Fairfield County Business Journal 040615

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FAIRFIELD COUNTY

BUSINESS JOURNAL April 6, 2015 | VOL. 51, No. 14

8 | CORPORATE CUISINE

4 | GREAT READ YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS

westfaironline.com

Stratford initiative targets 500-acre Superfund legacy BY BILL FALLON bfallon@westfairinc.com

From left, Stratford Mayor John Harkins with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert Klee. Photo by Bill Fallon

A FORMIDABLE LINEUP OF REPRESENTATIVES and administrators — including Stratford Mayor John A. Harkins, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Environmental Protection Agency Region 1 Administrator Curt Spalding and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert Klee — announced at a Stratford Town Hall gathering March 30 what they termed “milestone” progress in ridding Stratford of buried industrial poisons. The event constituted the rollout of a consensus agreement for a cleanup of the Raymark Industries Inc. Superfund legacy in Stratford, about 500 acres total across several sites. Harkins said this is the first time all the stakeholders — including neighbors —

are on the same page. “All sides have had to compromise,” Harkins said. The EPA listed the Raymark site on its National Priorities List on April 25, 1995. The city reported Raymark Industries is bankrupt and the cleanup is being conducted by the EPA, in coordination with state DEEP. The cleanup is the spoil of the manufacture of Raybestos automotive brakes and other asbestos parts between 1919 and 1989. Following bankruptcy in the 1990s, the site was termed a potentially dangerous hazardous waste site. Raymark was by accounts a good corporate neighbor, offering free fill. That fill has since turned out to be toxic. The fill material found “various commercial, residential, municipal and recreational locations and in wetlands adjacent to the Housatonic River,” » STRATFORD, page 6

Season aweigh!

BOAT YARDS AT LAST FEEL THE WARMTH BY EVAN FALLOR evan@westfairinc.com WHEN ROWAYTON YACHT CLUB MANAGER Norm Edwards takes out a ladder and his knife, about the size of a long blade of grass, that means one thing: Boating season is nearly here. Edwards cut the first cover off one of his club’s boats recently, the first of several steps all clubs up and down the Long Island Sound must take before their boaters can hit the swells.

Only a half-dozen of his club’s 100 boats occupied the club’s front parking lot recently. The others remain in storage inland, due mainly to the chilly winter that has delayed boating season about a week or two longer than Edwards would have liked. Normally, at this point, he would have been finalizing preparations to place more boats in the water. His patch of water flanking Wilson Cove and Farm Creek at the southern edge of Rowayton remains

empty for now. “We’re hoping to be in the water sometime soon,” Edwards said. “I’m shooting for sometime in mid-April to have them out there.” The average boating season runs from June through mid-October, Edwards said. The water, a chilly 34 degrees this week, warms up at a slower rate than the atmosphere in the spring and early summer, but also cools at a slower » YACHTS, page 19

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