ENFIELD PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION

TRANSCRIPT OF PH#1414.02
LEETE-STEVENS

JUNE 23, 2005

PRESENT:      Anthony DiPace, Chairman

Jeffrey Cooper
Charles Duren
Robert Egan
James Hickey, Jr.
Karen Krebs
Karen Weseliza
Kathleen Sarno, Alternate

ALSO PRESENT: Jose Giner, Director of Planning

Chairman DiPace: Before we get started, a couple items. Number one, please if anybody has their cell phones on, please turn them off. Secondly, in order to move things along more effectively tonight, I have asked that anyone wishing to speak please sign up ahead of time. If you have not already done so, the sign up sheets are available at the desk located in front of the recording secretary. I’ll be calling speakers from the sign up sheets first and then opening up to the general public. I also ask that speakers limit their testimony to items which have not already been covered previously. Please keep in mind that the testimony and the record of the previous hearings are still part of this record and that the Commission members have been provided with copies of transcripts from those hearings. If at all possible, I also ask that you try to keep your remarks to under five minutes so that all those wishing to speak will have an opportunity to do so within the time that we have allotted for this hearing. I would also appreciate if you would not repeat any points already made but instead indicate your support for particular points of testimony. If you have submitted written comments, there is no need to repeat them and read them out loud. Those are just as much a part of the record as the verbal testimony that will be heard tonight and I will give equal consideration in our deliberations.

Please also keep in mind that this is a formal hearing and that applause or other comments from the audience are not appropriate. The rules of the hearing require no direct debate between audience members and questions or comments must be addressed through the Chairman. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation in making the process as efficient and painless as possible.

Will the Secretary please read the legal notice and take the roll.

Commissioner Duren: Public Notice, Enfield Planning and Zoning Commission. At the direction of and on remand from the Appellate Court of the State of Connecticut, Urbanowicz et al vs. Enfield Planning and Zoning Commission et al, 87-CT APP2772005. The Enfield Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a new public hearing on Thursday, June 23, 2005 beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Council Chambers, 820 Enfield Street, Enfield, Connecticut, concerning the following application:

Public Hearing #1414.02, Special Use Permit to locate, maintain, conduct and operate a crematory as an accessory use under Section 9-1.9 of the Enfield Zoning Regulations to Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapels, 61 South Road, Map 73, Lot 88 and a 55’ x 442’ portion of Lot 89, R-33 Zone and location approval pursuance to Connecticut General Statutes Section 19a-320. Leete-Stevens, Inc., applicant/owner. This application shall be considered under the zoning regulations in effect at the original time of filing.

Applications, plans with a copy of the zoning regulations in effect at the original time of filing are available for review in the Planning Department, 820 Enfield Street, dated this 9th day of June, 2005, Planning and Zoning Commission, Anthony DiPace, Chairman, Charles A. Duren, Secretary.

Published in the Journal Inquirer June 9, 2005 and June 16, 2005.

(Called roll)

Chairman DiPace: I’m going to start first with Mr. Willis.

Attorney Matthew Willis: For the record, I’m Attorney Matthew Willis and I’m representing the Commission this evening. I wanted to give a very brief background on this case and why we’re here. The Appellate Court rendered a decision that there had been a defective notice and procedural problem and that the application had to be heard again before this Commission. That’s why we’re here. There are two approvals that are being sought by the application. One is under 19a-320. That’s a state statute regarding crematoriums. It’s a location approval. The other is under the zoning regulations of the Commission themselves. I think the most important thing to realize is that the role of the Commission is to listen and to hear what all the speakers have to say and to consider it. That’s what their role is when they rendered their decision.

Now, there’s also been an intervention that has been filed. What that intervention is going to mean to the Commission is that at some point they’re going to have some decisions to make regarding the intervention and what it means. But for the time being we have to listen to all the parties. Any person, if you are going to speak, please state your name and your address for the record because a permanent record is kept of this. That’s all, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman DiPace: I’ll turn it over to the applicant.

Attorney Thomas Fahey: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the Commission. For the record, I’m Attorney Thomas Fahey of Windsor Locks, Connecticut and I represent Leete-Stevens, Inc., the applicant this evening. Sitting here is Mr. Stevens, the principal of Leete-Stevens, Inc. The other members of our team who will provide brief testimony tonight – we will introduce them as their testimony is given.

The Stevens’ family constructed the Leete-Stevens Funeral Home in a Business Local zone at 61 South Road, Enfield, Connecticut in 1977. Subsequently, the Town rezoned this property from a Business Local zone to a Residential zone – R-33. In 1985, the Commission amended its regulations to permit funeral homes by special permit in R-33 zones. Connecticut General Statutes 19a-320 governs the operation of crematories. Pursuant to 19a-320, crematories may be operated on a plot of land approved as to location by the zoning commission. On April 22, 1992, Leete-Stevens obtained a clean air permit from the State of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection for the operation of a crematory at 61 South Road. Today DEP no longer requires these permits and we will provide some expert testimony on that in a little while.

On May 13, 1998, Leete-Stevens applied to this Commission for a special permit to operate a crematory at 61 South Road. The initial plans provided for the location of the crematory was in a room in the existing Leete-Stevens Funeral Home. The Commission convened a public hearing on this application on June 4, 1998 and continued this hearing with sessions on June 18, 1998 and July 2, 1998. At the June 4, 1998 session of the public hearing, the applicant noted that its application was being presented under Section 19a-320 of the Connecticut General Statutes. At the June 4, 1998 session, the applicant presented the following evidence: that Section 16-2.9 of the Enfield Zoning Regulations is inapplicable to the applicant in that the primary proposed activity is not the incineration of hazardous materials. Richard Stevens, a licensed funeral director for over thirty years, noted a considerable increase in the demand for crematory services and at that point, seventeen percent of the total services were cremations. Through Ron Salvatore, its expert who had ten years experience in the industry and was a certified crematory operator/trainer in the states of Florida, Louisiana, Oregon and South Carolina, and was personally involved with hundreds of installations including units in Connecticut in Waterbury, Stanford and Canton, testified that most communities treat the installation of a crematory as an accessory use to a funeral home; that the equipment proposed for the Leete-Stevens site was approved and evaluated by the Connecticut DEP and easily complied with relevant state standards; that the crematory operates without any visible emissions of smoke or odor and that said emissions are significantly less than that which would be produced from a wood stove or fireplace; that the State of Connecticut allows approximately .08 grains of particulate matter in a cubic foot of air which is typically unburned soot or dust from the containers and that the equipment for the proposed crematory operates at approximately .02 or approximately one-quarter of what the allowable standard is; that while the allowable standard for the crematory is equivalent to .08 of a grain in a cubic foot of air in a typical day, a fast food restaurant would emit a couple of pounds of particulate matter in their normal operating period; that the crematory is equipped with safety systems to provide immediate shut-down during power outages; that the State requires that the crematory maintain 1800 degrees farenheit throughout the cremation process; that the AIDS virus is completely destroyed at approximately 125 degrees farenheit; that the crematory contains a built-in emissions system which automatically takes corrective action by adjusting the levels of air and gas to each burner allowing it to operate at optimum temperatures; that the crematory does not produce steam because the level of water contained in the exhaust gas is very low; that the crematory does not discharge any type of film; that the State prohibits emissions in excess of number two on their rindolen scale which means that the level of opacity of smoke at that level is forty percent and that for the crematory, it is zero percent; that inspections and preventive maintenance will be performed on the equipment; that neither the Connecticut DEP or the Federal EPA regulates volatile organic compound emissions known as VOC’s from crematories because they exist in such miniscule amounts; that neither the Connecticut DEP or the Federal EPA regulates mercury emissions from a crematory from fillings because the amounts are so low; that nationally approximately seventy percent of all new crematory installations over the last ten years are in funeral homes, some as close as twenty-five feet to a residential dwelling; that the proposed stack height from grade of sixteen feet will insure the proper dispersion of exhaust gases; that the applicant will receive comprehensive training for every single operator even though such training is not yet required by the State of Connecticut for operator certification.

At the June 18 session of the public hearing, the applicant presented the following evidence: Engineer Jim Dutton of Vengituck in response to concerns raised by neighbors noted that an alternate plan was prepared locating the crematory in a freestanding building to the rear of the property approximately 300’ south of South Road. He also reviewed the technical aspects of the site plan confirming that no action was required from the Wetlands Commission because the proposed activity was outside the wetlands and wetlands buffer. He noted that grading was minor and the building was designed to go along the steep escarpment to the rear, that no fill was required, that the slopes were minor and gentle and that all drainage would flow naturally to an existing catch basin.

Jim Triba, the design architect, indicated that the proposed brick building was being designed to provide a chapel look to be compatible with the existing funeral home building. The applicant’s attorney indicated that the alternative plan required a lot line revision with other land owned by the applicant to the rear which would not require subdivision approval due to the contiguity of ownership and that the revised lots would both be conforming.

At the July 2, 1998 session, Jim Dutton, the applicant’s engineer, noted that the crematory would be located so that you could only see it from one location on South Road and that other adjustments were made to eliminate tree cutting and slope impacts. The applicant’s expert, Ron Salvatore, noted that no state health departments treat human bodies as hazardous wastes, that the DEP has no setback requirements for crematories, that typical wood stoves emit approximately ten to fifteen times greater quantities of emission than do crematories and that the crematory did not produce fry ash and its combustion efficiency is approximately 99.997.

During the July 2, 1998 session, the Commission also heard testimony regarding the concept of accessory use. Under Connecticut law, an accessory use is a use that is customary and incidental to a permitted use. It is dependent on or pertaining to the primary use. Whether a particular use qualifies as an accessory use is ordinarily a question of fact for the zoning authority to be determined by it with a liberal discretion. The Town of Enfield defines accessory use or building as a subordinate use or building customarily incident to and located on the same lot with the main use or building. Pursuant to Section 9-1.8 and Section 16-2.4 of the Enfield Zoning Regulations, the Stevens Funeral Home is a permitted principal use of land and it is located in an R-33 zone. Since Leete-Stevens Funeral Home was the permitted principal use of its residentially zoned property, the issue before the Commission is whether the proposed crematory is an accessory use, customary with and subordinate to a funeral home and located on the same lot as the funeral home.

Since it has been accepted that Leete-Stevens’ use of the property is that of a funeral home, this main principal and dominant use determines its character for zoning purposes. The criteria that determines whether a use is accessory must, of necessity, be shaped by the primary use to which it is incidental, as indicated, the funeral home use. What is a reasonable accessory use for a private dwelling is therefore not a helpful precedent for determining what is customary with and subordinate to a funeral home. Based on this principle, the Commission heard extensive testimony supporting the applicant’s contention that the proposed crematory was customary and incidental to the funeral home. Funeral homes provide a place where the body of a deceased person can be kept or displayed pending the funeral arrangements and burial. They furnish a place where funeral services may be conducted. Some prepare the body for burial and some operate a crematory. A crematory has been held to be a proper accessory or incidental use to a valid nonconforming cemetery and it is not essential that an accessory use be one utilized by a majority or even a substantial percentage of owners of the principal use under the customary incident language of the ordinance.

A possible reason for the lack of a specific Connecticut precedent may well be that until recently cremation was not generally accepted, favored or utilized. This may also explain why the Enfield regulations were silent on the subject.

The Superior Court in Connecticut has considered an analogous issue. In the 300 PRW case, the Superior Court ruled that a private cemetery was a permissible accessory use to a principal single family residential use. It must be emphasized that the phrase used in the Enfield regulations is “customarily incident to the main use of the building” and not that the use must be customary. As Professor Tondreau, a noted Connecticut land use law professor, has noted, if the rule intended that only customary uses could come under the doctrine, than many or most people in the area would have to be doing the same thing before any one of them could. As a New Jersey court remarked, we would still have horse stables instead of garages in our residential neighborhoods. Someone has to be first if a use is ever to become customary.

As in special permit criteria, while it is true that under Section 16-2.9, all industrial and/or commercial uses which have as a primary activity the handling, use, treatment, processing, storage, incineration, or disposal of hazardous materials are required to obtain general permits. The record clearly establishes that the applicant was not engaged in these activities. Applicant’s experts testified that the human bodies are not considered hazardous waste by federal and local law. By definition, for Section 16-2.9 to be applicable, the primary activity of the business must be the use of hazardous materials. To the extent that any hazardous materials exist in the cremation process, they exist as a minimal by product. Since the crematory is not regulated by Section 16-2.9, the special requirements of Section 16-4.1.14 are also inapplicable. The various studies and aquifer mapping provided for therein are not required of the applicant. The Commission can properly determine which sections of a regulation apply to a specific application.

As a follow-up to that, I would like to submit some additional exhibits which the Commission can look through and I will also give you a copy of those remarks.

I’m going to submit a folder which contains what I term the legislative history of the section of the Enfield regulations which, specifically 16.4.1.14, and this legislative history I think some of you will remember this. I think Commissioner Duren – you were on the Board at the time. Back in 1980 and 1981 the Browning Ferris Industries had a proposal for a hazardous waste facility on 600 acres straddling the Enfield/East Windsor line. And the Enfield Town Council and the Enfield Planning and Zoning Commission went into action to pass a series of ordinances and regulations geared towards essentially stopping that from happening. What I have here are summaries of the Planning and Zoning Minutes and public hearings from June 4, 1981 in which you will see there was an enactment of the very section that we’re discussing here this evening, the one that we claim was never intended and does not cover our application because we’re not involved in the hazardous waste industry. We also have all of the Council minutes discussing the topic. There are summaries that were prepared by my office and the actual minutes themselves from the Town Clerk’s Office. There is also a summary of newspaper articles that covered the story for the year. I’m not going to say much more than that other than to say that it’s clear from this that the type of activity that that section was intended to regulate is not what you have before you this evening with respect to our application for a special permit for an accessory use to a funeral home as well as our location approval under 19a-320.

Dick, could you just hand that in. Unfortunately, I only have – because of the length of that – I just have one exhibit.

Chairman DiPace: You can give it to Jose so that he can stamp it as received.

Attorney Fahey: I’m also going to submit the remarks that I made. I’m also going to submit for purposes of illustrating compatibility photos of the site at 61 South Road. They are also displayed on the case there.

At this time, as a follow-up to the applicability of the special permit sections that deal with hazardous wastes, I’m going to call on representatives from GZA Environmental who are going to provide some succinct testimony and I would start with Tom Stark. Mr. Stark is a Vice President and principal with GZA. He’s got a bachelors and masters from UCONN in natural resources and environmental sciences. He spent – in the early to mid eighties he was with the Department of Environmental Protection, State of Connecticut, in the Solid Waste Bureau and involved with some refra activities. Mr. Stark, if you would.

Mr. Tom Stark: Good evening. Tom Stark from Willington, Connecticut. I’ll read a letter that I prepared in response to Attorney Fahey’s questions. “Dear Attorney Fahey: Recently you inquired if the operation of a crematorium could be subject to the federal Environmental Protection Agencies or the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s regulations as a solid waste or a hazardous waste facility. The answer is clearly no on both questions as described below. EPA regulations and the Connecticut State counterparts qualitatively define solid waste as discarded materials which are abandoned or recycled. Clearly a human corpse is neither abandoned nor recycled. This concept is given additional clarity in the definitions of biomedical wastes which include body parts and animal carcasses but not human corpses. Connecticut Statutes under the public health code provide further clarification specifying that a human corpse only ceases to be a corpse once cremated or buried. Concerning hazardous wastes under both federal and state statutes and regulations, hazardous wastes are a sub cell of solid wastes. As such, if an item is not a solid waste, it cannot be a hazardous waste. As described above, human corpses are not solid wastes.

In conclusion, neither a human corpse nor its cremated remains are inherently waste like as defined in the federal and state statutes and regulations and, therefore, a crematorium cannot be considered either a solid waste or hazardous waste facility.

Attorney Fahey: And, also, you took a look at Section 16-2.9 and 16-4.14 of the Enfield regulations which apply to the business whose primary activity is the use and disposition of hazardous materials. In your opinion, would that apply to this application?

Mr. Stark: I was with the department when these regulations and these concepts were adopted and debated. The concept here was clearly for a facility that was managing quantities of liquids and solid hazardous waste for treatment or disposal or recycling through either on that property or on another property. Large portions of those regulations deal with ground water impacts and that type of issue which is not the issues that are confronted at a crematorium even if a corpse was considered a hazardous waste or a solid waste.

