At BOS, haz mat and old firetruck

FALLS VILLAGE — The Board of Selectmen made a handful of appointments and approved an emergency expenditure at the transfer station at the November meeting Monday, Nov. 8.

First Selectman Pat Mechare asked Selectmen Peter Lawson and Chuck Lewis to approve having her sign a $1,300 contract with Safety-Kleen, a company that handles hazardous wastes. Someone dumped a contaminant into the used motor oil collector at the transfer station.

Mechare said the contaminant was possibly anti-freeze. The used motor oil is tested regularly for just this sort of contingency.

Lewis asked if the collection area had adequate signs, and suggested that possibly customers of the transfer station could leave their jugs and bottles there and have station personnel handle the pouring.

Mechare said there are signs and would ask transfer station manager Fred Palmer about the latter suggestion.

The selectmen appointed Nicholas Boyden to the Recreation Commission and named the committee to oversee a state STEAP grant for the D.M. Hunt Library: George Elling and Sergei Fedorjaczenko from the library, and Mechare and Lewis for the town.

Mechare read a letter from the Fire Commission saying that, since attempts to sell an old fire engine had been unsuccessful, the commission would like to keep the vehicle for non-emergency uses such as training and for use by the highway department for street and culvert cleaning.

Mechare said she didn’t think an obsolete piece of equipment would be of any use for training, and the other selectmen agreed. The board was agreeable to turning the truck over to the highway department; Lawson, however, was insistent that the fire engine be kept under cover.