Superfund Sites Near You: Beacon Heights, Connecticut

As with the Barkhamsted-New Hartford landfill, also in Connecticut, the Beacon Heights landfill has made it to the Environmental Protection Agency's list of Superfund sites. This list comprises a number of polluted locations across the United States of America that have been determined to be more severe than other locations. The Federal Government has supported the Environmental Protection Agency with money for the Superfund program with varying degrees of success. After a site has been cleaned up it is removed from the list. On occasion, new sites are added to the Superfund list. More detailed information about the Superfund program can be found at Wikipedia.org, or you can click here or a quick look.

The Beacon Heights landfill was the first landfill in Connecticut to be found with water pollution and was promptly added to the Superfund list. Legal action was taken to ensure that the Beacon Heights community would not be burdened with the clean-up costs of the site at the landfill.

The Beacon Heights landfill was added to the Superfund list in 1983 after testing found such pollutants as chlorobenzene, dichloromethane, and methyl acetate. These and many more pollutants were found in the groundwater as well as the surface water at the Beacon Heights Superfund area. The soil around the beacon Heights Superfund area was found contaminated with volatile organic compounds and lead. More details of what the tests found can be found at Scorecard.org, or simply click here.

Sitting on top of a ridge within Naugatuk Valley, the Beacon Heights landfill is only about two miles east of Route 2 and Route 8 of Beacon Falls, Connecticut. The Beacon Heights Superfund site began to accept contaminated waste as early 1920. In 1984, residents of Beacon Heights were given bottled water after the Superfund site was found contaminated with benzene. Residential homes were connected to the public water system in an effort to protect people from the contaminated water of the site.

In July of 1998, Residents near the Beacon Heights site held a celebration to recognize the completion of Environmental Protection Agency endeavors to clean up and maintain the landfill. A landfill cap had been placed and a runoff system would function to catch pollutants from the Superfund site. The cap for the Beacon Heights landfill was placed in 1992 with the runoff system for the site beginning its construction in 1993. Details of the celebration can be found at Epa.gov or just click here.