The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on May 28, 2024, the groundbreaking of the cleanup at the Scovill Industrial Landfill Superfund Site in Waterbury, Connecticut.
The EPA’s New England Regional Administrator David W. Cash was joined by U.S. Representative Hayes, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the Mayor of Waterbury and local community members to commemorate the groundbreaking.
The EPA selected a cleanup plan for the Scovill Industrial Landfill Site in 2016, but the project lacked the funding needed to execute the cleanup. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) funding allotted for this project allows the cleanup to finally be implemented. Remedial action work will begin this spring.
The $11.88 million allotted for the Scovill Industrial Landfill Superfund Site under the BIL will fund excavation and consolidation of waste into a central location, construction of a protective cover system to cap over the consolidated, contaminated material in the northern portion of the site, and wetlands restoration.
The Scovill Manufacturing Company, located in Waterbury, Connecticut, made various metal parts, including brass button, belt buckles, clasps, and other products using aluminum, chromium, copper, silver, tin and zinc. The company operated from 1919 to the mid-1970’s.
The company used the current Superfund Site as a landfill during this time for disposal of ash, cinders, demolition debris and other by-products.
By the mid-1990s, several capacitors, ash, cinder, crushed drums containing sludge material, metal waste, demolition debris and other waste materials were found on the property. The waste materials contained elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other metals.
The 25-acre Scovill Industrial landfill Site was added to the Superfund “National Priorities List” in 2000.