Attorney Fahey: Thank you, Tom. At this time, I’m going to submit a copy of Tom’s remarks along with a copy of his resume. While he is doing that, I will call on John Petrick. John is a Senior Project Manager with GZA. He has a bachelors in civil engineering from UCONN and amasters in environmental engineering from the University of New Haven. He is in the process of obtaining an additional masters in industrial hygiene. He spent five years with the DEP Air Bureau, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Air Bureau, as an air pollution control engineer involved in the permit process. He processed approximately 285 applications while there including at least three crematories and a medical waste incinerary. He has prepared a report which he is going to give to you now.

John Petrick: Good evening, Commission. What I would like to do is read from a memo that covers several important air issues.

Chairman DiPace: Would you please restate your name.

John Petrick: I’m sorry. John Petrick, Project Manager, GZA Geo-environmental from Glastonbury, Connecticut.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you.

John Petrick: What I would like to do is read from a memo that I wrote concerning several important air issues related to the crematory. The first issue I would like to talk about is the Connecticut air toxic regulations. The Connecticut DEP regulates approximately 860 air toxics. For most of these air toxics, the DEP has determined acceptable fence line concentrations. The fence line concentrations are then put into a formula provided by the DEP which assumes an eight-hour daily exposure duration to calculate the maximum amount of emission rate allowed by the regulations. This value is then compared to the actual or calculated emission rate in a piece of equipment under consideration. A source is in compliance with Connecticut’s air toxic regulations if the actual or calculated emission rate is less than the maximum allowable emission rate.

A compliance assessment for Leete-Stevens crematory was completed using then during emission rate data and EPA emission factors. Based on the data available, Leete-Stevens, Inc. would be in compliance with Connecticut’s air toxic regulations even if the crematorium was operating eight hours per day. There is an attached table on my memo here which details those calculations.

The second issue I wanted to discuss was regulatory change to the State of Connecticut air permit requirements. When Leete-Stevens applied for a permit, all crematories were automatically required to obtain an air permit as incinerators pursuant to 22a-174-3f of the Connecticut Air Regulations. In March, 2002, the DEP revised their regulations and removed that particular section from the regulations. Now a need for an air permit is based solely on potential emissions from the equipment being installed. Based on the data contained on Leete-Stevens existing air permit, the facility would not need a permit based on today’s regulations. In fact, Leete-Stevens could ask the DEP to revoke its air permit and could operate legally without it.

The last issue I wanted to cover was a comparison of the permitted emissions from Leete-Stevens crematory to that of a residential fireplace. To obtain perspective relative to the magnitude of emissions from Leete-Stevens crematory, GZA compared the emissions of criteria pollutants from this crematorium to those of a residential fireplace processing the equivalent amount of wood per hour. As shown in table two of this attached memo, the emissions from the residential fireplace are consistent with or up to several layers of magnitude greater than the Leete-Stevens permitted emission limits.

Attorney Fahey: Thank you, John. And, for the record, we’re going to submit copies of your report. We will give you one for the record and we will catch up with the others which are in one of these piles here.

The next exhibits I would like to introduce are noise studies. Subsequent to the opening of the cremator in August of 1998, the Town Council initiated the adoption of a noise ordinance at the behest of those that were opposed to the crematory and that the Council commissioned Brooks Acoustics Corporation to conduct a noise study. That was done and concluded in November of 1998. And I’m not going to read the whole report. I’m going to simply read from the conclusion which says “noise level emissions at the Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapel Crematory and sources of emitted noise are identified. Noise levels were also measured at three nearby residences. Based on the measured noise data obtained during the survey, it was determined that the noise attributable to the crematory was always below forty-five decibels at the nearby residences. Also, it was determined that prominent, discreet tones were not present in the noise emitted by the crematory. Therefore, it is the opinion of BAC (that’s the name of the company that did the study) that the crematory is in compliance with state noise regulations.”

Now, that was the one that was commissioned by the Town. There are copies here. I would also submit at the same time – once we became aware that the Town was doing this, Dick Stevens, the principal of Leete-Stevens, commissioned his own noise study from Close, Jenson and Whitter. They used the latest and most sensitive state-of-the-art machinery that was available at the time for testing and, basically, confirmed that the results that were submitted by the Town’s tester were accurate and found that there were no violations of the residential criteria for decibel emissions.

At this time, I would like to call Holly Teid. Holly is with the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office. She’s a graduate of Kenyon College with a degree in anthropology and a master’s from the University of New Haven in forensic science. Holly, I’d like you to just briefly describe what your job entails and describe your familiarity with the Leete-Stevens crematory.

Ms. Holly Teid: Good evening. My name is Holly Teid, Investigator, Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Farmington, Connecticut. In my job as an investigator, part of our duties are to clear people for cremation purposes. Anybody who is cremated in the State of Connecticut has to be reported to our office and what we do then is we make an appointment with the funeral home. I would go out. I do most of Leete-Stevens cremations. I go to the funeral home. I do an examination of the body just to make sure that there is no trauma evident on the body. We also do a small investigation into the death as well to make sure there is no foul play or trauma involved and that the body is okay to cremate because cremation destroys the body and all evidence that would be on that body as well. With my job, when I go to Leete-Stevens, I do go into the crematory. I also do work in the funeral home as well. I have been in the crematory when it has been – when the crematory has been running. I have never had any uncomfortable situations there – nothing that doesn’t smell good. I’ve never heard anything that is out of the ordinary. In my opinion, they run a very clean, well kept funeral home.

Attorney Fahey: Holly, could you just be a little bit more specific with respect to odor.

Ms. Holly Teid: As far as odor, I have never smelled anything as far as the burning of anything while I’ve been there.

Attorney Fahey: Now, Holly, you also indicated that you write reports at the crematory. Do you write those reports in the funeral home section building or in the crematory building.

Ms. Holly Teid: What the paperwork entails is I get a copy of the death certificate to review and I fill out a cremation certificate. I normally do that in the office in the funeral home. The part of my job that takes me into the crematory would be the actual examination of the body itself.

Attorney Fahey: Now you indicated that you’ve been there – even though your job requires you to be there before cremations, you have been there at times when the cremations have been going on and you’ve also been there when cremations have been going on in the crematory when you’ve been doing paperwork in the funeral home. Could you hear the crematory then – running?

Ms. Holly Teid: No, I could not.

Attorney Fahey: Thank you. One last thing – are you here this evening because I subpoenaed you?

Ms. Holly Teid: Yes, I am.

Attorney Fahey: Thank you.

Attorney Fahey: I would like to call Bob Pfeifer. Many of you probably know Bob Pfeifer. He’s one of the most experienced commercial real estate appraisers in the area. He’s with Appraisal Resources of Connecticut. He’s been appraising commercially for over twenty years. He’s qualified. He’s got an MAI designation and is qualified to testify in courts of this state and in the United States Federal Bankruptcy Court. He’s also lectures in real estate licensing courses. At my request, he’s done some work with respect to property evaluations and he’s going to give his report this evening.

Robert A. Pfeifer, Jr.: Good evening. My name is Robert A. Pfeifer, Jr. I am a Vice President with Appraisal Resources of Connecticut. Our office is located at 104 Main Street in Manchester, Connecticut. I was engaged by Attorney Thomas Fahey of the law firm of Fahey, Landolina and Associates to determine any impact on the Leete-Stevens Funeral Home crematory and, more specifically, the operation of the crematory on residential real estate values in the general vicinity of the funeral home. The funeral home has been in operation for decades while the crematory has been in operation for nearly eight years now. It should be noted that I personally have appraised the subject facility on multiple occasions. In addition, I have also appraised other funeral homes throughout the State of Connecticut both with and without operating crematories. In an effort to determine the evaluation impact of the operating crematory, if any, on nearby residential dwellings, a survey of recently sold properties in the general vicinity of the funeral home was conducted. Details were compared to transactions of similar residential dwellings located outside of the immediate area of the subject funeral home within competing neighborhoods. This is considered to provide the most meaningful insight as to the potential valuation impact the operated crematory has on the surrounding residential dwellings.

As part of my analysis, I researched 134 single-family dwelling sales which sold over the past year within the Town of Enfield. My findings indicated that of the 134 dwellings cited within this report, fourteen were located within close proximity to the funeral home and the operating crematory. A review of these fourteen sales when compared to the remaining 120 sales were reviewed and analyzed and did not exhibit any negative impact on property values resulting from the operation of the crematory. Included in this package is a photocopy of sales data analyzed with the sales being highlighted in close proximity to the funeral home. As a result of this analysis, and in my opinion as a real estate appraiser/counselor over the past twenty-three years, it is my opinion that the Leete-Stevens Funeral Home and Crematory, more specifically the operation of the crematory, does not cause any diminution in value or decrease in value of the properties – residential dwellings – in the immediate area surrounding the facility. Furthermore, it is interesting to note if you look at the Enfield Assessor’s records, there is no reduction applied in the assessment of dwellings that are located in close proximity to the funeral home which would tend to indicate furthermore that there is no negative impact from the resulting operation of the crematory.

I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Attorney Fahey: Thank you, Bob. Next I’m going to submit some photos of the Swan Funeral Home which is located on Main Street in Old Saybrook. There’s a series – five or six photos – showing the funeral home from a couple of directions, the Riverview Crematory which they operate which is directly behind the funeral home and very similar to the relationship that Dick’s crematory which is located in a building behind his crematory is. What’s unique about this situation is that the Swan Funeral Home and its crematory is directly across the street from Old Saybrook High School and there’s a picture of the high school and there’s a picture of two residences. There’s a street that intersects Main Street adjacent to the school that is less than 500’ from the funeral home and crematory in which there has been recently erected four or five new homes and directly behind the crematory, less than 200’, is another existing relatively new home. That’s just offered to show not only compatibility but, obviously, I don’t think Old Saybrook can be too concerned about potential harmful effects from crematory emissions if they have their high school directly across the street.

Next I’m going to – I’ve got a packet of material – petitions and various letters and what not and I’m not going to read all of them. I’m just going to give you a sampling of them because I think it’s important. This is from Joan Smith dated June 20, 2005. She lives at 15 Wilstar Circle in Enfield. She says” “As I will be away during the week of June 20 and will be unable to attend your public hearing on the twenty-third, I’m writing to express my support of the existing crematory at Leete-Stevens Funeral Home. I am and have been for the last forty-five years a resident of Wilstar Circle which is less than one-half a mile from the funeral home and crematory. I have never heard any sounds or smelled any odors emanating from the crematory. I have attended wakes at the funeral home and the crematory has been operating and I have not heard any sounds or smelled any odors. When I saw signs urging residents/citizens to oppose residential incineration, I was appalled. When one hears the word incineration, it brings to mind the burning of trash. I don’t think this is an appropriate connotation for the cremation of a loved one or a person who has suffered a loss. Leete-Stevens’ owners have been wonderful neighbors. Their property is well maintained and they are providing a service to this community which is much needed. I hope that the Planning and Zoning Commission will put an end to this nonsense and vote to allow Leete-Stevens to continue to operate this accessory use to their funeral home. They and the taxpayers of the Town of Enfield have been subjected to considerable expense to appease the demands of a few disgruntled citizens.

Next is a letter from Beverly Nuccio, 1412 Enfield Street. “Dear Planning and Zoning Commission: This letter is in favor of the Leete-Stevens crematory on South Road. I recently needed to use the services of Mr. Richard Stevens and his crematory. At the time of grief, it was heartwarming to know that the remains of my father would be taken care of by a funeral home that I respected and one which had a crematory on its premises. It is difficult enough losing a loved one but knowing that I could have all arrangements made and taken care of at the local Enfield Leete-Stevens crematory somehow gave our family comfort. It would have created much emotional unrest among family members had my father’s body been sent off somewhere to be cremated. Mr. Stevens and his staff are very kind and compassionate. They are professional and they provide a service which is needed in the community. Many people look to cremation for their loved ones and they should not have to look out of town or in an industrial area. The building on South Road is set back on the property that’s well kept and serene. It must remain open for the convenience and comfort of the community. My family and I stand behind the crematory and feel it should remain open at its present location. Sincerely, Beverly Nuccio.”

A letter from Daniel Hinkley: “My name is Dan Hinkley. I own property at 57 South Road. I support the operation of a crematory at 61 South Road. My property abuts the west side of the funeral home property. The funeral home and crematory have been compatible with the neighborhood. I favor the operation of a crematory at 61 South Road.”

A letter from Frank Newport: “My name is Frank Newport. I reside at 75 South Road. My property abuts the east side of the property owned by Leete-Stevens. I have lived at 75 South Road for many years, long before the funeral home and crematory were built. Over the past twenty-five years, Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapels has been a good neighbor of mine. I fully support the plans presented by Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapels for the operation of a crematory at their location. Since the construction of the crematory in 1998, I have not had any complaints with their operation of a crematory. I find the crematory to be in harmony with the area. I’ll not be available to attend the meeting and I wish the letter to be read and entered into the record of this meeting.”

There were maybe a few other letters but there’s a lengthy petition of 300 plus signatures in there which we will submit for the record.

The crematory now exists on one lot. The lot line adjustment that was referred to at the original hearing was, in fact, made and has been filed in the Land Records. A copy of the map was given to Jose. Did you make that part of the record, Jose – the lot line adjustment?

Mr. Giner: I believe so. Hold on. Yes, it was received today.

Attorney Fahey: I have two other points and then I will turn this over. The opponents have submitted a petition to intervene which requires this Commission, as I’m sure your attorney has told you, to make a determination whether the petition is appropriate and contains sufficient factual allegations and if it does, then the second determination is whether or not there’s any unreasonable impact on the environment. I submit to you that – I question whether or not there are sufficient allegations in that petition. It refers to various things such as wetlands which both at the original hearing and today, the Wetlands agents have indicated that there are no wetlands issues here and no need for permits. With respect to issues of hazardous wastes and environmental impact, I believe that our experts and the history of the very regulation that they are seeking to require us to proceed under clearly show that there are no impacts and that we’re not controlled by that regulation.

You will hear, I’m sure, about a certain footnote in the Supreme Court Case. The Supreme Court case essentially found the one issue that it went up on that caused us to come back here is the fact of notice. They felt that an additional notice needed to be given and our relocating the crematory to the rear of the property at the request of your Commission and at the request of the neighbors constituted a new application which should have required a second notice and that the goof up in the notice that was not filed by the Journal Inquirer but testimony was taken at the hearing caused a sufficient error and had us do this hearing over again. The remand was based upon the issue of notice. In that Supreme Court opinion, there was a reference to a footnote. It’s footnote 3 and it says that the Enfield Zoning Regulations provide in relevant part that a special permit is required for all industrial and/or commercial uses which have as a primary activity the handling, use, treatment, processing, storage, incineration or disposal of hazardous materials – Enfield Regulations 16.2.9, the one I referred to earlier. And then the sentence says “the parties do not dispute that cremation of bodies of the dead constitute disposal of hazardous materials” - the implication being that we, Leete-Stevens, and the Commission, since we are all parties, agree that it involves the disposal of hazardous materials. I submit to you that there was never any stipulation. Neither myself – and I don’t think Attorney Willis at any time indicated that we stipulated to that. In fact, from the hearing first or second page of the transcript when we were here in 1998, our whole point was that that was an incorrect reference since the human body is not hazardous waste and that the sections that deal with the disposition of hazardous materials do not apply to this accessory use. So, that is a footnote. It is a footnote and a footnote is dicta. It has not legal effect whatsoever and, in fact, neither the Superior Court nor the Appellate Court reached this issue because although it was argued at the Superior Court level, the judge, Judge Gallagher who wrote the decision at the Superior Court level, chose not to decide the other issues that were before her but simply to rule that the notice was defective and her decision was upheld by the Superior Court. Yes, it’s in a footnote. It’s wrong and has no legal effect.

And I don’t know how you want to proceed. I was trying to be as precise as I could. I don’t know if you want to wait to ask questions of our team or ask them now – whatever the Commission wants.

Commissioner Egan: I direct the question to our attorney or Jose. We’ve been instructed that we cannot make any determination based on new law or change in the law and that we must make the determination based as to what the laws were at this point in time that the application was first heard. Tonight the applicant has presented two new regulations or changes in regulations, both deal with the air permit and the new toxic regulations – both that the air permit is not required now for crematories and that the limits set forth in the toxic regulations as they exist now have been changed and this facility would not meet the threshold for regulation. I think if we could get some clarification how they can use new regulations and we’re not supposed to.

