"Just look at this place": State Attorney General Tong, Mayor Elicker, State Sen. Looney, and DEEP Commissioner Dykes on Monday.
State officials stumbled across the littered grounds leading up to English Station to announce a lawsuit filed on the same grounds as other failed threats against United Illuminating — seeking to re-energize the company’s long-delayed remediation of the site.
“A picture’s worth 1,000 words,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said Monday while standing in front of a chain link fence featuring signs reading “Danger” and “No Trespassing.”
“Just look at this place,” he continued, gesturing to the former power plant known as English Station located along the Mill River at 511 Grand Ave.
Tong and state Department of Environmental Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes are the two plaintiffs on a lawsuit filed on Jan. 25 against United Illuminating (UI), the former owner of the property, that aims to force the internationally owned regional power company into compliance with an order it signed back in 2016 promising to fix up the polluted site.
Per that 2016 partial consent order between by UI and the state, UI agreed to put at least $30 million towards remediating a site that they left polluted with known carcinogens, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals, as well as other contaminants, after operating the plant from 1929 until it was deactivated in 1992.
Tong last visited English Station in March, when he called on the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) to impose a $2 million annual fine on UI until they completed their end of the deal. PURA enacted that fee back in August.
Nearly six months later, Tong has taken matters into his own hands by filing the state lawsuit. That lawsuit calls for a civil penalty of $25,000 per day for each of UI’s violations of the partial consent order.
The state names six violations of which UI is allegedly guilty, including failing to meet the original three-year clean-up deadline; skimping on adequate site security; and falling through on submission of schedules and plans for remediation of the power plant.
“That’s 150 grand a day, potentially!” Tong said. “But it’s not about the money. It’s about cleaning this place up.”
The suit further requests four permanent injunctions which would order the company to comply with all requirements of the original consent order, prohibit them from violating any provisions laid out in that document, require them to take “whatever action is necessary to correct and/or remediate those violations,” and prohibit UI from violating Connecticut General Statutes governing water pollution control.
While UI has put at least $20 million towards the remediation over the last eight years, Tong accused the company of “dragging their feet” and leaving the primary structure, the power plant itself, “in disrepair.”
“We are at our wit’s end with UI!” he declared. He said the company is liable for cleaning up the site no matter the cost, but can pursue reimbursement once they expend the minimum $30 million.
“We are reviewing the multiple inaccuracies made during today’s press conference regarding English Station and will respond in due course,” UI spokesperson Sarah Wall Fliotsos told the Independent over email.
“We applaud the state for this action on the partial consent order that involves cleanup of the land, and urge officials to next require adequate cleanup of the polluted water as well. By requiring UI to fulfill its obligations to clean up both the land and the water, DEEP and the attorney general can remedy this serious environmental injustice and return the resources to the community to which they belong,” Save the Sound Senior Legal Director Roger Reynolds said in a statement issued after the press conference.
Mayor Justin Elicker, meanwhile, asked the public to “just imagine what this site could be for the community” and the Fair Haven neighborhood. Maybe a park or residential development, he suggested. “It’s offensive,” he said, that UI has stalled potential development by failing to fix up the environmental concerns that they caused.
Shivering in the freezing cold weather, state Sen. Martin Looney complimented Tong and Dykes for “putting the pedal to the metal” — and joked about the crew taking a polar plunge in the rushing river.
“We’re not gonna be doing a polar plunge,” Tong said. Not just because the plunge into legal action was uncomfortable enough, but because of the environmental impact that photos can’t capture: PCB-laden waters.
English Station.
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