Report: Contaminated sites a disaster risk

Sixteen Connecticut Superfund sites, including the BarkhamstedNew Hartford Landfill, could be in danger from climate changerelated flooding, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

In total, 60 percent of Superfund sites overseen by the

Environmental Protection Agency — 945 sites nationwide — could be affected by wildfires or flooding, “natural hazards that may be exacerbated by climate change,” the GAO report said.

Climate change, according to the GAO, could result in increased flooding, storm surges, wildfires and sea level rise, putting those Superfund sites at risk, as The Associated Press initially reported.

The sites in Connecticut include the former Raymark manufacturing plant in Stratford along the Housatonic River estuary — where the company made automotive parts from 1919 to 1989 — and what is known as the KelloggDeering Well Field in

Norwalk, which supplies about 50 percent of the city’s public drinking water.

Elevated levels of trichloroethylene, now an established carcinogenic, in groundwater were detected in that KelloggDeering Well Field around 1975, according to the EPA. Cleanup has been ongoing since the 1980s and the water in the wells has been meeting drinking water standards since 1989, according to the EPA.

The site “will be monitored indefinitely for a long time,” Ron Gonzalez, senior enforcement counsel for the New England Region EPA office, said in 2013. “Obviously, water is the issue for Norwalk because this was a source, a principle source, perhaps maybe the only source, for the contamination for those well fields.”

The KelloggDeering site is one of a few in Connecticut at high risk of climate changerelated flooding, as is the Scovill Industry Landfill in Waterbury, Nutmeg Valley Road in Wolcott, groundwater contamination in Cheshire and the Solvents Recovery Service of New England site in Southington.

The former Raymark site in Stratford is in danger from Category 1 hurricane and flooding from 8 feet of sea level rise, according to the GAO.

Waste from the site into the Great Meadows Marsh included PCBs, asbestos, lead, copper and volatile organic compounds.

“Much of the marsh at the Great Meadows Marsh Unit no longer functions properly due to historic placement of dredged soils and filling of wetlands in the 1950s,” according to an announcement in March.

The GAO has said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should take some action to protect the sites from climate changerelated disasters, but the EPA responded saying its processes are adequate.

“The Superfund program’s existing processes and resources adequately ensure that risks and any adverse effects of severe weather events, that may increase in intensity, duration, or frequency, are woven into risk assessment,” Assistant EPA Administrator Peter Wright wrote, according to AP.