Attorney Matthew Willis: Let me address that. The application itself with your zoning regulations is considered during the regulations of 1998. I am presuming that Mr. Fahey is using this as an illustration in regards to the regulations involving hazardous materials and what are hazardous materials. What that actually is is up for your Commission to determine. It’s your regulation. I want that clear.

Mr. Giner: The microphones are not working. These are not working and these are. That’s the problem. (pause in hearing while microphones were adjusted)

Chairman DiPace: The question is the intervener – is this something automatically approved or is this something that is approved by the court or is this something that is approved by this Commission?

Attorney Matthew Willis: What happens is this. You’re going to have to make a determination. This Commission will have to make determinations finding that the specific claims that are set forth in their verified pleading are within your jurisdiction. If that’s the case, then you’re going to have to review whether the conduct or the application does or is reasonably likely to cause pollution, impairment or destruction of the public trust and the air, water and other natural resources in the state and, secondly, the Commission will have to determine whether the proposed conduct would cause – if there’s any feasible and proven alternatives with regards to that. So that’s a determination you’re going to have to make. I think you have to listen to what people have to say.

Chairman DiPace: That’s what I wanted to know. In my opinion, based on what you just said, I think we need to just move forward the whole hearing. It is kind of hard to predetermine that without hearing the entire hearing. So I would say be on the safe side and the answer is go forward with this as it stands with the intervener. Correct?

Attorney Matthew Willis: Yes. You have to recognize the intervener involved.

Chairman DiPace: Are there any questions or concerns from Commission members. Hearing none, I’m going to move it along to the intervener.

Attorney DavidBaram: Good evening. While we’re setting up our easel, I’ll begin to try to expedite the time. For the record, I’m Attorney David Baram from Bloomfield, Connecticut with the law firm of Clayman, Tapper and Baram. With me this evening are Phil Forsley and Kevin Miller of Fuss & O’Neil, Consulting Engineers of Manchester, Connecticut. I’ll introduce them with more elaboration shortly.

I’d like to begin by explaining our perspective –

Chairman DiPace: Excuse me, before you get started. I’m going to recess this hearing for ten minutes to try to straighten out these microphones due to the static problem we have. I’m going to recess this meeting for ten minutes.

(Commissioner Krebs made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Duren, to recess this hearing. Following a unanimous vote of the Commission, the hearing recessed at 8:40 p.m. The hearing reconvened at 8:40 p.m.)

Chairman DiPace: Jose, are you all set? I’m going to call the meeting back to order. Will the Secretary please take the roll.

Commissioner Duren: Chairman DiPace, Vice Chair Hickey, Secretary Duren is here, Vice Chair Cooper, Commissioner Weseliza, Commissioner Krebs, Commissioner Egan, Commissioner Sarno, Commissioner Lefakis (absent).

Chairman DiPace: Sorry about the delay.

Attorney Baram: No problem. We rather enjoyed it. It gave us some time. Thank you very much. I think I’ll just start over really quickly. I’m Attorney David Baram from Bloomfield, Connecticut. With me are two consulting engineers from Fuss & O’Neil, Phil Forsley and Kevin Miller.

I’d like to take a moment to give you a perspective of the history that’s a little bit different than what Attorney Fahey said. As you may remember, in July, 1998, this Commission passed this application for a crematory on a 4 – 3 vote – very, very close. From that time, because of various procedural and substantive concerns, the neighborhood and my clients appealed this matter to the Superior Court and then to the Appellate Court. It’s actually been pending in the courts for seven years. So I think it’s worth just a minute or two to explain what the courts actually said.

The Superior Court declared the entire application null and void entirely. The Appellate Court, as you heard, remanded it for a new hearing this evening. Under the context that this is a new hearing – it’s as if the building doesn’t exist and that’s how you have to view it.

The Appellate Court made much more findings than just the lack of notice. And I want to explain because they are pertinent to your deliberations this evening. First of all, they said this is a zoning matter and it’s an appealable matter. Secondly, even though the applicant promoted special interest legislation in 2001 which attempted to exempt his crematory operation from Connecticut General Statutes 19a-320, the court indicated that that legislation did not affect the requirement that the applicant comply with Section 19a-320 as well as the Enfield Zoning Regulations. This was a major issue because the applicant was attempting to say that there was no right to appeal and that, therefore, they could circumvent not only your regulations but state statute as well. The Court did not agree with that.

It also indicated that the application must be viewed with the regulations and the laws in effect in 1998. Now, the applicant built the crematory during the appeal period. Why did he do that? They did it because Statue 19a-320 exempted crematories which were in operation from being within 500’ of a residential zone. Obviously, this crematory is well within 500’. In fact, the courts determined it was within 100’ because my client was given appealable status called classical agrievement based upon the fact that she lived in a residence within 100’. On this point, the applicant was successful because there was legislation again that exempted him from the 500’ regulation if the crematory was built before October 1, 1998. But that was his choice. It was an economic, business choice. It’s not relevant to you because you can’t consider economic or financial aspects of the applicant. So if, hypothetically, you turn this application down, while we may have empthathy for the applicant on his investment, it cannot be a consideration before you this evening.

Obviously, the Court found notice defects but the Court made some other opinions in this decision. First of all, it emphatically said that the local regulations apply. Secondly, it said that despite the special interest legislation to exempt it by connecting it to an air quality permit acquired many years before the applicant even submitted this application, that he is still subject to the state statutes and to your regulations. And, the opinion, which we have handed out because I don’t want you to take my word for it because you are getting conflicting opinions - I want you to read it yourselves – indicates that the regulation 16-2.9 involving hazardous wastes and incineration do apply. It’s in the body of the decision and then there’s a footnote that references the details of that comment. Now, Attorney Fahey indicates that they have not admitted that this is hazardous waste or materials. We had a very long hearing before the Appellate Court and many questions were asked by the justices. One question was asked about the special interest legislation and whether it only affected this crematory and the answer was yes. There may have been other questions about the toxicity of emissions coming from the crematory. I honestly don’t remember every question that was asked but apparently the justices concluded that there was no opposition or contrary point of view that this constituted hazardous wastes and incineration for purposes of your regulations.

With regard to publication, I want to make a couple of points. Obviously, you’ve done the publication according to your local regulations and 19a-320, but for the record I want to state a couple of concerns which I conveyed to Attorney Matt Willis, your Counsel this evening. I indicated that the notice should have contained reference to Section 16-2.9, the hazardous waste regulations which require a separate special permit application. My request was rejected. I also requested that the notice reference two zones, which I will explain momentarily, an R-33 and an R-88 because if I’m persuasive enough based upon the substantive information I’m about to give you, we’re talking about a use that is overlapping in two separate zones, an R-33 zone and an R-88 zone. Those were omitted. Whether or not notice was given to the public health department as required under 19a-320, I’m not sure because I don’t know that.

The applicant here is supposed to be applying under three separate statutory or regulatory authorities. The first one, as was correctly pointed out, is for an accessory use to a funeral home under 9-1.9 of your regulations. The second is what we call a location approval under 19a-320, the state statute which we’ll discuss in a moment. But the third criteria which has to be reviewed by this Commission because it’s applicable – and I’ll go into detail in a moment – but most importantly, applicable because the Appellate Court of the State of Connecticut said it was – is 16-2.9 which invokes an entirely different set of regulations that is completely relevant to the environmental and the health aspects of this neighborhood and the environment around it.

And so before I begin the formal presentation, I reiterate that there are three requirements that this applicant must meet – two special use permits and the State Statute 19a-320. I will also show you that this is not an accessory use. I will show you that this has a detrimental impact to the community, the environment, the aquifers and perhaps even the drinking water, that it violates your zoning regulations in at least two or three ways, that it violates the Planning and Zoning stipulation of 1976 which was a firm part of your approval to the funeral home, that it fails to comply with the requirements of special permits in your regulations because the applicant has not filed the proper and necessary documentation that you need to make an informed, an intelligent and an objective decision and that the applicant’s submission have inaccuracies and contradictions which you need to be aware of. And so as I begin, I ask you, as difficult as it may be, and I know some of you sat on the first application, that you have to view this as though you were hearing it for the first time. You have to pretend that this crematory doesn’t exist. It’s going to be built if you approve it today. You have to apply the laws in existence in 1998. The bottom line from all of this is this crematory just does not belong in this neighborhood.

So let’s begin with some easy issues. The first issue is the 1976 slope stipulation and I have a helper who is going to pass out the handouts all at one time so that you can follow with me. In 1976 when the funeral home was approved, it was passed with three stipulations. The relevant stipulation is the third one and the third one said that the slope at the southerly end of the property and the trees thereon shall not be disturbed except as necessary for the installation of storm drainage. And, of course, the storm drainage that they were talking about had to do with the funeral home. There was no anticipation at that time that there would be any further development. Now why is that important? It is important because we’re talking about a slope that meets the definition in your wetlands regulations of an escarpment. It has greater than a 25% incline and there is a stream at the bottom within 100’ clearly making this subject to the jurisdiction of the Wetlands. And when the engineers address you, they will go into detail and show you on the maps where the stream is and how the escarpment is calculated. But for purposes of this aspect of the presentation, there was a stipulation. When you approved the crematory in 1998, you did not remove the stipulation, you did not vote on the stipulation. It wasn’t published. And I’ve given you exhibits that first of all show the three stipulations. It shows the comments made by the Town Planner at that time about the sensitivity of the trees and the slope and the concern about erosion. It shows you the advertisement – that there was no mention of a revocation of the stipulation. And so I would ask you this evening to honor the stipulation that was granted by a predecessor body for valid reasons that still has validity today and, as you will hear, your own staff members have observed erosion at this slope. There is concern about the contamination of the stream and this is an area in your town plan of development that is part of the Scantic River preserve, something that is a critical resource to this community if not the state. And you are allowing something that exacts chemical emissions, hazardous waste materials and incineration to be in close proximity to it.

The second point I want to make with regard to this is that if you find there’s a violation of the slope stipulation, you cannot, by law, find that this is an accessory use because you can’t allow a use that violates your zoning regulations. And, you also have the ability to determine that there is enough question that this matter should be referred to the Wetlands Commission for a complete review by the entire Commission before you render your decision and I will show you the state statutes that require you to do that in a memo from your own Wetlands Agent that I think raises enough questions and doubt for you to prudently take that action.

The second issue again which is fairly simple and not complicated is an issue involving the R-33 zone. Your regulations in Section 1.3 and in Section 9.2 – and we’re handing those out – indicate that only one building can be on a lot in an R-33 zone. For whatever reasons you decided to allow the applicant to create two buildings, that creation violates the R-33 zone because the regulations say that a building which includes shelter, housing, enclosure of persons, animals or materials cannot have two buildings in one lot. And here the applicant is arguing that he had a lot line adjustment and it’s only one lot now. So if that’s true and you accept that, that it’s one lot, we violated the zoning because you can only have one building on a lot in an R-33 zone. The relevancy – first of all, it violates your regulations. Secondly, it negates the possibility of finding an accessory use and, third, because of the placement of that building, we are now in endangering the habitat.

The third issue that I would like to raise is regarding special permits as they apply to hazardous wastes and this gets a little bit more complicated. While I’m speaking, we will hand out some materials. 16-2.9 of your regulations has to be read in connection also with the fact that a crematory may be allowed as an accessory use. 16-2.9 indicates a special permit is required for all industrial and/or commercial uses which have the primary activity of handling, use, treatment, processing, storage, incineration or disposal of hazardous materials. Now, you heard some comments from experts of the applicant before that this is not a hazardous waste plan but that’s not the issue. The issue before you is does it meet the definition of this regulation which talks about the activity of handling, use, treatment, or incineration of hazardous materials. We’re going to show you that this does involve hazardous materials. It is incineration. That’s what cremation is all about and I’m going to give you some state statutes that define it that way. And so if 16-2.9 applies, then an entire other body of regulations is subject to your consideration.

And what I’ve done is I have zeroxed a few of these regulations, the pertinent ones, because I’m sure that you don’t have your old regulations. But, first of all, it defines hazardous materials and it’s a very broad definition. It’s not like the other experts said according to the EPA or the Federal regulations. It’s much broader than that. But the bottom line is it is defined also under your regulations and your regulations define it as hazardous. In 1.2.7, there is also a definition of hazardous wastes that is very broad in application and also focuses on your regulation. We then go to 12-3.1. It indicates what uses are permitted in an industrial zone and those involved uses with hazardous waste materials but, interestingly, 12-3.9 also says that unless the use is specifically mentioned in your regulations, it is prohibited. I beg you to find in your regulations in effect at that time any definition or reference to a crematory. It doesn’t exist. That’s why the applicant is here tonight – because the only way that they could get permission for this is for you to find it as an accessory use. But it can’t be an accessory use because it involves hazardous materials. It can only go in an industrial zone and the industrial zone I would submit is my first point. It doesn’t even permit this use. It’s not permitted at all.

Secondly, if for some reason you did find it was permitted, you then have Section 12-3.1.3 which indicates, as Attorney Fahey pointed out, that such a facility has to be 1,500’ from a residential zone and it has to be 75’ from the water table. You know this evening that we’re 100’ from a residential zone. The State Statues said you had to be outside of 500’ but they got around it because they built the crematory before October 1, 1998 and now you have your statute that says it has to be 1,500’ away. We’ll also show you that there are aquifers in this area that are within the 75’ range.

Now, if you turn to Chapter 16, you will see what special permits for site plan review require. I’m not going to go through all these standards because most of them you are familiar with. I’m sure you do it all the time. However, if you look and you jump to page 210, it has special requirements for any use that involves the use, handling, treatment, processing, storage, incineration or disposal of hazardous materials. And I submit to you not one, not one of these items has been submitted to this Commission for your review or your staff’s review. There’s no disclosure of whether it is unconsolidated deposits above bedrock. There’s no detailed surface water hydrological survey. There’s no ground water hydrological study. There’s no bedrock study. There’s no meteorological study. There’s no climatic study. And there’s no mapping or information about the aquifer protection zone. These are important because you have to make decisions that affect the health, welfare and safety of the residents in the Town of Enfield and the community that lives next door to this crematory. This is important to you because you have to decide whether a very valuable preserve along the Scantic River is going to be affected by this use. And so I would submit to you that these applications are all important.

Now let’s also talk about hazardous waste. When the applicant submitted the application in May of 1998, what did he say – that he was filing it subject to the regulation which was 16-2.9. It was only when he got his attorney involved that they decided to change it to the State Statute and argue that the State Statute usurped your regulations, that you had no authority, no authority, to implement your own regulations. But three of you voted against it because you thought otherwise and, obviously, the State Appellate Court and the State Superior Court thought otherwise.

When he submitted his supplemental application for some changes, he changed the section numbers because we had learned a lesson already about trying to usurp and circumvent your regulations. But what happened when he applied for a building permit. Now, here is an objective official of your town and he defines this use as a BF1 and he attached – this is your official and I didn’t ask for this information. This was part of the public record back in 1998. He defines this as refuge incinerator and it’s under the moderate, hazard, factory and industrial uses. So by definition of your Building Inspector, this is a hazardous use.

Now, let’s look at the DEP permits. Again as was astutely questioned by Commissioner Egan, whether or not they have changed now is not relevant. We’re looking back at 1998. The first permit from the DEP which was in 1998 indicates a couple of thing. Number one, it has ozone non-attainment status and it’s checked off “serious”. On the second page, it says charging material and it says type 4 pathological waste. It checks off on the top of the form incinerator and it checks off that the stack to the closest property line is only 50’ - fifty feet – if you can imagine it. Now, the first permit in 1992 basically has the same information. There are no changes in terms of its designation as an incinerator having pathological wastes being hazardous wastes and it does, as the experts indicated before, have the criteria pollutants. Our engineers will describe that for you but for now emphasize the word “pollutants”. What is a pollutant? A pollutant is something that endangers the environment, endangers the health, welfare and safety. Now, for those of you that are probably like me – we’re not all that well versed in pollutants and toxics and all that – so we have submitted a complete package for your review. It is a list of all the pollutants and at the very end of that package is a chart which shows all of the health effects that these pollutants can cause. There’s also a map that we handed out which is a map done by the applicant’s engineer and not ours. It was handed in in 1998 and it shows distances from the crematory building and the funeral home building itself. However, regulations in state law say that the measurement is from the property line not the building itself. So you’ll see even if you measure from the building, you’re within 500’ but you’re certainly within 1,500’.

