Contaminants Found At 5 Fairfield Playscapes, 2 Need Remediation

FAIRFIELD, CT — Test results reveal that five Fairfield playscapes contain contaminants, although only two require remediation, the school district announced Thursday.

A message posted on the district website discussed the results for the playscape tests at Dwight, Stratfield, Holland Hill, McKinley and Jennings elementary schools, all of which came back positive for contamination, including arsenic in some cases.

"We have and will continue to make our decisions based on the safety and security of children," Superintendent Mike Cummings said in the message.

After consulting with the state health department, the district will reopen the playscapes at Dwight, Stratfield and Holland Hill on Friday. The contaminated soil at Dwight and Stratfield is under 1 to 2 feet of wood chip mulch, which provides a contact barrier, according to a letter from state epidemiologist Meg Harvey.

At Holland Hill, where the barrier was only 6 inches in some places, Harvey said the layer would need to be thickened. She also advised rubber matting be used under the swings at Holland Hill. The matting is already in place at Dwight and Stratfield. In the online message, Cummings said the suggested mulch and rubber matting had been added to Holland Hill.

"Without frequent and ongoing contact with the soil, there are no exposures that would pose a public health concern," Harvey said in the letter.

The elevated contamination levels are believed to have been caused by past playground equipment, including tires and pressure-treated wood, according to Cummings.

An older playscape at McKinley and the playscape to the right of Jennings require remediation, Cummings said. Test results for the playscape to the left of Jennings are pending. Those playscapes will remain closed.

The closure and testing of all district playscapes and fields was ordered last month, following the town's release of a list of 20 high-priority locations for contamination testing. The list was announced days after asbestos was reported at a local park and two town officials and a former contractor were charged in connection with dumping at the public works yard.

The school district's testing of sites not on the town priority list began the last week of August. Playscapes at six schools reopened about a week ago after the school district received test results that showed no contamination at any of the sites. Fields at seven schools that were tested by the district were also declared safe last week.

All the locations on the town priority list received material from the public works yard between 2013 and 2016, when Julian Development was operating the facility. Ten of the priority sites have been confirmed to contain contaminants such as asbestos, arsenic, lead and PCBs. The town is working with a consultant and state officials to remediate the locations. The priority list included nine school properties, three of which tested positive for contamination. Those properties include an area on the far periphery of the Riverfield playground and an area along the Mill Hill playground walkway.

Fairfield hired Julian to run its public works yard and reduce the size of a pile of unused project material by 40,000 cubic yards. But over the next three years, the pile more than doubled in size, and days before the agreement was set to end, PCBs and lead were discovered on the property.

After conservation officials said the transportation and dumping of contaminated material could have violated state or federal law, police opened an investigation in 2017.

Former director of public works Joe Michelangelo, former superintendent of public works Scott Bartlett and Julian Companies Owner Jason Julian were arrested last month and are accused of crimes including larceny, forgery and dumping. The majority of the crimes are alleged to have occurred during the years Julian was under an agreement to operate the yard.

In addition to the criminal case, Fairfield has sued Julian for millions in damages and Julian has sued the town for defamation.

For more information on school district testing, go to fpsct.net/fields. For information about town test results, visit www.fairfieldct.org/filluseissues.