There was a heating oil spill at a residential building in Waterbury on Monday and about 100 gallons streamed into a nearby brook.
The Waterbury Fire Department called upon the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Emergency Response Unit to respond to 44 Center Street after a large spill in the basement of Exchange Place Towers, Dennis Schain, communications director for DEEP said.
The storage tank was being filled when the oil spilled, Schain said. There was about 500 gallons in the basement and about 100 of it spilled into Great Brook, he said.
"This impacted a sump pump that discharged to the catch basin network," Schain said. "The catch basin network discharges to Great Brook which is tributary to the Naugatuck River. An additional estimated 100 gallons of fuel reached the surface waters."
DEEP is investigating what caused the spill.
Waterbury firefighters and DEEP's emergency response unit "deployed boom and contained most of the 100 gallons of fuel at the point where the brook meets the river," Schain said.
Waterbury's Department of Public Works worked with DEEP to check "the pathways of oil to connect the basement to the brook and there appears to be no other source of this fuel in the brook," Schain said.
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The fuel company, Santa Fuel, hired a contractor to clean up the spill in the basement and on the surface of the brook Monday. The cleanup process is underway.
"Plans were to finish recovering the fuel from the brook, and then the catch basin network will be flushed," Schain said. "Additionally, a boom will be left in place until after the next significant rain event."