So when we’re talking about pollutants, I’ll raise another issue for you. In the 1998 hearing, a floor plan was submitted and I’m going to submit this entire plan as an exhibit. It shows that the floor plan includes an office, a lavatory, storage, a crematory and garage. However, Connecticut General Statute 19a-323 indicates that a body cannot be cremated until at least forty-eight hours after death unless it’s a communicable disease. So where are these bodies being held? If somebody brings a body for cremation and you can’t cremate it for forty-eight hours, is it just sitting in an office deteriorating? Is it in a storage or freezer vault off premises? I would think that the crematory facility itself would have the proper storage facilities for deteriorating bodies and I don’t see that in the site plan unless the building has been altered since its approval.

The next item I’m going to talk about is the environment itself and the nature of the activities. I would ask if we would pass out these exhibits while I’m talking.

Chairman DiPace: Why don’t you just give them all to Jose and let Jose pass them out so the Commission can pay attention and listen to what he is saying.

Attorney Baram: I do have copies for each of you. I just thought it would be easier -

Chairman DiPace: Jose can pass them out. We’re sitting here passing them down and we’re trying to listen to you and we’re passing papers down and we’re missing some of what you’re saying.

Attorney Baram: No problem. We have maintained from day one that this matter should have gone before the Wetlands Commission and you’ll hear the details of that in a moment because there are wetlands activities. But we have two recent memos that are handed out, one is handed out and one we just got tonight, which indicates that your Wetlands Agent has determined or wants more time to review based upon maps that were submitted by the applicant in 1998. If you look at these different maps, you will see that they show different things. Some maps show a stream and some don’t. Whether or not the Wetlands Agent in 1998 had all the maps, I don’t know. You should all know this, by the way. I was not involved in the zoning hearing in 1998. I only got involved in the litigation. So I wasn’t here to help the neighborhood.

Based upon the memo from your own Inland Wetlands Agent and what we’re going to tell you tonight, this clearly is a wetlands issue and under 8-3c. this Commission is obligation, in my opinion, to only make a determination. You can hear the presentation but you can’t make a vote or determination until there’s a report by the Wetlands Commission and you have to take that report, good or bad, into account as part of the factors that you consider. And we desperately need to know what the Wetlands Commission thinks. Now, the Wetlands Agent, as I understand it, while he has been out there and he’s seen erosion and he makes reference in his memos to his continuing concern but he’s talking about future development. Well, again, as I exorted you before, you have to view this as if this was a first time application and, therefore, as a first time application, if there’s a wetlands issue, it needs to be reviewed by the Wetlands. What happed in 1998, I don’t know. I wasn’t here. But I know in 2005 what’s happening and I know that there’s a wetlands, there’s a stream, there’s an escarpment and this, without question, is a slam dunk. This is a wetlands issue and it needs to be presented. That’s important not only because it’s wetlands but because it involves the environment and you’re putting a crematory next to some very sensitive environmental areas. And even though the wetlands regulations say the regulated area is within 100’ of a stream that is below an escarpment or 25’ from a wetlands boundary or 75’ from a water course boundary or 150’ from a water discharge area, the case law has said that if there’s something outside the regulated areas that impacts the regulated areas, there’s even broader discretion for the wetlands. So this is something that definitely should go to the Wetlands and I will make a formal request as part of the record that you not act on this application, refer it to Wetlands for a full report of the entire Commission at this point because, obviously, the Wetlands Agent has made some observations and is suggesting maybe it’s not germaine. I think that needs to go to the entire Commission to make that determination.

We’ve submitted two letters, one from Fuss & O’Neil and one from Connecticut Eco Systems. Connecticut Eco Systems was submitted back a while ago but Fuss & O’Neil was a recent report and, basically, verifies and substantiates the wetlands nature of this site. I also would indicate that your own zoning regulations and the state statutes require that there be wetlands review when there are wetlands issues. The state statute that is relevant is 8-3c and your own wetlands and zoning regulations require that there be at lest fifteen days submission of the wetlands report for you to consider.

I would now like to introduce and did we hand out the resumes – we did, okay – of Kevin Miller and Phil Forsley who are with Fuss & O’Neil and will make a brief presentation on the particulars and the details of both the wetlands environmental issues, the toxic emissions and the like. I will turn it over to them.

Phil Forsley: Good evening. For the record, my name is Phil Forsley. I’m a Senior Project Manager at Fuss & O’Neil. What I’d like to do is continue the thoughts that David started regarding our review and the project as it pertains to wetlands. We do agree with Attorney Baram that the application should have been filed with the Wetlands Commission. I’d like to just point out a couple of maps I have and then I’ll go into it a little bit more but Attorney Baram referred to different representations of wetlands and water courses on the site. What I would like to point out is this one map called Alternate 1 that shows a water course along this property which is along the easterly property line of the funeral home site. This is the only map that this water course shows on. It doesn’t show up on any of the grading plans so it seems as though – and the stream does end right at the property line – it seems as though it ought to be considered a little bit farther.

This is a proposed site plan for the funeral home. As Attorney Baram mentioned, there some activities that took place in construction of a parking lot and I’ll show later on of some retaining walls that were constructed when the crematory was built. The steep slopes that you see here are mapped as terrace escarpments on the USDA Soils Maps and you can see – these are one foot contours so it looks steeper than you folks might be used to seeing when you see a contour map. But, nonetheless, the slopes are in excess of twenty-five percent. Down at the bottom of the escarpment, there is a water course. There’s another water course – actually this is a storm water discharge and I don’t know whether that was in place prior to the activity here but this is clearly a water course unassociated with the activity and with storm water drainage. In any event, on this site plan for the funeral home, there are parking areas and driveways shown directly on the terrace escarpment in this area here as well as over here. So they are on the eastern and western rear portions of parking.

This next plan - which I have handouts for and I will submit them and they can be distributed or not but I will submit them for the record - is an as built plan that was prepared for the crematory and I should have highlighted the existing crematory. It is this rectangular building here. During construction in deference to the terraced escarpments admittedly, retaining walls were built along the back portion of the new driveway for the crematory and then along the easterly side of the building. They did their best to keep these off the escarpment. However, as Attorney Baram pointed out, this retaining wall, the easterly one in particular, was constructed right at the top of the escarpment. The escarpment is clearly a regulated area. There is a water course down at the bottom of it and I believe the wetlands regulations that were in effect back in this time period indicated the entire escarpment is to be considered a regulated area if there’s a water course associated with it. I showed on the previous map that there was. So, really, this retaining wall while not directly on the escarpment is directly adjacent to it. You couldn’t get any closer and it really should have come under the jurisdiction of the Wetlands Commission.

I point out I’m not sure about Enfield but in many or all of the other towns that I work in, including the one I live in, the wetlands commission would consider that to be a regulated activity because of its proximity to the regulated area which is, in this case, the escarpment.

Attorney Baram mentioned the location of the site relative to aquifers. The site is within the watershed of Connecticut Water Company’s aquifer. They have a published map indicating that. And, assuming that an application should have been filed with the Wetlands Commission, the Wetlands Regulations also would have required the applicant to submit a copy of the application with the Connecticut Water Company because they have a published aquifer map. I don’t believe that was done.

I would like to speak very briefly. Attorney Baram has really covered this but with regard to the zoning regulations and handling or management of hazardous materials, the regulations say we’ve already talked about the proximity of this to residential zones and so forth but there’s also discussion in the zoning regulations about proximity to ground water. The regulations say that processing, storing, incineration and or disposal of hazardous or toxic materials should not take place within 1,500’ of a residential zone or within 75’ of the water table. I would like to make two points. Number one is that the crematory building – and what I’ve done – somewhere – is made a rudimentary composite of two different maps that I’ve shown tonight. One is the site plan which is underneath and the other is the as built plan for the crematory. I wanted to show the crematory in relation to the water course. This is I believe the only map that I found that shows that. But what this shows, if you look at the elevations and I won’t bore you with them, that the crematory is about 50’ above this water course. In the report that’s handed out, in the back of my letter, are data from a U. S. Geological Survey – I’m sorry, this is a Connecticut DEP hydrogeologic data for the upper Connecticut River basin. It’s a 1971 water resources bulletin. There are three monitoring wells that more or less surround this site that were monitored. They were drilled and monitored. Ground water was found to vary at depths between fourteen to sixty-five feet. This water course is about fifty feet below the elevation of the crematory. We can deduce from that and the fact that these are highly impervious soils that the water course is directly associated with the ground water. And the point of all that is that this site is well within the 75 vertical feet which is the setback indicated in the zoning ordinance.

Chairman DiPace: Just a quick question. Do you know what the depth of that aquifer is?

Phil Forsley: The depth below ground water according to that published data is – depending on which well you’re looking at and you’ll see how the wells are plotted out – the deepest one in a triangle that surrounds this site is 65’. The shallowest was found to be 14’.

Chairmann DiPace: Would it be a Level B aquifer?

Phil Forsley: This is a Level A aquifer map by Connecticut Water Company.

Very briefly, I would like to talk about hazardous materials and I’m going to spend all of thirty seconds doing this. Just from sort of a common sense and on the lay level regarding how hazardous these materials are and whether they are wastes or hazardous materials, my understanding, and I think the data that Attorney Baram handed out, embalmed bodies contain formaldehyde, medicines that were used by the deceased and so forth. I believe these are considered, at least, to be biohazardous materials and biomedical wastes. Whether they fit the definition of a hazardous waste or not, I don’t really know. But they are clearly hazardous materials and we would appeal to common sense in considering whether they should be managed and incinerated certainly in such close proximity to a residential zone.

That’s all I have and I would be glad to answer any questions.

Chairman DiPace: Any questions from the Commission?

Attorney Matthew Willis: I have one question. Are the plans that you have up there – are you submitting them for the record?

Phil Forsley: Yes, and those actually were plans drafted by the applicant and submitted in 1998.

Mr. Giner: But you have overlaid stuff.

Attorney Matthew Willis: You’ve marked on it.

Mr. Giner: You’ve overlaid stuff.

Phil Forsley: Yes.

Mr. Giner: We can keep that, right?

Phil Forsley: Yes.

Mr. Giner: We need to.

Dr. Kevin Miller: Good evening. For the record, my name is Dr. Kevin Miller and I’m the Director of Environmental Chemistry and Risk Assessment at Fuss & O’Neil. I’m not an engineer. I’m a chemist and a toxicologist. And I was asked by Attorney Baram to look at the literature on crematoriums and try to determine based on the literature and knowledge of the site if it posed a risk to human health and the environment. It was an interesting task to tell you the least. The way we normally go about doing risk assessments – any site has potential contaminants – is that first what we do is determine if, in fact, there are chemicals of concern on the site or, in this case, coming from the stack of the crematorium. The second thing that we normally do is to try to determine at what concentration are these chemicals. Thirdly, if these chemicals are toxic or if they are not toxic. Fourth, we determine if there is a chemical there and it’s at significant concentration and it’s toxic, what is the exposure to potential receptors at the site. By receptors, I mean people, children, and the eco system – fish, birds, endangered species and all that. Based on all those sections, we then try to determine if there is risk to both human health and the environment. I have and I will submit for the record – it’s fairly thick – a document that includes both my notes tonight and some of the supporting information that I made some of my conclusions on. I also do have a copy for each of you but perhaps we’ll pass those out later or maybe you want to take these up. Each one is a separate one.

Several people have talked about contaminants of concern. In the first section of the document, it lists approximately twelve chemicals. What I’ve done is I’ve taken those from a Bay Area air quality survey that was done in contesting a crematorium in California and the Bureau of Air Toxics of the Bay Area published this off their web site. So it comes from a public source and it clearly indicates again there’s about twelve or so different contaminants. I’ve also taken the liberty to summarize what’s in a table for you and, quite briefly, each one of them has either carcinogenic effects or other effects to human health. Now, the question would become is there enough of them there to cause a problem.

The second section in that book – I have copied out two thoughts from the EPA’s web site – is a service they call Iris which is the toxicological information of each one of those chemicals. Those were printed out yesterday so they are as recent as yesterday. They indicate again all the health effects that can be caused from those chemicals.

Dr. Kevin Miller: Exposure is summarized in this schematic and you also have a copy in there. We’ve – I think based on this literature, there certainly are contaminants in the off gassing from the stacks from the crematorium. There is toxicity involved with each one of them as indicated both in the table that I gave you and EPA’s web site information. Exposure, I think, is pretty evident. This is a schematic out of one of our medical laboratory books and it’s referenced in the bottom of the schematic. If you were to replace a chemical plant with a crematorium, you can see that the off gassing from the crematorium has several exposure pathways, we call them, complete exposure pathways. For instance, the emissions from the stack can, in fact, contaminate soil. They can contaminate ground water. They can contaminate air – and sediment. The Scantic River is close to this facility. If the contaminants are in the soil, vegetables growing in those soils can absorb many of those contaminants and they can be eaten by human beings. And there is farming right around this facility. The contaminants can get into the milk of animals, the meat of animals, again, cows, which we eat, and it can get into the sediments of the Scantic River. If there were sediments in the Scantic River, the biota can eat them and in turn fish eat the biota and in turn, people eat fish or are the receptors such as fox and other higher levels of animal.

To try to go through every one of these chemicals and give you a scenario of each one of them and their fate – what we call their fate and disposition in the environment would take a long time. For the sake of this evening, I picked on mercury because I think mercury is a chemical that a lot of people are familiar with. I think you all know that you shouldn’t eat a lot of fish with mercury in them. The tricky part was the literature to be honest with you as far as trying to determine how much mercury goes up the stack. I’ve heard other experts tonight talk about they are in compliance with EPA regulations. Well, something I learned in college is something called ad hominum. It’s the original premise you have to consider. There’s really not a lot of good data as to how much mercury actually goes into these crematoriums. Most of it comes from amalgam. As much as fifty percent of the amalgam is mercury. Based on just chemistry and based on the literature, most of the amalgam goes up the stack. So, there’s estimations all over the board of how much mercury is actually being off gassed - anywhere from very small amounts to five grams per cremation. I’ve included in your data package – there’s a gentleman out in Wisconsin that has done a summary of references of mercury emissions and it’s quite comprehensive. He does say in there – and for the sake of calculations tonight I use one gram of mercury per cremation as a typical concentration. If I’m wrong and if it’s on the high side, I’m overestimating risk and if it’s on the low side, I’m underestimating risk or vice versa. But if you consider for a second that if you were to do 100 cremations a year and one gram of mercury was released with each cremation, that’s 100 grams of mercury a year. If you were to do that for seven years, that’s 700 grams of mercury. Now, that’s a lot of mercury. 700 grams of mercury is a lot of mercury. Just to give you an idea, at hazardous waste sites in the State of Connecticut, we have what call remedial standard regulations. Those are concentrations that if you were a hazardous waste site, that you would be obliged to clean up to make the site safe for both human health and environmental risk. There’s three criteria they use. One of them is called a residential – these are all risk based so where I’m leading to this is that if you exceed these numbers, the DEP themselves have determined there could be a risk to human health. The three numbers we talked about are the residential DEC, the direct exposure criteria, where if somebody, particular children, were to eat the soil which kids do and were to have dermal contact with it, touch it, there could be risks to them. The second number that we use a lot is something called a pollutant mobility concentration. That’s a concentration at which if – in this case mercury is in the soil – it has the capacity to leach to ground water and if it leaches to ground water, all these issues are evident and those are being – you couldn’t possibly drink the water. Even if you didn’t drink the water, it could be used by vegetables or plants at the outtake and concentrated into vegetables or, in fact, the animals themselves could drink it.

Based on 700 grams of mercury possibly being released into the air and depositing its soil, we calculated that – this is a kilogram of soil just for your information and if you were not aware of these measurements. Based on 700 grams of mercury, you would have exceeded the direct exposure criteria with 350,000 kilograms of soil. If you take into account the pollutant mobility concentration, again, that’s a concentration at which there is a potential, it doesn’t necessarily mean it does, but it is a potential to leach into ground water, you would have contaminated 17.5 million kilograms of soil. If, in fact, you had 700 grams of mercury and you were to compare it to sediment, you would roughly contaminate an eco system of about 140,000 acres of wetland. Now, again, those are large numbers and I could be way off either way but based on the literature, I think there’s reasonable evidence that there could be a problem. The only article I could find of actual soil measurements of soil concentrations, there was an article that was published by – let’s get the name of this right – the Cremation Association of North America. The article is in here where a gentleman by the name of Paul Rayhill publishes. I think the title of the article is “Mercury Emissions and Crematoriums Revisited.” They were in the United Kingdom and they actually measured mercury in soils and measured on an average 0.15 milligrams per kilogram of mercury in soils around the crematory. Now, he was quite proud of the fact that those numbers are well below the twenty, as I said, the residential exposure criteria, but in Connecticut he’s be almost four times greater than the polluted mobility criteria. So even with their own measurements of soil concentrations in the UK, they were above what we would consider a problem or what could be a problem here in Connecticut.

