Feds recoup $706,000 for Bristol Sessions building cleanup, city ready to tackle another

Federal environmental authorities have negotiated a deal to get back $706,000 in contamination cleanup costs for an old Bristol industrial property, even as the city gets ready for a costlier cleanup just down the road.

The contamination left by two local manufacturers founded by the Sessions family during the Industrial Revolution will give the city an opportunity to redevelop one of the properties into workforce housing while also erasing blight from a primary gateway to downtown, according to local officials.

Like most Connecticut cities where heavy manufacturing thrived a century ago, Bristol has spent the past few decades trying to clean up chemical pollution in the ground beneath long-abandoned brick factories and warehouses. Frequently those buildings also require extensive remediation for asbestos and chemical contaminants in the walls and floors, too, even if some or all of the structures will be demolished.

In Bristol’s case, two large properties that required cleanup were both owned by branches of the Sessions family, which had developed nationwide brands in clocks as well as hardware for steamer trunks and other luggage.

The Sessions Clock Co. used radium paint while manufacturing watches and clocks through the 1940s or ’50s at a massive brick factory in the heart of the Forestville section. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission several years ago paid for a radiological survey of the property at 61 E. Main St., and found elevated levels of radium-226 on the upper floors of two of the old buildings on the roughly 2.3-acre property.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2018 supervised a cleanup of the property, which is bordered in part by the Pequabuck River and Pan Am’s freight rail tracks linking Berlin and Waterbury. The federal government paid to remove 250 tons of contaminated soils and debris, ship them to a hazardous materials storage site, and then restore the riverbank. The EPA has not publicly disclosed the full cost of the work.

This month, the EPA announced it had negotiated an agreement for Philips North America LLC, which later owned the property, to pay $706,175 plus interest toward reimbursement.

“This case demonstrates that EPA takes its ‘polluter pays’ principle seriously and performs site cleanups as quickly as we can, while ensuring we recover costs whenever possible,” EPA New England Regional Administrator David Cash said in a statement.

Sessions Clock Co. was acquired in 1969 by North American Philips Corp., which is now Philips North America LLC.

Closer to the city center, J.H. Sessions & Son made luggage hardware, locks, hinges and other metal products in a factory along Riverside Avenue. The city is preparing to hire a cleanup contractor for up to $2 million to remove contaminants there.

Gov. Ned Lamont traveled to Bristol two years ago to announce the state was awarding a brownfields grant of $2 million for cleaning to 45,000-square-foot building to be redeveloped into workforce housing by the Bristol Housing Authority and Vesta Corp.

Caggiano said that the financial plan for the BHA-Vesta project doesn’t appear feasible right now, so the city is going ahead with the remediation to get that work completed as soon as possible. Afterward, Bristol will ask BHA and Vesta if they are able to go through with the redevelopment; if not, it will seeks other developers.

Getting the cleanup done now hedges against further interest rate increases or inflation, while also ensuring the property is ready as soon as a redevelopment agreement is settled, Mayor Jeff Caggiano said.

“Back in the heyday, Bristol was the envy of the nation for manufacturing. Sessions Clocks made things like clock with dials that glowed,” Mayor Jeff Caggiano said. “On Riverside Avenue, Sessions made hardware for trunks that people took on ships when they traveled. There was electroplating and some other things, what they used was toxic.

“But this is a gateway to downtown. This project is important to all the work we’re doing downtown,” he said.