The Putnam Board of Selectmen voted unanimously, on Oct. 16, to award a contract to GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. to complete soil evaluations at two town properties.
The properties are on Sabin Street, where athletic fields are planned, and the Quinebaug Technology Park.
GZA hydrogeologist Richard Desrosiers gave a presentation to the board on how the soil evaluations would be done, what information several proposed soil borings would provide, and how it would benefit the town.
The borings would give an indication of the type of soil present, which would impact development plans for the parcels. Data has already been collected detailing the presence of sand, gravel, hinckley soils, and glacial till. Each has a resource value that the town could use to negotiate with future developers.
Desrosiers said there were gaps in the data that had been collected. His company proposed doing additional borings on both properties to get a better assessment of the potential values for the town. They also looked at flood plain data, degree of slope on certain properties, and proximity to the Quinebaug River.
One additional soil boring of up to 40-feet in depth would quantify the quality of the sand on the southern portion of the Sabin Street property. Two additional borings were proposed on the northern portion of the Sabin Street property for the same reason.
Some borings and test pits have already been dug on the property. Desrosiers said those pits are generally shallower and don’t give as much information as borings can provide.
“Removal of sands and gravel is important,” he said, “but future development is also dependent on those sands and gravels. If you remove too much sand and gravel, or if you remove too much sand and gravel close to the river, you might need to design leaching fields or septic systems that might be necessary on a site like this. You need to maintain a certain offset.”
Balancing how much sand and gravel can be removed against possible future development would also have to take into consideration river location, limits to the flood plain, wetlands, and soil elevation.
“You don’t want to put in a premier soccer field and then have it be flooded,” he said.
Renee Lasko suggested the possibility of building a facility on the Sabin Street property at some point in the future that might require a leach field or hookup to the town sewer line.
The company is proposing to do four borings in Quinebaug Technology Park. One would indicate the level of the water table and how deep any excavations could go. Three others would be done on a hill composed primarily of glacial till. The dense soil has little resource value.
“Your resources are only as good as the volume of material present,” Desrosiers said.
Three borings would let them triangulate the presence of glacial till and provide estimates of the volume of material there.
The cost for the project would be less than $20,000. Six borings, at approximately $1,500 each, would add up to $8,500. Costs to move the necessary equipment into place would range between $500 and $750. Desrosiers said it would take about three days to complete the project.
The bulk of the work would be at QTP. No additional appropriations would be required, because of development funds available in the QTP project, according to Town Administrator Mary Calorio.
“We can give estimates of two things,” Desrosiers said, “the approximate buy-in of material present and a reasonable cost estimate of that material.”
Selectman Scott Pempeck asked if the data would give potential buyers enough information.
“You’re going to have negotiations with a buyer,” Desrosiers said. “He is going to want to know what is that volume provided, what is the quality of material, and how is the access to it. We’ll provide that.”