So what I tried to do is give you the notes that I have, give you all the backup information that I have. I think there’s confusion. We’re talking about permitting these crematoriums. Again, if you’re not sure what you’re putting in, how do you model that? And there’s tremendous variability right there just in the literature itself. Who’s right? I don’t know who’s right and I don’t think anybody knows who’s right. But I do know that in the UK there is mercury in the soil. I do know that there is a potential certainly to have a lot of significant contamination – up to 17.5 million kilograms in the last seven years could have been contaminated with mercury.

So with that I think that there’s definitely constituents of concern. There are toxins that are coming out of that stack. I don’t think anybody denies that there’s some. I mean it’s written right into the permits. They can release a certain amount. We know that they are toxics and we know that there’s potential exposure pathways and if you consider my assumptions correctly, and again it’s the best I could do with what I had, I think there’s at least a potential that there could be an impact to human health and the environment.

That’s all I have.

Commissioner Cooper: I have a quick question. Do you know if there are any statistics out about the health impact around existing crematories?

Dr. Kevin Miller: There was one study in Sweden where there was a claim that there were health effects in children and of women around the crematorium. In all fairness, I think that the study was pretty weak and I think if you read the literature some people have, there wasn’t enough evidence. It was more circumstantial than anything else. There certainly could be but I didn’t see a study that actually proved that.

Chairman DiPace: Did you take any samples or do any studies of the property around this site?

Dr. Kevin Miller: No, I did not.

Chairman DiPace: So there hasn’t been studies?

Dr. Kevin Miller: To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any – either air testing, soil testing or sediment testing.

Commissioner Egan: One contaminant that you then address here, and as a toxicologist you’ll probably recognize it, it is the antinea plastic drugs that are used in chemotherapy that I know certain medical waste incinerators are required because they do require pathological wastes to burn at certain temperatures – 2000 degrees in two seconds residence time. Is there a reason you didn’t address that here? Is that not a –

Dr. Kevin Miller: You know I think it could be as much of an issue as the rest of the chemicals on here. The reason I didn’t is that the reference I used didn’t include them. But I have seen that as an alert and certainly they are a concern too. There’s lots of things that are a concern – pacemakers and a lot of other. That was an education. I’m used to doing risk assessments from a hazardous waste site perspective. There are a lot of things that you could consider as chemicals of concern. I believe there’s proper ways of handling people who have had chemotherapy and going to certain other kinds of treatments before you cremate the body. I’m not an expert on that either but I just wanted to comment on that.

Chairman DiPace: Equal time is up.

Attorney Baram: I wasn’t under any time limitations of equal time. I have two more areas I need to cover that are important.

Attorney Matthew Willis: And you can do these quickly, Attorney Baram?

Chairman DiPace: We have a full audience of people that want to speak and you had equal time and equal time is –

Attorney Baram: I understand but in 1998 you had four hearings without any formal presentation by the community. I’m trying to give you some technical, objective information to help you in your decision making. I understand because I was an elected official at one point as well. I understand the patience that’s required but the Court asked for you to give us a new hearing. There were no requirements of time stipulation. I will try to get through it but I have some complicated but very important things left to say. I would just ask for your indulgence. You may have to come back another night to hear the residents and I apologize for that but I was not told that I had an hour or half hour or anything else.

Chairman DiPace: An intervener – it says right in the first paragraph that you are allowed equal time.

Attorney Baram: In what paragraph?

Attorney Matthew Willis: Why don’t we just cut to the chase. How much time is it going to take, Attorney Baram?

Attorney Baram: Twenty minutes.

Attorney Matthew Willis: We do have a lot of members of the public.

Attorney Baram: I understand that but I wasn’t told that this had to be done in one evening. We started at quarter of eight. We had an intermission of ten minutes for the microphones. I’m trying to get through this as quickly as I can. It hasn’t been quite as long.

Chairman DiPace: You’ve been an hour. We came back in an hour ago. Right here, it says Notice of Intervention, Request for Notice of Meetings and staff reports –

Attorney Matthew Willis: Let’s just be clear. I mean you can allow the public to speak now. Attorney Baram, you’re going to be allowed to present your materials. There’s no doubt about that. I think he’s just trying to get some of the public to be able to speak.

Chairman DiPace: I don’t want to keep them here until midnight and not let them speak. Equal time is equal time.

Attorney Baram: That’s okay. May I just take two minutes and just finish up my thoughts on this particular issue and then I’ll address the other two, either later tonight or at another meeting.

Number one, we’re handing out Connecticut General Statute 19a-320. Please note that that statute talks about cremation as the incineration of bodies. I also just – we’ve asked you to reflect on your regulations because the regulations don’t say that if you meet EPA or DEP requirements, you’re exempt from the regulation. It doesn’t say how much contamination there has to be. It only says if any waste poses a present or potential hazard – potential hazard – then all these other reports have to be submitted. The community did not have the resources or where with all to hire the experts that would be needed to do the air tests and everything else plus it’s private property. But you have the where with all to require that information from the applicant. And, under your site plan review for hazardous wastes and materials, it’s a requirement that the applicant has to do it. And it doesn’t matter whether you think that he meets the DEP or EPA requirements or standards. It doesn’t matter. And Kevin is about as honest and candid as they are. He kept saying potential, maybe I’m off, maybe I’m low. The point is if it is potential, it invokes your regulations.

With that, I just want to say for the record that I have two more areas to present. I think I can do it in ten minutes each tonight but I completely emphathize with your thought to let the residents speak and if that’s what you’d like to do, I’ll defer my other comments until you feel it’s appropriate.

Thank you very much.

Chairman DiPace: At this point in the meeting, due to the lateness, I’m going to open this up to the public. I do have a list here. We’re going to go around. I did abide by the intervention which clearly states equal time. I allowed the intervener actually ten minutes over but due to the lateness of the evening with all the people that want to speak, I’m going to start with public input. The first name I have is Paul Teder. Please come forward and state your name and address for the record.

Can this easel and map also be moved, please. You can actually turn it and put it back a little bit so that the public can see it.

Paul Teder: Good evening. My name is Paul Teder. I’m a resident of Enfield. I live at 15 Bigelow Avenue. I’ve lived in Enfield with my family for the least fifteen years. I’m here tonight to verbalize my support for the Leete-Stevens Funeral Home and the operation of a crematory on this property. I offer my support not because I work at another funeral home and I want to be very open about this but I offer it as a resident of Enfield because of my basic knowledge from working around crematories. I’m employed as a bookkeeper at Carmon Community Funeral Homes in Windsor, Connecticut. It has been in operation since 1976. In their Windsor location, they operate a crematory in the building that I work in and another one not one hundred yards away. I mention all this because in the three years that I’ve been with the Carmon’s, I’ve never heard any substantial noise when outside the building that I work in when the crematory is in operation nor have I ever smelled anything unusual while this crematory is in operation. Now I believe and support the fact that we live in a pluralistic society where more than one opinion or idea has a right to be voiced and heard. Tonight I think it’s evident that we’re here and we can see this. When I served in the military, I supported this concept as well as the other freedoms we enjoy today. And one of the things that I feel that people tend to forget is that in a democracy that we enjoy, while we support diverse opinions and I know sometimes it isn’t the proper thing to say, the reality is that the majority rule while we uphold the rights of the minority. I say this because I do not feel the minority has the right to tell the majority how they should live, think in this case, or do business when it does not hurt or infringe on their guaranteed rights.

Now, I’d like to make this short because today is my birthday and my family is waiting for me but I think that they’ve probably retired. I honestly believe that there’s a lack of accurate information and it’s the reason why the community, or some of the community – I think it’s a small number, is not supporting the crematory. I do not understand why anyone would not want to support a business, especially one in good standing in the community from offering additional services that help this community. I mentioned a phrase about good standing because I was on the town web site and I noticed that not too long ago Leete-Stevens was recognized and honored as a long established business in the town.

Lastly, I want to share with you some of my emotion I felt when I drove down South Road not too long ago to see signs in opposition to the crematory. While I firmly support these fine citizens and taxpayers and their right to protest, I really wonder if they’ve given enough thought to how they’ve worded these signs. I wonder if they’ve thought about the impact to the families that have to use Leete-Stevens facilities and their feelings especially at their time of loss. I also wonder if they’ve taken the time to put themselves in the situation.

In closing, I support the special use permit for the crematory and, lastly, if I can, there’s an exhibit that this fine gentleman held up about the kilogram of dirt and offered some, I believe, expert opinions. But one of the things that I did notice is that while they offered some expert opinion in testimony, one of the things I thought was interesting was that in all the work that they did, they didn’t do any sampling about mercury in the soil around the property and there was plenty of opportunity to do that. So, I’ll leave that for you folks to ponder. I thank you for your time at this public meeting.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Happy Birthday! The next one on the list is Tom McGovern, 1150 Enfield Street. Again like I read originally in the original statement, if you confer with somebody, please try and do that and try to keep it, if possible, to five minutes or under.

Tom McGovern: Tom McGovern, 1150 Enfield Street. I support Dick Stevens and their endeavor. They say that it has been going on for seven years only because of the courts are telling you. But, if it has been going on for seven years and it’s wrong, the town would have shut them down. And, in listening to Dick’s attorney and the attorney for the opposition, there’s too much detail. 16- this and that. Those are only lawyers’ work. To me, you people should decide based on the needs of this town. Do we need a crematory? Do we want to send out and have it come back a box full of ashes? Who’s ashes are they? At least here we know they are ours. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: The next one on the list is Jim Howard. He’s the former Chairman.

Jim Howard: Jim Howard, 31 Steele Road, Enfield, Connecticut. I’m here to support the decision that was made in 1998. I was one of the four that voted for it and I would vote again for it. We made our decision based on the law, the regulations and the material that was presented to us at that time. I think it was the right decision then and I think it’s the right decision now. And I concur with the first speaker that the signs were pretty tough to take. Thank you very much.

Neil Narcone: Neil Narcone, 5 Clear Street. From the beginning, I just want to let everybody know that I’m not against cremation. I think it’s a great idea with today’s economy and it’s a good alternative solution with the rising costs of an average funeral today. The thing that bothers me is where they’re doing this. With the emissions and we’ve seen all kinds of data and I’m not going to reiterate it again. There’s a lot more stuff out there than I can say right now. It would take a lot more than five minutes. But the emission is the big problem. I’m also a graduate of the University of Hartford. I got a bachelors degree of engineering over there and I’m a past employee of Combustion Engineering before they sold out to ABB and then they sold out to some Swedish concern. And one figure that somebody said earlier was the ninety-nine percent efficiency of the equipment. Today, as far as I know, there’s nothing out there that gives you ninety-nine percent efficiency. That equipment does not exist. When I was at Combustion, they were exploring different ways to get up to there. Obviously, the fluids and gases burn well and even if they pulverize coal as a powder and burn it, you still can’t get anywhere near that. So it behooves me how somebody could take a solid waste and claim that kind of efficiency. It just doesn’t happen. So, the ninety-nine percent throws the clean stack emissions right out the window there.

The thing that bothers me also is how do they come up with those numbers. Are they really pushing a lot of extra air through that furnace and diluting the readings? It would be like me and you going through emissions with a little blower after your engine and exhaust pipe there and you’re just diluting the readings so much that it looks like you’re burning clean and you’re not. So I would really like to challenge that efficiency reading.

I don’t like the comparison going against fireplaces versus what a funeral parlor is doing. If somebody burns coal or wood in their fireplace, yes, you’re dealing with something dirty but you only got a carbon there. It’s a natural by product. You’re not throwing formaldehyde in there and burning lead and medical by products and all that kind of stuff. That’s what a human mostly is today. If you see what a person has been living on and the junk food industry today and the medical stuff they’re on, the toxics that accumulate in one’s liver. We talk about teeth but a lot of other organs in the body suffer from by products of pollution. So, the fireplace scenario doesn’t cut it with me.

There’s also reference to EPA standards with a lot of this stuff. For those that have been following Bush and everybody else we know, he’s a pretty much anti-air quality guy. He’s kind of trying to dismantle the EPA so that seems to be a weak spot to bounce against. I think we should try to aim for higher standards than that if we want to arrive at any kind of a clean air society.

Mercury is also one of the newest toxics there are and it’s coming from a lot of places. The couple of calculations I was doing quickly when someone else was talking – the little Honeywell thermostats we all in our house – the old fashioned thermostats that are still allowed in use today have typically 100 grams of mercury in it. I’ve known from other people that if one of those gets broken or thrown away, that has the ability to contaminate sixty acres of water. That’s one thermostat and 100 grams of mercury. And we’re talking some rough ballpark figures of 700 grams of year out of a typical crematorium, I see 420 acres of potential contamination there. That’s one pollutant. We didn’t discuss formaldehyde. We didn’t discuss lead. A lot of people are under the misconception too from a combustion standpoint, you burn something at 1,800 degrees and we’re all free and clear. It’s not. There’s a lot of products that just go through unaltered. Nitrogen is one. Lead is another one from leaded paint or whatever other sources it comes from. Mercury is another one. A lot of these metals just go through unprocessed. Maybe they are a finer particulate but they are still coming out and going somewhere. So what happens if it rains. The rain washes the water and then it ends up in the ground somewhere and then continues its cycle to who knows where. That’s the whole idea of scrubbers from the Combustion Engineering stories there. When they try to clean the air, they clean the air with water. It’s the same thing here. Nature is doing it and it’s doing it back to us.

Another standpoint too is look in Hartford. We have a trash energy plant down there. If anybody’s done studies down there, we see where Connecticut’s got some of the highest asthma rates available in any state. The general health of the kids in that area – they all come down with unexplained cancers and certain sicknesses and things that nobody can explain. Granted this is a smaller scale here, but do we want this. I don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense with what we’re trying to do here. It’s not an industrial area and even then it didn’t seem to fit the picture.

So, in closing, I’m against it.

Chairman DiPace: The next one is Vinnie Urbanowicz.

Vincent Urbanowicz: Good evening. Vin Urbanowicz, 58 South Road, right across from Mr. Stevens. I have two letters to read in. One is from Stephen Sidor who’s at 52 South Road just up the street from Mr. Stevens. He asked me to read this one in and another one from Joanne Sidor who is at 16 Olmstead. Steve’s main primary concern is the well being of his children, Jackie and Sammy, and the long term effects from seeing Gary breathing the vapors in walking to and from the crematory. He says “my children have to witness somebody going up the stack when they walk by my house and what if the person being burned is full of chemicals from cancer treatments and mercury” – much like other people have already stated. I’ll let you read his letter in full if you like. I just briefly summarized it.

I also have one from Joanne who is also concerned about property values in the neighborhood. She puts in her statement that she feels she is in a difficult situation should she want to sell her home some day. “I would have to sell below market value.” I’ll go into that further because I’d like to talk on that a little bit. She is also concerned about the fallout from the emissions that reach her property and what are the long term effects of that fallout.

I also would like to submit the petitions that we passed around. We have over 300 plus signatures and I will give them to Jose. I have a statement I would like to read. It’s about three pages and it should be pretty quick and I have a handout.

Good evening. My name is Vin Urbanowicz. I’ve spoken on the other issues of noise and odor and the operation of the crematory in the last meeting. I also talked about the chemical effects. We also know because of the studies that most of the noise and the rest of the stuff is pretty much confirmed by the town that it does make noise even though they said it would never make any noise at all. And I would like to also state with this I have had studies done by a evaluation person on the mortgage value of my home at 58 South Road. The appraisal at the time – the 2000 appraisal – my home was valued at $118,000 without a crematory. After the current evaluation which just happened, it dropped to $94,000 and that’s the town evaluation of my property. That was done by the town. So I’ve had approximately a twenty percent loss in value since the crematory has gone in. Mr. Marcell who’s also done two detailed studies of my property and the property at 52 South Road is included in here. The primary reason was with the crematory, they claim that there’s a problem with me living across from a crematory trying to sell to somebody with the fact that there’s a crematory across the street. It has a negative effect on the person who wishes to buy my property.

Right now my property encompasses not only my land but it encompasses 9F which is a big chunk of land around eight and a half acres around South Road. The current evaluation without the crematory as done by the participant, Mr. Marcell, valued the property at $357,000 and because he notes that the crematory is there, he says the most I could possibly get is like $286,000 which they estimate to be about $71,000 or another twenty percent loss.

