Wilton – After getting a last opportunity from the state DEP (Department of Environmental Protection), Wilton Waste Recycling has started working dynamically for protecting public from dangerous asbestos present in a Depot Street demolition site owned by the company. A written repair plan for the work site is due for submission to the DEP today. Since 2011 July, the former Forster Mill site has been the center of enforcement efforts by the DEP. It was in last July that the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) initially documented elevated levels of hazardous, carcinogenic substance. Ryan Blyther (currently DBA Downeast Construction), of Scarborough, was the contractor who was mainly liable for the tearing down project. Blyther intentionally pulled workers from the demolition site in last July. However, he is facing penalties from OSHA, which has cited him for several violations of workplace safety. Blyther was sentenced in May to 6 months in federal prison for ste aling almost $50,000 from the American Legion. This happened during a different building project. In June, Wilton Recycling’s Adam Mack met with city officials, the DEP and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and discussed the issue. Depending on the meeting, he was provided with a timetable which set up immediate, solid deadlines for primary steps, DEP spokeswoman Samantha Depoy Warren said. “The owner of the site is given one final chance to start the remediation process, in accordance with a schedule developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the DEP. Mack started actively working on the demolition site on Tuesday. “We recently spent $4,000 for boarding up certain windows and doing some other works agreed by us. We are trying to come forward with a plan. Our firm plans to go ahead and deal with the cleanup,” Mack said on Friday. Checklist of things which was due to be finished by 4th July included items designed for protecting the pu blic by making the site inaccessible. The doors and windows have been boarded up, a dumpster and a debris pile have been covered with tarps, and the way has been blocked. “Those have been completed. The site is completely secured. They have done all they had been supposed to do. Our asbestos specialist went to the building and he has confirmed it,” Depoy-Warren said. Being a dangerous carcinogen, asbestos is a highly regulated material. Asbestos removal is essential prior to any building demolition process.
