"Officials Knew for Decades That Park Was Contaminated"

"STAMFORD -- In the woods on the northern edge of Scofieldtown Park are remnants of its days as a landfill. Containers lay strewn among the trees -- milk and 7UP bottles that haven't been used since the 1950s.

More sinister are rusty paint cans and empty, decaying 55-gallon chemical drums. Covered with little more than soil 40 years ago, these reminders of Stamford's industrial past were easily brought to the surface by rain and erosion.

Bob Boucher, a neighbor whose household well draws water less than half a mile away, has taken to photographing the debris. He said the snapshots are proof that even today, as city officials scramble to test residential wells for toxic pesticides and PCBs, the buried landfill threatens not only nearby wells, but the city's aquifer and North Stamford Reservoir, less than a mile away."

Magdalene Perez repports for the Stamford Advocate September 28, 2009.