Mr. Marcell has also stated that with respect to this property, the location of the crematory at 61 South Road is situated directly across the street. The vacant land and dwelling are located within a distance that’s sufficiently close to the crematory to create resistance to the sale of the property. In addition, when a cremation is taking place, the noise can be clearly heard from the dwelling and potential building lot. Mr. Marcell also said that when people are looking to buy a home, a lot or a dwelling, they will not consider a location with any reasonable distance of a crematory as evidenced by a report that he has done and the impact on the property value is fairly significant and substantial. I don’t think a twenty percent loss of property value is what you would call a minimum.

Chairman DiPace: The next one on the list is Penny Urbanowicz.

Penny Urbanowicz: Penny Urbanowicz, 58 South Road. I’m speaking tonight against this application. Seven years ago I sat before this Commission and explained the negative impact that would occur from the installation of a crematory at 61 South Road. I defined issues such as sight, sound, smell of the operation. These concerns were echoed by the community as well. During the meetings and throughout the time that my case has been in court, it is the goal of Leete-Stevens, Inc. to prove my concerns to be unfounded. The business never achieved this goal. Since I began my fight, I have been contacted by many other residents from across the United States who can both echo my concerns and provide these concerns with factual support. In this presentation, I will cover some of the highlights.

In the fall of the year 2000, I was contacted by Michael Goulash of Sunnyville, California. Michael was fighting a crematory proposal in his residential neighborhood. I shared with him my insight on the issue and even spoke with journalists from KM-TV11 in San Francisco. Michael and his neighbors ultimately lost the protest and the crematory was built. In a letter to the Commission, which you have as Attachment 1, he says in short: I understand you are again considering the wisdom of allowing crematory operations in your town. I write this letter to relay my first hand experience living in a community that permitted a crematory to commence operations approximately three years ago. I can speak unequivocally about my family’s personal experience living in a neighborhood with a crematory. Contrary to the statements of the crematory owner and the manufacture sales person, I attest that our neighborhood has been significantly impacted by the crematory’s operation. Of most dramatic consequence are the odor, dust and noise. Regardless of furnace temperature, bodies smell when first ignited. And there’s a period of foul smelling exhaust that can linger in the neighborhood for hours. Although our city required additional sound proofing for this installation, the furnace and exhaust noise is clearly present and sounds akin to a jet plane constantly overhead. These two issues now make it such that my family can no longer have outdoor gatherings. The crematory here, as I’m sure in Enfield, has no filtering mechanism. As a result, the interior of our house is continually covered with white dust from the fine ash exhausted during cremations. I ask that you do not impact the residents of your town in the same manner as has occurred here.

The attached article from USA Today, December 12, 2003, attachment 2, is illustrative of the national problem arising from crematories in residential neighborhoods. The article states in part “the skirmishes over cremation can become heated. In San Rafael, California, protestors carried signs ‘bake bread, not bodies’. In Osweigo, Illinois a petition invited impassion ‘over my dead body’. A headline writer for the Los Angeles Times summed up the hub bub, ‘strife after death’. A lot of us have visions of Johnny scoring the winning goal with a smoke stack billowing human remains in the background, resident Anthony Copaso said in Osweigo, Illinois.”

This spring I was contacted by Attorney Frederick J. Harrison of Rawlings, Wyoming. He is fighting a crematory which was installed by Roasted Funeral Home next door to his home. He provided me with his own sworn affidavit as well as those of his fellow residents, some of which are included on attachment 3. William Ball, the former manager at the Roasted facility said “it was my belief and remains my belief that a crematory should not be located in the residential areas of Rawlings but should instead be located outside of residential areas of the city so as not to create unacceptable odor for the residents.” Richard Lupus states “in the basement, I visited the boiler room of the Harrison Home and I could smell coming from the fresh air intake, the smell of the crematory. In the bedroom outside the boiler room, I could also smell a noxious scent of the crematory.” Terese DeFore said “the crematory has seriously injured the use and enjoyment of my home. I believe the crematory has reduced our property value. I cannot believe that anyone else would want to buy our house under the current circumstances created by the crematory.” Deborah Harris stated that “yesterday, Monday, April 11, 2005, I could clearly see from my front living room window heat waves or fumes coming from the crematory two days after it last burned on Saturday. This is also distressing to me and I believe contributes to my ill health in the form of tightness to my chest and sinus headaches.” David Harris said that “from my own observation, the crematory is often left unattended with the stack glowing cherry red at night. This concerns me because if fire breaks out no immediate alarm will be given to the immediate neighborhood of the fire department.” Barbara Franz stated “I facilitate two separate three hour therapy groups each week in the evening. Members of both of these groups have complained about the noxious odor and headaches that occur during attendance to these groups.” Attorney Frederick Harrison states “we have tried to protect ourselves by keeping our windows closed at times. We have Hepa filters operating any time a crematory is in operation. We have to feel under doors with two bedrooms in the boiler room that are especially susceptible to infiltration of crematory stench. At the suggestion of a DEQ representative, we often keep candles burning to dissipate the stench at some considerable hazard to our safety from fire. On one occasion, we had a kerosene lamp burning during the day because of the crematory stench. The crematory fumes caused a lamp to flow up and almost caused a house fire.”

Besides these neighbors to the Roasted facility, others in the country have also contacted me. They have, however, been successful in preventing the installation of crematories in their neighborhoods. Some of these people include Erica Harmon of Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina who defeated a proposed crematory in her ocean front community and Attorney Kevin Wyland of Lafayette, Indiana, who pressured the applicant to withdraw his application.

I was also interviewed for the radio program “Radio Health Journal”, in Chicago. It’s a Chicago based syndicated radio program. As is apparent, I am not the only one concerned about the detrimental effects of a crematory. I am not the only one to experience the sight, smell, sounds of this process. I should not have to be placed in this situation where I attain a sort of fame because I live next to and am fighting a crematory. Whatever happened to the sanctity of residential neighborhoods? Whatever happened to my right to live freely and peacefully in my home and enjoy my property?

I hope you will consider not putting this crematory in, please, for the welfare of this neighborhood. I thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next one on the list is Russ Fiore.

Russ Fiore: Hi. My name is Russ Fiore. I reside on 81 South Road within 500’ from that incinerator. I moved there approximately eight and a half years ago not knowing that the town would allow this thing to be put in there. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have bought that home. It really scares me and my wife that my children play in the close vicinity of incinerator. It is emitting toxic chemicals, as we all know. This lowers my real estate value. Who would want to buy my house in that close proximity. It lowers my real estate value but my taxes go through the roof. It doesn’t make sense, does it? The United States Superior Court has ruled against Richard Stevens’ process of getting this incinerator approved in operation – not once but twice so why are you allowing it to go on? This is solid proof that Richard Stevens has been in the wrong all along. Not only have we had to be exposed to air and noise pollution from this incinerator, but we’ve noticed increasing hearse traffic racing back and forth from the crematory. We even received a call from a young lady formerly employed there mentioning that it was too hazardous of a place to work and OSHA would have a field day if they ever entered that facility. How would you feel if you lived nearby and your children were playing nearby?

I ask you please find it in your heart to do the right thing and stop his violation of our neighborhood. I’m really sick and tired of hearing this thing running at all hours. Thank you. (applause)

Chairman DiPace: Excuse me. I made a statement before. Please do not do that so that we can move along. Okay? The next person on the list is David Baram, the attorney for the intervener.

AttorneyBaram: Mr. Chairman, I’ll –

Chairman DiPace: Andrew Urbanowicz.

Andrew Urbanowicz: I have a prepared statement I have given to Jose that will be passed out to you which will explain my speech which I will be announcing.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Commission. My name is Andrew Urbanowicz and I reside at 58 South Road and I am here tonight to voice my opposition to this application. In Dee Stark’s book entitled “Character”, he states on page 114 that reason provides us with faculty of comparing and weighing advantages to the end that we may know exactly which to choose. Deduction permits us to infer their consequences. There are many advantages to weigh then with respect to this application. With said advantages, consequences will result. Some consequences could adversely impact the applicant while other consequences could adversely impact the community. These consequences must be assigned values and compared in order to make a logical and reasoned decision.

A consequence of approving this application is that it will legitimize a hazardous materials incinerator in a residential neighborhood. The rule of law suggests that any such legitimatization ought to be an impossible task. This is an incinerator by the state’s determination, Enfield zoning regulation 16-2.9 governing the location of incinerators mandating a 1500’ setback from residential land use. Since the application under consideration lies in a residential zone, it is impossible for this requirement to be met. Approving the application would effectively nullify and negate the role of local zoning with respect to incineration. Any other parties seeking an incinerator in a residential zone would then be able to bring legal action against the town if they were denied an incinerator because precedence will have been set by this incinerator. A further consequence of this application is the psychological impact of the noise produced by the operation upon those who reside near the incinerator. When the incinerator is in operation, it produces an unworldly whir. A noise test conducted on behalf of the town by Brooks Acoustics Corporation on October 26, 1998 verifies that the operation does, indeed, produce noise. So the levels stated in this report are suspiciously lower than the maximums permitted. A copious amount of noise is documented as emanating from the incinerator. This testing took place at four locations: 58 South Road, 81 South Road, 23 Indian Run and 10’ from the unit itself. Mr. Bennett Brooks states that “although the measured noise levels at position 3, 23 Indian Run, were very low a distinctive warbling sound which cycled on and off was detectable”. This sound was described by the resident and later confirmed as associated with the crematory. So, even at 23 Indian Run, separated from the incinerator premises by a dense forest, the noise was still audible. Mr. Brooks states that “at the Urbanowicz residence, the crematory burner warbled, reach a level of about 44 decibels. This is just below the mandated limit of 45 decibels. At the Furey residence, 81 South Road, the burner warble reached a level of about 38 decibels and at the Hays residence, 23 Indian Run, the burner warble was about 33 decibels.” Mr. Brooks also states that “it may be possible to reduce the noise emitted by the crematory.” The operative word is “reduce”. Mr. Brooks does not suggest that it is possible to eliminate the noise produced by this operation. As the applicant showed viewers of WFSB TV 3, attempts have been made to reduce the noise of the operation. These modifications consisting of blocks mounted to the ceiling of the facility are ineffective and irrelevant. They may achieve a reduction in the amount of echoes within the unit itself. The attached diagram, Exhibit C, explains how such blocks would serve to dissipate some of the noise within the building. Reducing the noise in the building may result in a reduction of the amount of noise produced by the stack but it will not result in elimination of the sound. The sound exiting the stack is omni directional. That is to say it exits the top of the stack in all directions. The sound waves travel until they bounce off a solid object and are reflected back. The diagram, Exhibit D, illustrates how this occurred. Sound waves bouncing off of 58 South Road would be the most intense as there aren’t any barriers between the approximately twenty-foot high stack and the residents. Sound waves would still reach 81 South Road and 23 Indian Run though they would be less intense due to some reflection from the forest. Of course, it should be noted that when there are no leaves on the deciduous trees, the sound will be more intense at the preceding two locations because the amount of reflective surface will have been decreased. The amount of reduction achieved through the noise dampering blocks since the incinerator was tested by Brooks is inconsequential. Since the noise produced is so distinct and unique, its impact is profound. As Mr. Brooks describes it, it is a distinctive burner warbling sound. No level of dampering can remove the incinerator’s characteristic sound or impact. The sound amongst other things evokes imagery of the great many horrors associated with the incineration of human bodies such as the war crimes perpetrated under the direction of Adolf Hitler or Slovadan Milosevicz or those who were incinerated while they worked during the terrorist attacks of September 11. The sound has an evil character which is omni present while the incinerator is in operation. The impacts of such sound on the psyche of the living are unquantifiable. There are also consequences resulting from the defects in the site of the building which houses the incinerator. The building is constructed at the top of an escarpment where the water table is high. The ability of the escarpment to support the substantial weight of the crematory and the building it resides in is unproven in the long term. Ordinary people ordinarily do not choose to build on the top of a steep slope because of the inherent dangers in so doing. If the incinerator and its building were to destabilize the slope, the effect would be significant. The danger of the building on this slope was recognized in 1976 when the funeral home was approved and a stipulation prohibiting building on the slope was imposed. This stipulation has never been lifted.

Of course, there are some consequences with respect to the applicant as well. Leete-Stevens, Inc. will likely lose money if he were asked to dismantle its incinerator. It undoubtedly will be expensive to demolish the building and restore the site. There will also be a loss of income from moving the incineration component from a company’s business model. But these consequences, however, would be self-imposed. The company did not have to construct the building or place the incinerator in it while the case was under appeal. In so doing, they acted at their own risk and bear sole responsibility for the consequences of their action. It is clear then that this application must be denied.

In 1990, at Public Hearing #1679, even Mr. Stevens himself recognized that crematories do not belong in residential zones when he sought a zone change to business local. He said in reference to his desire for a crematory that “all of a sudden you’ll say, gee, I’m sorry. That’s allowed in a Business Zone but it’s not allowed in a Residential Zone”. The consequences to the residents outweigh the consequences to the business. The effects to their mental and physical health coupled with the regulations which are in place to protect residential zones affirm this assertion. Further, the residents did not choose the consequences they face while Leete-Stevens chose the consequences it faces. The company has no one to blame but itself.

Thank you and good night.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next one on the list is Eileen Zarcaro. Once again, I’m going to reiterate the five minute limit because technically, by law, our meetings adjourn at 11:00 p.m. We can extend until midnight but we cannot go beyond midnight by state statutes.

Eileen Zarcaro: This is going to be fast and furious.

Chairman DiPace: Well, just the last one wasn’t – several minutes over.

Eileen Zarcaro: My name is Eileen Zarcaro. I live on 10 Olmstead Road, the closest house to the crematory. I worry about my family. Half my family lives on that street, on Olmstead Road. The air is terrible. Some nights – I should invite you all to a house on a night like this. I have to shut the windows. The smell is horrendous – absolutely horrendous. In the winter time when the air is still, it permeates the house. It is absolutely horrible. Absolutely horrible! This one man’s business is against a whole neighborhood. He isn’t going to lose his livelihood – maybe a little bit of money as far as he’s concerned. The funeral people that come in and out of there continually are from other places and have nothing to do with Enfield at all. You people are supposed to help the people of Enfield and not one person. It is a neighborhood against one man. And that’s all I have to say. I don’t have anything else to say. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: The next one is Karen Zarcaro.

Karen Zarcaro: Karen Zarcaro, 12 Olmstead Road. I own the second house on Olmstead Road. I have lived there for seven years. This is the spot I plan to retire in. My inlaws live next door and my sister-in-law lives on the other side of us. We built our beautiful houses in the most beautiful area of Enfield – a meadow in the back yard and farm land across the street. Does a crematory fit this picture? I have heard the noise of the incinerator. I have smelled the odors too. My children, twelve years old and fifteen years old, play outside. Does the Town of Enfield approve of this? Would you approve of this in your back yard? How about Somers, Suffield, or Longmeadow? There are no other crematories near our town. Not one in a residential area. Why? What is going to happen when Mr. Stevens retires and the business is sold? What happens if it is an out-of-town company that wants to incinerate ten to twelve bodies a day, maybe more. Cancer for my family and our neighbors? Again, is this what you’d want in your back yard and in our Town of Enfield. This business is not acceptable in our town and the State of Connecticut agreed. Don’t you? Please make the right decision today. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next one on the list is Brielle Brown.

Brielle Brown: Good evening. I’m speaking on behalf –

Chairman DiPace: Name and address for the record.

Brielle Brown: Oh, I’m so sorry. My name is Brielle Brown and I’m representing Brown Memorial Chapels, 43 Shaker Road, Enfield. I’m speaking on behalf of my father this evening. He has written a letter: “I, J. Francis Brown, III, owner and operator of Brown Memorial Funeral Chapels, 43 Shaker Road here in Enfield, am very concerned about any decisions made by this Commission and the Town of Enfield to rectify the possibility of inappropriate procedures or irregularities in the approval process for the Leete-Stevens crematory. With all due respect, my intent is to inform this Commission I will seek legal recourse if my business is adversely affected or placed at any disadvantage by your ruling to rectify the Leete-Stevens crematory approval process. Respectfully, J. F. Brown, III.” Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next one is Jeannette Tallarita.

