Aug. 21—NEW LONDON — As of Monday, private businesses no longer had access to the city's transfer station, a prohibition that officials said will help prevent potentially "catastrophic" incidents while also allowing the city to comply with its lease of the state property for the first time in 48 years.
Up until this week, commercial entities were allowed to pull up to the 63 Lewis St. facility, pay a fee and discard the same types of refuse such as brush, appliances, paint, electronics that are regularly brought in by residents.
But a visit earlier this month by officials from the state Department of Transportation, which owns the property the station occupies, as well as contiguous land where most of the city's public works divisions are headquartered, highlighted safety concerns of the practice and led to a closer look at a soon-to-expire 50-year lease, Public Works Director Brian Sear said.
Mitigating fire danger
"There's been a heightened scrutiny of facilities like ours across the country after a number of disasters involving state highways and bridges," Sear said. "There's been situations when fires have broken out and burned roads running overhead."
One major issue at the city facility is the sheer amount of brush dropped off by private companies that piles up almost directly underneath the northbound Interstate 95 lanes of the Gold Star Memorial Bridge.
The presence of the piles violate Federal Highway Administration rules, as well as an Air Space Lease the city signed with the DOT in 1976 that prohibits the accumulation and storage of brush and debris under bridges that might pose a hazard.
Sear estimated 90% of the brush pile, which varies in height depending on the time of year, is made up of material dropped off by private companies. He said the brush pile's height on Monday was only about 10% of its peak elevations. He could not say what the peak elevation can be as the debris spreads and shifts.
DOT spokesman Josh Morgan said his agency is working with the city to remove any prohibited materials still at the site.
Sear said a contract with the Southeastern Connecticut Regional Resources Recovery Authority, or SCRRRA, pays for brush to be hauled away a couple times a year, but city crews frequently load up pick-up trucks and ferry the brush to a Lebanon disposal site just to prevent the pile from getting too large.
He said a recent fuel oil fire on the bridge could have been catastrophic if the spilled liquid had streamed down to the brush pile.
"And, according to our lease, we were never allowed to have commercial drop-offs of any materials," he said. "The facility is for municipal use only and if we received any income from a second party, like private businesses, we were supposed to pay DOT 20% of any gross income we got from that business."