Glastonbury plans multiuse trail construction, oil pier removal
GLASTONBURY – It will be a busy summer for Glastonbury’s Director of Physical Services/Town Engineer Daniel A. Pennington, as several projects will be underway soon — from the construction of a multiuse trail to the removal of the last remnants of the town’s oil tank farm.
Multiuse trail connecting Western Boulevard and House Street
The Army Corps of Engineers, state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the town’s conservation commission have signed off on a plan to build a multiuse trail from Western Boulevard to House Street. And now the town has secured the final four private property easements to allow construction to begin.
The paved trail will follow a sewer line buried along the banks of Salmon Brook. The connection is the next step in linking the eastern part of Glastonbury to the town center. The existing mile-long Addison Bog and Woodlands trail between Smith Middle School and Bell Street would link with this new segment along roads and sidewalks, through Smith Middle School and Gateway Medical Campus.
Pennington said bidding on the $950,000 project will begin shortly with construction to get underway later this summer.
“We will get it out to bid in a few short days,” he said. “All the permits are in place, the design is complete and we are ready to go. … I’m not sure we will get it complete by the end of the construction season. The intent of the whole project is to get you all the way from Bell Street to the town center without having to brave Hebron Avenue with its high speeds and high traffic counts.”
The entrance to the trail will be located along Western Boulevard just south of National Drive and follow the sewer line right of way. The 10-foot-wide paved path with blue stone shoulders would run along the brook’s southern banks. A boardwalk will be built over the more sensitive and wet areas of brook.
The trail will follow the southern banks of the brook and pass through an earthen dam before ending in a large clearing — which will become a parking area — along House Street near the overpass of Route 2 and south of Nye Road.
Removal of Oil Barge Terminal at Riverfront Park
The last piece of the town’s tank farm, a terminal dock, will be removed later this summer. The plan to remove the pier and its pilings once used by Ultramar Petroleum Inc. will go before the conservation commission for final approval at the end of the month.
Barges filled with oil once regularly docked along the banks of the Connecticut River, directly to the west of where the Riverfront Community Center sits, and unloaded fuel into the 14 tanks that once lined the shores.
All the tanks were removed for the construction of the Riverfront Community Center and Riverfront Park. The cost of the dock removal is estimated between $50,000 and $75,000. The town has secured a permit from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to have the pipes and much of the timber structure removed. The timber pilings near or in the river will be cut down to ground level.
“It’s not quite as simple as just going in there and ripping everything out. It’s a sensitive area with some pipes that still contain petroleum product,” Pennington said. “We also have to worry about the level of the river and the tidal influence.”
The site was abandoned in 1994, and the town foreclosed on the property in 1998. The tanks were dismantled, and 7,600 tons of contaminated soil were removed.