Excess fill impedes park construction

NEW HARTFORD — The Board of Selectmen has decided to shift the remaining pile of excess topsoil in the Brown’s Corner parking lot to another location in the park to ensure additional parking will be available for upcoming sporting events there.

The town had been offering to haul the fill for free to residents who asked for it, in an attempt to remove the several thousand yards of excess soil that had begun to pile up at the site.

The town is expanding the Brown’s Corner parking area as well as creating a new entrance for the lot, while also realigning the portion of Steele Road that runs alongside the park.

“Earl [MacInnes] wanted to push the project, and in order to do so we had to move the material off the site,� said Dan LeGeyt, the town’s highway superintendent, at a special selectmen’s meeting Sept. 17.

First Selectman MacInnes did not attend the meeting, which was called by the board to find a solution to the Brown’s Corner fill pile problem. Selectmen Phyllis Webb and Bill Marchand, as well as Board of Finance Chairman Tom Klebart, were present for the discussion.

Web and Marchand voted to halt the free fill deliveries earlier this month after learning the hauling had already cost the town more than $10,000. MacInnes abstained from the vote taken at the board’s regular meeting Sept. 8.

The removal of the surplus fill at the site is being managed by the Torrington-based Hemlock Construction. Timothy Traub, the company’s president and a New Hartford resident, approached the town two years ago and offered to haul the material away. In exchange, Hemlock sold the fill to other contractors to help pay for the company’s work in relation to the Brown’s Corner project. Hemlock has been managing removal of the fill without a written contract with the town.

When construction projects throughout the area began to lag due to the struggling economy, however, Traub found it increasingly difficult to find contractors willing to purchase the topsoil.

To allow the parking lot expansion portion of the project to move forward, the town began to offer to haul the fill to residents for free.

“Through an approval process, the material was delivered to residents at no cost,� LeGeyt said, adding that the town then paid Hemlock for the loads its team hauled.

Traub said so far Hemlock has charged the town $11,600 for loading and hauling about 6,000 yards of fill away from Brown’s Corner.

“That does not include town trucks and other trucks used to remove fill,� he added.

Town work crews also made free fill deliveries to residents using rented vehicles. The deliveries were paid for from the highway department’s budget.

Not wanting to incur additional costs to the town’s bottom line, at last week’s meeting both Webb and Marchand supported Zoning Enforcement Officer Karl Nilsen’s suggestion to move the fill pile to another location at the park.

“There’s no reason we can’t store the material where the new ball field was supposed to be,â€� Nilsen said, adding that there was no timeline for the construction and completion of the field.  “Then when we have the money [for the field] we can bring it to grade. The solution seems simple to me.â€�

The work will be done with town-owned vehicles and highway department personnel, LeGeyt said, thereby minimizing the costs associated with shifting the pile.

Also, LeGeyt said the town highway department would have the material moved to the new location by the end of this week. The stockpile would then be secured by construction fencing, signage and proper erosion-control measures.

Christine Hayward, the selectmen’s administrative assistant, told the board that the town’s insurance company had expressed liability concerns regarding the lack of security measures at the Brown’s Corner construction site.

“All piles and trucks need to be fenced in,� she said.

In addition to moving the pile of general fill to a new location, Webb also requested that the town enter into some sort of written agreement with Hemlock that outlines the process of removing the fill, as well as indicating that the company is managing the project.

Traub agreed to work with the town to draw up the document.