No Charges Filed in Ridgefield Baseball Field Fire

RIDGEFIELD, CT — Police have closed their investigation into the field fire at Governor Park without naming anyone responsible.

"Town officials no longer wish to press criminal charges," a police spokesperson said in a release.

Anonymous donations have covered the estimated $40,000 needed to remove and replace the contaminated earth and clay, the News-Times is reporting. The bulk of that cost was for removal of the affected soil and testing to ensure what remained is clear of pollutants.

"Any time you put a product like gasoline or diesel fuel in the soil, it's going to stay there for a while," Jody Gill, president of the Sports Turf Managers Association, told Patch. He has been building and maintaining sports fields for over 30 years. "It contaminates the soil, and can move into the ground as it rains, contaminating a larger area."

Excavation following the April 6 fire, in which the infield of Ciuccoli Park was doused with 24 gallons of gasoline and set ablaze, began promptly, and new soil was delivered to the field less than a week later.

The fire was reportedly set to dry the field after a rain storm. Gill suggested that the money spent on the fuel could have been put to a better, and more industry-standard, use.

“That’s almost a hundred dollars that could have bought probably 20 bags of calcined clay, which would have dried a much larger area,” he estimated.

Calcined clay, which is readily available under such brand names as DuraEdge, has the consistency of kitty litter, Gill says, and is designed to be spread over the wet area of the field, where it will pull the moisture out of the soil before being simply raked up.