Jeannette Tallarita: Good evening. My name is Jeannette Tallarita. I reside at 1400 Enfield Street. Recently, I had a very dear person in my life die. Rather than being buried, he chose cremation. This was the first time in my life that someone I cared about had chosen an alternative burial and I respected that choice. Last week I was driving down South Road and I noticed the signs complaining “stop residential incineration”. It is not customary for me to publicly address town issues. I generally leave that to other members of my family. But these signs so enraged me that I am here before you tonight. I have at arms length paid some attention to the crematorium issue as it has moved its way through the newspapers. I know Mr. Stevens through his community involvement, know him to be a sensible and contributing member of our community. I believe from the beginning that the people opposing this crematorium have based their position on emotion, misinformation and fears not fact or evidence. The issue of the term “incineration” on these signs is an example of that commitment to instill fear and misinformation. I personally find the use of the word “incineration” to be offensive and degrading. We incinerate trash not human beings. I urge this Commission to approve or reject this application based on facts not misleading and emotional objections. I urge this Commission to approve or reject this application based on the track record established by the operator over the past seven years not unjustifiable predictions. I urge this Commission to approve or reject this application based on laws and regulations and dismiss the sensationalism of the issue. I urge this Commission to do what is right for our entire community and not be bullied by a few. I thank you all for the time that you volunteer for our town and for allowing me to address you this evening.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next one on the list is John Joyce.

John Joyce: Good evening. My name is John Joyce. I live at 5 Wilstar Circle in Enfield. I’ve been a resident here for my whole life. I’ve also known the Stevens’ family for the better part of my life. Aside from the fact that I believe in these people of high repute with a high level of commitment to this community, I also am a night walker. I guess I work pretty late and I have trouble sleeping so I go for a walk quite late at night and usually, I guess, when the facility is operating. This may be a result of age but I don’t see smoke and I don’t smell anything. That is my personal observation. I never have. I’ve been there when I know the machine has been operating or the device has been operating. I’ve never had an issue with it.

Some of the issues that are brought forth, I believe, as a result of having a crematory in town have to do with our own natural aversion to the process of living and the ultimate death that we have to face. Each one of us has to deal with this in our own way but attacking the vehicle that ultimately disposes of our body, whether it is burial in the ground or cremation, is not a benefit to us as a community. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Mike Trainer.

Mike Trainer: Hi. I’m Mike Trainer, 44 Wilstar Circle. I’m here and I’m opposed to the crematorium. One of the main reasons is where it is located. As all the experts have spoken about, is the aquifer protection. We’re looking – in 1998, the state came out with a pamphlet about aquifer protection and how we’re supposed to take care of it. It initially says that the state, the municipalities and the water companies are going to be responsible for the protection of our aquifers in the reclamation zones and the contribution zones. These are zones around the actual well head that all the waters collect and refill the aquifers. I have a map here of the aquifer zones and it’s directly – South Road is included in it and Leete-Stevens is included in it. And there’s a big huge plume right here. This is going to be the funeral home and crematorium. And this is our protection zone that we are supposed to be looking toward to protecting – the municipalities being the main protector of this zone.

So, being in the industry of water, I feel that a lot of the aquifer down there in the Hollow behind Mr. Stevens has to do with the Queen Street well. The well house is right down in there and I get my water toward Somers but everyone in the Dale Road, Cora Street, Play Road area – they all get their water from Queen Street well. They’ve been complaining about the Queen Street well for a long, long time. God only knows what they’re going to be complaining about in the near future. That’s one of the things that I’d like you to consider. Our water is definitely – today it is for us but in the future it is for our children. And, I would just like the Board to look at all the laws and all the regulations that are being, you know, shot at you tonight and do what you’re supposed to do, do the right thing. In fact, in the zoning ordinances, it says “the purpose and authority of this panel is for the purpose of providing for the public health, for the comfort and for the welfare and living and working conditions for the purpose of regulating and restricting location, trades and industries and the location of buildings designed for specific use”.

You know, I was here at the last crematorium Planning and Zoning meeting and I felt there was a lot of things against the applicant – the escarpment, the wetlands, the aquifer protection, you know, and especially the conditions that were laid upon his building the funeral home in that area. I just feel that they were overlooked and that he might have been – he’s a good citizen. There’s no doubt about that but there’s a room full of good citizens here. He’s a business man. What he does is a service. We do a service. I’m a business man. I do a service. I get paid for that service. Once in a while you’ll do a free thing for this one or that one but, you know, I don’t know how it is with his business but, you know, I can give a break on a price here and there but, you know, he said it was for the people of Enfield. And like Russ was saying, we see a lot of different cars going in there now. And there were stipulations put on the crematorium as it was built – you know, he chose to build it. Has anybody been regulating that from this Commission or Mr. Bickley, the Zoning Enforcement Officer. Has he been checking on the times there. Has he just been stopping by because this panel is to provide for its enforcement of the laws. Like the Attorney was talking about, Penny’s Attorney, he mentioned so many things, so many laws in this book, that you guys really have to look at and make your decision on that – not who Mr. Stevens is or how much he contributes to the golden rule or this, that or the other thing. You know. Everyone says take emotions out of it. Well, let’s take emotions out of it and deal strictly with facts. You know. I love my deceased people. I’m not against cremation at all but where it is, it doesn’t belong there. It’s a neighborhood. It’s a neighborhood with one business in it and you have to beware of the half truths that I heard tonight. One mention was a letter from Danny Hinkley. It said that he owns 57 South Road. Well, he does own it but he doesn’t live there because it’s a construction garage. You know. So you’ve got to be careful about what you hear and you’ve got to weigh both sides and, please, make the right decision and oppose this thing. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next one on the list is Donna Szewziak. Good evening.

Donna Szewczak: Hi. Donna Szewczak, 35 South Road. Mike and I have been here since the beginning with Penny. It’s been a long and lengthy court room battle and reviews of the legal system. Seven years it’s been in court. And one of the things that we’ve been told to ignore and one of the things that was, you know, of most interest to me is the fact that everyone agreed on the fact that – and I’m going to read from the Appellate Court decision. “We are all mindful of Statute 19a-320 directing the appropriate local authorities within a city, town or borough to approve a location of a crematory within municipal borders. In this instance, Leete-Stevens’ application for a special permit is subject also to town regulations. Where the state legislature has delegated the local government the right to deal with a particular field of regulation, the fact that the statute also regulates the same subject in less than full fashion does not ipso facto deprive the local government of the power to act in a more comprehensive but not inconsistent manner. The legislative history of 19a-320 indicates the local authority should decide the location of the crematory not cited in a cemetery. Here the location of the crematory is subject to the town’s zoning regulations concerning hazardous waste.” Then it says “see footnote 3”.

Footnote 3 – “The Enfield Zoning Regulations provide a relevant part of the special permit is required for all industrial and/or commercial uses which has a primary activity the handling, use, treatment, processing, storage, incineration, or disposal of hazardous material. Zoning reg. 16-2-1: The parties did not dispute that cremation of bodies of the dead constitutes the disposal of hazardous material.”

This is included in the written dictate prepared by three state Appellate Court judges who are without bias and prejudice and their only interest is in the truth and fact of the situation. They have nothing to gain in this matter and are only interested in giving all parties an equitable decision.

Tonight you’ve heard a lot of information that is both confusing and contradictory regarding noise, odor, pollution, fall out, property values. The zoning regulations are in place to protect our neighborhood and all the citizens in the Town of Enfield from all those concerns. These regulations have been designed to take all parameters that may be detrimental to the Town and its inhabitants into consideration without enumerating, stating all the personal freedoms and possible detrimental effects that it protects us from. It is designed by intelligent individuals so that the Town’s best interest is in mind.

And I’d like you to look at Section 12-3.1-9 that says that all facilities whether for processing, storage, incineration and/or disposal of hazardous and/or toxic waste materials shall not be within 1500’ of a residential zone and not within 75’ of a water table. If cremation was to not to be considered incineration, then it should be spelled out in the ordinances that the Town officials do not believe that this is that activity. This Commission, as well as the judges, also took an oath to enforce the regulations without bias or prejudice. So, consider all the facts that are indisputable as well as the Town zoning Regulations when making a decision and your decision will be quite simple. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Scott Kaupin.

Scott Kaupin: Good evening. I’m Scott Kaupin. I live at 9 Allen Street in Enfield. And I come before you this evening to voice my opposition to this application. I had a whole prepared letter but most of all the comments have been mentioned. What I really want to focus my comments on is I’m the District 3 Councilman and I represent this section of town. And this is an issue that the neighborhood has kept me informed and involved with since 1998. When you hear the residents say that they hear noise – I heard noise when I was out there. It does exist. When you hear the residents say that they smell an odor, I believe them. I know these people. I’ve grown up with some of them and their kids. They’re good people. That’s their slice of Americana, their home, where they want to raise their families, where they want to have a back yard barbecue, where they want to have a window open on a day like today to let fresh air come in. The impact is in the immediate area. Someone a mile down the street where I live – I really have no vested interest in whether there is a crematorium located there or not as a resident of Allen Street but if I’m 100’, 500’, 1500’ – a street away – that’s a vested interest. That’s my front yard, that’s my side yard, that’s my back yard. And that’s what we have to really think about. When I was preparing to write something up for tonight, I looked up in your zoning ordinance. It says the purpose of the Planning and Zoning Commission, as outlined in Section 1.10 Purpose and Authority, the purpose of providing for the public health, comfort and the general welfare and living and working conditions and for the purpose of regulating and restricting the location of trades and industries and the location of buildings designed for specific uses.

Under 9.20-2a, Special Permit Criteria, it says you shall take into consideration the public health, the safety and general welfare, the comfort and convenience of the public in general and of the residents of the immediate neighborhood in which the proposed development is located in particular.

People have mentioned – I mentioned earlier noise and odor – location – just the psychological factor there too. Would you want it in your back yard. You may not care if it’s a half mile or two miles down the street but we’re talking about your back yard. Does it belong in a residential neighborhood?

I looked up your regulations on a residential district. It doesn’t mention crematoriums are allowed by the special use permit so to me, as someone mentioned earlier, it’s not allowed. If it’s not an exception stated, it’s not allowed.

I think your decision tonight – you need to base it on what the residents who reside in the residential zone are looking for. In my opinion, the location of a crematorium in a residential zone is not compatible with the neighborhood. It is not a question of Mr. Stevens and his business. Again, someone mentioned remove the emotion from the decision. We honored him – the Council – a few weeks ago as 100 plus year business in Enfield. No one is disputing how good of a business Leete-Stevens has been in town. The dispute is does a crematorium belong in the residential district. The dispute is not over cremation. I believe in cremation. I lost my brother last August and he was cremated. Our family believes in cremation but where’s the right location?

Every application you decide – you determine – what goes in a proper place. Is that a good place for a helicopter to take off and land? Is that a good place for a retail district? Is that a good place for a fast food restaurant? You do it every day and what you have to do is look inside yourselves and say is this the right place for a crematorium. It is not is cremation good or bad. It’s is Mr. Stevens’ business good or bad. It’s does a crematory belong in that area and I say it doesn’t and I’d like you to deny the application. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Okay, moving along, we still have a couple more and, technically, by state statute, we adjourn at 11:00 p.m. unless the Commission votes to extend it and we can only extend it one hour. So, again, I’m going to reiterate the five minute limits if we can. Out of the last three, we have had two of them that were over. Sal Presto, 151 Elm Street.

Sal Presto: My name is Sal Presto. I live at 181 Elm Street. I would just like to say when I pass on, Mr. Stevens will probably get my body and two grams of mercury but I don’t agree with the application. He’s taken care of my whole family but I still don’t agree with the application and I’d like to tell you why. We talked about pollutants and we didn’t mention a very major pollutant and that’s mental pollution that does exist in this neighborhood on South Road. It is very difficult to live in an area where something that is not natural is happening. Cremation is fairly new to our culture. Indians have been doing this for thousands of years. Catholics have just started to use cremation and I believe in cremation because he will take care of me when that time comes but I hope not on South Road. I can understand the mental anguish that these people are suffering. The pollutant – you can’t feel it, you can’t hear it but it’s mental because this will always be there. No matter what happens on that site, this will always be on their minds. I hope this is worth sacrificing that major part of Enfield gets subjected to something that is going to totally disturb them for the rest of the time that they live in that area. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. The next on the list is Thomas Zarcaro. And just a correction - it’s not by state statute, but our bylaws say the meeting shall adjourn at 11:00 p.m.

Mr. Zarcaro: I’ll be done before 11:00 p.m. My name is Tom Zarcaro. I live at 10 Olmstead Road which is directly across the street from the funeral home. It’s very commendable to hear Dick’s friends talk about what a good corporate citizen he’s been. There’s no question that he along with his dad before him were always good citizens as a Town of Enfield. I would like to address this Board on the basis that I too came before the Planning and Zoning in 1988 to build a house. I think it took me three months before I got anything settled and my cooperation from – not the Board – the people working for this town was zilch – absolutely zero. I took it upon myself to go look at the file approving this accessory building. I could find nothing prior to August 5, 200 – whatever the year was but, amazingly, by August 28 everybody had signed off – the builder, the electrician, the plumber, everybody. I wish I could have my house built that fast. More to the point on the Planning and Zoning, the building planner – I think it was Burke at the time. When the first meeting was held, he told this Board or those members that the meeting was illegal. You chose to hold it. The second meeting was illegal and they chose to hold it knowing full well there was a time frame. By October 1st, they had to have this place up and going. Otherwise, it wasn’t going to happen. It’s amazing that it got done in four weeks. Mr. Baram raised the question and I raise the question – why was he allowed to build before it was approved, before there was a legal meeting held by the Town of Enfield. Again, I say I have no qualms with Mr. Stevens business as a corporate citizen, a good corporate citizen. I like to think of him as a casual friend myself. But the crematory should not have been approved, not because it’s a crematorium or not because it wasn’t a crematorium – because the Board didn’t do it properly and time has passed. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Okay.

Commissioner Duren: Mr. Chair, I make a motion that we extend the meeting beyond 11:00 p.m.

Commissioner Krebs: Second.

Chairman DiPace: A motion and a second to extend it for one hour. Okay, all those in favor? (The motion was approved by a 7 – 0 – 0 vote.) Would you like to take a five-minute recess? We’ll take a five-minute recess.

(Commissioner Duren made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Weseliza, for a five minute recess. The motion was approved unanimously and the Commission recessed at 11:00 p.m. The Commission reconvened at 11:08 p.m.)

Chairman DiPace: Will the Secretary please take the roll.

Commissioner Duren: Chairman DiPace (here), Vice Chair Hickey (here), Secretary Duren is here, Vice Chair Cooper (here), Commissioner Weseliza (here), Commissioner Krebs (here), Commissioner Egan (here), Commissioner Sarno (here), Commissioner Lefakis (absent).

Chairman DiPace: Okay. The next on the list I have – the last name is Blair. Please come forward and state your name and address.

Chester Blair: Chester Blair, 20 Elan Street, Enfield. I’m an employee of Leete-Stevens and I wouldn’t work in a place that polluted and did all the things that we’ve heard here tonight. They just are not true. Needless to say, I’m in favor of this. Everything that – I have a pocket full of notes I was going to go over but everyone has gone over them and I’m just reiterating and repeating if I go into my notes. But, believe me, consider carefully what you’re about to do. This man has – well, I won’t go into it. He’ll kill me if I compliment him too much. But he does more for this town than a lot of people realize. Please be objective. Thank you very much.

Chairman DiPace: The next one is Michael Devito.

Michael Devito: My name is Michael C. Devito. I’ve been a resident of Enfield for about twenty years and I currently live at 19 Old Maple Farms here in Enfield. For the last ten years I’ve been a funeral service professional. I am licensed to practice in Connecticut as well as in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I’m certified by the National Funeral Directors Association as a preplanning consultant and in my career over the last decade in funeral service I have worked within a number of funeral service models. That is to say death care providers who are corporately owned like Carriage Service Corporation International etc. and family owned funeral homes like Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapels. I also teach at Briarwood College in Southington, Connecticut in a mortuary science program and the subjects I teach are mortuary law and business law. So, in this context, I think my testimony, while it may be anecdotal or rather personal has a certain compelling nature to it that some of the other speakers may not have.

I’ve been listening very closely for the last couple of hours and I find a number of non sequiturs in the testimony that the neighbors at Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapels on South Road are giving. For example, if our neighbors are so concerned about the emission of hazardous elements, particulates and so forth into the environment, why does Mrs. Urbanowicz continue her truck farm on South Road? Why does she continue during this very critical interval to continue animal husbandry on her property and selling fruits and vegetables. It seems to me that logic would demand that if she feels so strongly about the pollution that exists in that immediate neighborhood, she would cease those commercial operations until some definitive ruling has been given by a thoroughly objective state, local or federal regulatory agency.

