Developers outline PCB-era cleanup and paving plan for 2 Great Pasture Road; commission requires soil-management conditions, declines public hearing

Developers and environmental consultants presented a revised plan for the 2 Great Pasture Road site and the Danbury Wetlands Agency on technical steps to manage residual contamination while enabling redevelopment.

The applicant's engineer, Benjamin Dodo, told commissioners the 15.5-acre industrial property includes roughly 115,000 square feet of building and that new wetland flagging reduced a proposed outdoor-storage footprint in the north and west. Dodo said the team expects to disturb about 2,911 square feet of regulated wetlands and to restore just over 11,000 square feet, a roughly 3.8-to-1 compensation ratio.

Why it matters: the site is subject to an Environmental Land Use Restriction (ELUR) tied to past PCB and hydrocarbon releases. The presence of PCBs and prior remediation shapes what the commission may allow on the site, what precautions are required during construction, and whether the project requires additional public review.

Paul Tanner, the project's licensed environmental professional, summarized the long remediation record and the residual concentrations he reviewed: "there is some residual, and it sits at concentrations less than 10 parts per million," he said, adding that prior excavations removed the hotspots and that the proposed approach seeks to minimize export of PCB-impacted soils. Tanner described a zone-based approach: targeted excavation where necessary, short-term, secure stockpiles, and caps or asphalt where appropriate.

Soil-management and oversight: Commissioners pressed for details. They asked whether samples above 10 ppm remain outside the historically excavated areas, how groundwater has been monitored, and where temporary stockpiles would be located. Dodo and Tanner said the historical data set includes substantial sampling and that the team intends to coordinate a formal soil-management plan with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Dodo noted the team would add specific cut-and-fill numbers and temporary stockpile locations to the record when the soil-management plan is available.

On mitigation and ecology, soil scientist Jim McManus described his recent redelineation of wetlands and a functional-value assessment, and landscape architect Barb Constable said the mitigation planting plan includes three years of monitoring to ensure plantings take hold and to control invasive species.

Commission decision: After a lengthy technical discussion and noting the applicant had already granted the agency a time extension, commissioners voted not to declare the proposal a 'significant activity' requiring a public hearing at this time. Instead they tabled the application and required the applicants to submit specific conditions and correspondence: gross cut-and-fill figures, a soil-management plan acceptable to DEEP/EPA, and documented procedures for temporary stockpiles and construction controls. The commission emphasized that any material change to the site plan would require the project to return for review.

What happens next: The commission will consider the project again only after the applicant submits the requested correspondence and the soil-management plan. The applicant said it will coordinate directly with DEEP and EPA and provide the commission with agency correspondence and any required revisions to the site plan.

Attribution: Project presenters included Benjamin Dodo (licensed professional engineer), Jim McManus (certified soil scientist), Paul Tanner (licensed environmental professional), and Barb Constable (registered landscape architect). Commissioners who spoke include Mark Masood (vice chair, chairing) and a commissioner who identified himself as Larry.

Ending: The commission tabled the 2 Great Pasture Road application pending submission of the soil-management plan and related conditions; commissioners said they will require the final plan and evidence of agency decisions before granting final approval.