted two men climbing over the fence, leaving the property, Holiday said. They called the police, who caught one of the men at the corner of East and Grand Avenue.

The Fire Department was called in at about 10:45 a.m., according to Assistant Chief Ralph Black. Firefighters scrubbed down the man to decontaminate him.

Bruce Crowder Photo

Holiday said among the dangerous chemicals in English Station (pictured) are PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), highly toxic compounds that can cause cancer.

We did a de-con of the person and left the DEEP with the run-off,” Black said.

Black described how the department does a de-con,” which firefighters train for regularly, he said. First, firefighters put down plastic to prevent any run-off from going into the soil. Then, the man had to take off all his clothes.

We set it up so dignity is given to the person,” Black said. Firefighters set up tarps to screen the naked man from the street, Holiday said.

The man was then hosed down with with a decontamination line,” which is similar to a regular garden hose, but equipped with a special wand” attachment, Black said. The man was also scrubbed with a brush and some kind of cleansing agent.

There was lots of oil and film on him,” Black said.

Holiday said the man was homeless and had cutting tools” for stealing scrap metal.

Once cleansed, the man was given a Tyvek jumpsuit to wear and taken to the hospital to be checked out, Black said.

The man’s clothes were bundled together with the run-off from his de-con” shower, along with his clothes and some tarps. By 12:30 p.m., they were wrapped up in a large toxic dumpling on the lawn of the Grand Lighting light fixture company, waiting to be disposed of by DEEP.

Several inches of brown water stood at the bottom of the clear plastic package. The handle of a scrub brush emerged from the top, making the whole thing look a bit like a hobo’s bindle.

We’re going to be really monitoring that English Station because lots of trespassing is going on,” Holiday said. We don’t want anyone to be hurt.”

Chris Randall Photo Illustration

Inside English Station.

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