Another non sequitur which I have noticed almost consistently in the testimony against the operation of our crematory is this: complaints about noise, dust, foul odors. Unless my senses are totally deficient, and by the way today is my fiftieth-fifth birthday and perhaps I’m on a downward slope too like the first individual who spoke this evening, I have failed to notice at any given point in time four odors, noise or dust on my automobile which is parked during business hours outside Leete-Stevens Enfield Chapels Crematory. I have not heard, smelled or touched anything that our neighbors have alleged to be happening in the area.

I also question the inclusion of testimony this evening by our competitor, Buddy Brown. What did that testimony from his daughter actually mean? I’m a fairly intelligent person. I have a masters’ degree, I’m a good listener, a good communicator. I think that inclusion tonight was inflammatory, in bad form and sour grapes to say the least.

Finally, when I saw the sign about incineration opposite our funeral home on South Road, I took great offense. Many individuals in my family have selected cremation as a method of final disposition. As one of the other spokesperson’s said, we incinerate trash. We do not incinerate human beings. If you will excuse the pun, I think a lot of the discourse against our crematory has been grossly inflammatory in nature. And as a funeral service professional who worked very hard to achieve high standards of ethical, compassionate and respectful communication, I think that the whole opposition to what we do in and for our community ought not to be criticized for the kind of promotion in a negative and inflammatory way. While we do have a right to public speech, it is also gravely offensive and dangerous and detrimental to our rights to yell fire in a crowded theater and I think so much of the discourse this evening has lacked objectivity or expert input and I’d like to see this matter brought to a quick and fair conclusion.

Please understand that in my ten years as a funeral service professional, I have not experienced any higher ethical standards than I have seen at Leete-Stevens Enfield Crematory. As of today, approximately thirty percent of the families we serve now select cremation as final disposition. We adhere to state, local and national regulations in terms of disclosures, paperwork, transparency and so forth. I’m impressed by what we do and I’m extremely proud to be a part of it. Thanks very much.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Okay, at this point the signup list is done. We’ve gone through it. I’m going to open this up to the public by a show of hands. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak in favor or against this application? Please come forward and state your name and address. Once again, I’m going to reiterate the five-minute time limit and I’m going to start holding people to it because a few people have gone over and it’s getting very late. We are adjourning at midnight no matter what.

John Shlatz: It ain’t going to take me five minutes here. My name is John Shlatz, 42 South Road. I want to read something. I got a copy of all of what happened in the court room here. It’s very interesting listening to everybody here. I just want to read one paragraph that was in this article here from the Appellate Court. It is under Article 4, sub paragraph 3. It says the Enfield Zoning Regulations provide that a special permit is required for all industrial or commercial use which has as a primary activity the handling, use or treatment, processing, storage, or incineration disposal of hazardous waste materials. Then it states here Enfield Regulations sub paragraph 16, 2-9, that the parties do not dispute that the cremation of bodies of the dead consist of a disposal of hazardous material.

One thing a lot of people forgot to bring up here is we only have a school less than a quarter of a mile away from that place with over two hundred and something students in it. Your car gives off an exhaust and you get a little breeze, it carries. Right now everybody’s talking it’s hazardous waste. Nobody’s proved that it is or hasn’t been. But going on the internet under crematories and that, it’s amazing what you hear. I’m talking about the school that we have here. I see no parents and nobody from the school board debating this and what is happening to our kids there. Nobody there has mentioned it. They probably don’t even know we have a school there off of South Road there on Middle Road with over 200 students in there. And this stuff, as far as we’re concerned, we don’t know. Nobody can give you a definite answer. Ain’t nothing that’s perfect. It goes into the air, blows over there and four or five years down the road who the hell knows what’s going to happen to those kids. Do you know? Do I know? No. But, hey, take into consideration that you have a school not too far away either.

Chairman DiPace: Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to speak in favor or against this. Please come forward and state your name and address.

Ronald Proska: My name is Ronald Proska. I reside at 44 Foxcroft Road far away from the crematory. I didn’t come here really to talk about the crematory. I came here to talk about another issue but that wasn’t allowed at this meeting. But I sat back there with an open mind and was either for or against it. From what I’ve heard today, I have to say that I’m against it. I have decided because of the very reasons that I heard both lawyers on both sides with the issue even though there was no test taken of the water, the soil, and everything that surrounds it, I don’t think either one really proved there case right to the point but from what I’ve heard, I’m against it.

Chairman DiPace: Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak in favor or against it? Please come forward and state your name and address.

Mae Slupecki: My name is Mae Slupecki. I live at 12 Middle Road. I’m against this application for a couple of reasons. First, if it was approved before it should have been approved, then that’s not right. Also, I walk just because I like to walk. One day I was walking down Olmstead and I got almost to the end of the intersection where it joins South Road and I smelled a strange odor. I actually stopped walking and sniffed harder to see if I could figure out what was that strange odor and then it registered with me. It must be coming from the crematory.

Also, I would like to comment that I am not a real estate expert at all but I would bet there is not one person in this room that would willingly buy a house that was next to a crematory. So I do feel it has affected the real estate values of the neighborhood. Thank you.

Chairman DiPace: We’re going to go around one last time. Is there anybody else in the audience that would like to speak in favor or against this application. Okay, hearing none, does staff have any questions or comments.

Attorney Matthew Willis: There are a couple of things that I would just like Jose to comment on and these were brought up by Attorney Baram involving the notice and the inclusion of the zone on the notice. The zone that was listed on the notice was put there after consultation with Jose and Jose can comment on that.

Mr. Giner: The property was – PH#1712 was an application of the Enfield Planning and Zoning Commission requesting a zone change from R-44 and R-88 to R-33, premises located on the south side of South Road across from Olmstead Road and 200’ west of Oakridge Drive to 100’ west of Indian Run Road and the map shows that that area, in fact, as part of the application was rezoned to R-33. Both the property up to the property line where they, I believe, sold some land to the Connecticut Water Company at some point was approved back on February 21, 1991. So the zone is R-33. So the legal notice was correct with that respect, I believe.

The other issue was whether or not – the question was whether or not the Department of Public Health received a notice which, in fact, they did. The Commissioner of Public Health did get a notice of the hearing. We got it certified mail signed on June 13, 2005 and then it was returned back to the Planning Department – the green card was returned back from the Commissioner of Public Health.

So those two issues I just want to make sure, for the record, that that was cleared up.

Chairman DiPace: Alright, Attorney Baram wanted to finish up. I’m going to give you a fifteen-minute window frame though because we’re almost at 11:30 p.m. Whether you said you were aware or not, it was on the letters that you filed and we have a lot of work to get done.

Attorney Baram: Very quickly while we’re setting up, I just want to say that there is a body of law entitled “Nuisance Law” that says that if somebody’s living in a place –

Chairman DiPace: Excuse me, could you pick up the microphone, please.

Attorney Baram: There’s a body of law entitled “Nuisance Law” which says that if a person is living in a place and another industry or use comes to them and creates the nuisance, it’s the responsibility of the new company to determine what the impact of that nuisance is on the person. One or two speakers suggested that the people in this neighborhood should stop their businesses or livelihood, maybe move from their homes because if they’re so concerned about this crematory use but the fact is, from your perspective, your authority, your obligation, it’s the new use which comes after all these people live there and began their businesses that’s the problem. You have to make sure, under your authority, that it fits in this particular district.

And, finally, one person raised a question why wasn’t something done with the Town to stop this use. I just ask you to look at the file because I’ve sent numerous letters to the Zoning Enforcement Officer, to Attorney Willis, asking that this use be shut down and it was denied time and time again under the premise that because it was in the Court system, the Town couldn’t do anything. While I disagree with that, I just want people to know that we made every effort to do that.

Okay, what I want to talk about next is zoning. And it’s a good segue because your Town Planner just indicated that the zone is an R-33. This zoning history of this site is complicated and its convoluted and I’m not going to give you a long lecture on it but I would suggest that you read the Minutes of June 21, 1990 when your Town Planner, Mr. O’Leary went through about five pages of minutes explaining the use changes that took place on this site. And if I were Mr. Stevens, I’d have a headache also about the whole thing with what has gone on on this site. It’s very difficult to explain.

In 1991, this Commission for some strange reason on its own application attempted to change the use of this location. What happened was a map was filed which shows that during the discussion x’s were made on the property south of this particular site, Lot 88, indicating that the property was not rezoned. The only rezoning took place on Lot 88 itself. And we submitted a bunch of things to verify this. First of all, we have your computer records which show that there was no zone change for Lot 89. That’s the portion that was purportedly added to Lot 88 to give them the additional acreage that they needed. Your town plan of development talks about creating a preserve for the Scantic River Way and talks about one of the major concerns from residents in the Town was control of the environment and commercialization near residential neighborhoods. There is a map which is dated 1991 which was submitted – and I think those were copies that were just handed out. I just want to show you the cross outs that took place on this map. This was recorded. There’s a stamp on this map that shows it was recorded and this was allegedly the zone change that was contemplated to change – if we can just put that up – the big square Lot 88 – to change that particular zone and then the land around it to the south. The change to the land to the south which includes Lot 89 was never changed. And on this map, it indicates that this is an R-88 zone. As of 1991, the map submitted by the applicant, Mr. Stevens, shows that the land south of this site was R-88 and there was an attempt to change it but these x’s were made and this is how it’s recorded. Lot 88 was changed from an R-44 to an R-33.

Now, I have maps and I’m just going to hand them in. A 1987 map shows that the land south of Lot 88 is an R-88 as well. I also have a map from 1990 when Mr. Stevens came in to change this to a BL zone. And, again, this is his map and he shows the land south of this lot is R-88. I’m just going to introduce those as exhibits. What’s really interesting is this map here in blue. This is your official zoning map. As we looked into this – when I first looked at this when I was involved in the case, I thought it was very strange. You’ll see this like white-out that’s here. Somebody took white-out and created the new line for the zoning in 1991 and you’ll see that this white-out connects with the R-44 zone which is along South Street but it also connects with the R-88 zone for everything behind it. Now, this is your official map. Your official map on record shows that Lot 89, which was allegedly conveyed and merged with Lot 88, is not in an R-33 zone. It’s in an R-88 zone. That has tremendous implications because number one, you cannot put a funeral home on an R-88 zone. And if you can’t have a funeral home on that zone, then you can’t have a crematory because by definition to be an accessory use, it has to be in the same zone, it has to be permissible to be located in that zone. And so, this map history – and I admit – it is messed up and it should be corrected some day when you have the time – but it’s clear to me that Lot 89 is in an R-88 zone. No crematory is allowed in that zone. No funeral home is allowed in that zone. An R-88 has a 60’ setback, not a 50’. The assumption was it is an R-33 zone.

Attorney Fahey gave a very good definition about what an accessory use is. We’re going to hand out a lot of stuff here. First of all, when you had your hearings in 1998, your Town Planner submitted three articles by three great legal authorities on this subject including Professor Tondreau from the University of Connecticut Law School. And they all basically say the same thing. And, by the way, in all these handouts, I’ve handed out bits and pieces of some of our briefs which describe what I’m saying so that you go back and read it if you don’t remember what I’m saying. But, an accessory use, as Attorney Fahey said, has to be customary, incidental and it has to be incidental or subordinate to the primary use. Now, clearly a funeral home and a crematory are two separate uses that can’t be incidental to one another. A funeral home is for the disposition of a body that is internment in the ground. That is what you do. You embalm the body and you place it in the ground. But, a crematory is disposition on site. The body is incinerated. It burns on the site. And so the theory is quite different.

In fact, if you look at one of the handouts that’s Mr. Stevens’ recent ad and in it he’s promoting the crematory. He’s not promoting the funeral home. He’s promoting the crematory and I would cite one of his employees spoke and said that they’re up to thirty percent of their business is now the crematory. That’s not incidental. That’s approximating fifty percent of their entire business and that’s going to increase. That’s a separate use.

You will find also there’s a package of cases, and I don’t have time to summarize them, but the cases give you examples of when the court says something is an accessory use and when something is not an accessory use. There’s copies of your regulations. Your regulations indicate that to be accessory, it has to be subordinate. It’s can’t be the principal use on the premises and it has to be something that’s customary – that by custom or habit is associated. There’s a title search in here that was taken a while ago that shows the purported conveyance of Lot 89 and merging into Lot 88 was never done by deed. It was only done by filing of a map but I would question whether or not you can actually merge a piece of property into another one without a deed conveyance. But, more importantly, is the fact that it’s a different zone.

Of importance is the list from the State of Connecticut of all the crematories and the funeral homes that are listed. Now, you will see in the brief comments that I submitted that less than twenty-five percent of the crematories are located at a funeral home location – if you just look at crematories. But if you look at the number of funeral homes, you’ll see there’s a letter saying there’s been 331 funeral homes. And by the way, we checked this and to my knowledge, no other funeral homes or crematories have been licensed since the date of this letter even though it goes back a little bit. But if you look at the funeral homes, only 1.6% of those funeral homes have crematories. Now, there are only six funeral homes that have crematories and those six include this particular application. Let’s exclude the applicant. So now we’re talking about five funeral homes. All but one of them is in an industrial zone. One is in a residential zone, and as I understand it from my research, it was a pre-existing use that became a nonconforming use that was allowed because of its nonconforming status. So, if you exclude that one because of the special circumstances, as far as I’m aware every single funeral home – and there’s only five of them that have a crematory associated with it except for that one odd one – is in an industrial zone. And that’s exactly where it should be and that’s why the regulations for all these other communities, if they allow a crematory, require it to be in an industrial zone.

Now, let’s look at some of the issues. One, you have to look at the neighborhood to determine what is customary and incidental and the like. You received a petition from 300 residents saying that they don’t want this in their neighborhood. You’ve heard very eloquent testimony – not emotional testimony but eloquent – about the effects of odor, the effects of smell, the effects of noise. In fact, I don’t know how many of you know and it’s laudable that the vets who are cremated on this site have a military honor, twenty-one gun salute type thing but when you’re firing guns off on this site, think about how that affects the neighbors living across it and they hear these military honors taking place.

That’s why the state statute and your own regulations require these types of uses to be so far away. The detrimental impact to the community – we’ve also submitted some appraisals which show that homes appraised and looked at had a twenty percent decrease in value because of the location of the crematory close by. We took a look at the carcinogens and the toxic emissions coming through and how that affects the community and at the very least affects the mental psyche or perspective of the community. You’ve heard about traffic. You’ve heard about noise and, again, on noise, I think absolutely this young man who made the point that it’s not a question of whether the noise meets your ordinance because we’re not here to determine whether it is violative of the ordinance. It’s whether there’s enough noise to impact the community and if the community is hearing the whirling sound and its disturbing them, then it’s an impact.

We’re also looking at property values and we’re looking at psychological impact. I would also point to you with regard to the issue –

Chairman DiPace: Are you close to wrapping up because I gave you fifteen and you’re already at twenty.

Attorney Baram: Okay. I urge you to read all the articles that I submitted and finally I point to that statute 19a-320 which gives you another authority to look at. My point on statute 19a-320 is that even if you decided that the applicant met all the standards of your regulations, you could still deny it based upon any other factors that you thought were important. 19a-320, unlike the applicant’s argument which says it takes away your zoning powers, it actually gives you more zoning powers. It says while they have to comply and meet every standard of your regulations, you have an additional, broad, liberal authority to deny – not to accept – but to deny because you have to determine that the plot of land it’s being located on is appropriate.

In summation, I think you. I know I took a lot of time. I would respectfully ask that you deny this application in totality, that you make the applicant adhere to the standards.

Chairman DiPace: Any questions or comments from Commission members?

Attorney Baram: Thank you very much.

Chairman DiPace: Any questions or comments from Commission members?

Commissioner Egan: I have some questions of the applicant if I can get an opportunity.

Chairman DiPace: Certainly. We’ve gone around the floor. I’m going to let the applicant respond but I have a question from one of the Commission members first.

Attorney Fahey: A point of order. In terms of procedure, are we going to have an opportunity to rebut as well.

Chairman DiPace: Yeah. You’re not going to have very much time tonight. We’ve got twenty minutes and we are adjourning. We cannot extend it beyond that.

Attorney Fahey: That’s fine.

Commissioner Egan: Mentioning in the – or reviewing the testimony – the previous testimony and some of the testimony tonight – there were some references. Stack test results were provided to DEP for this facility and we don’t know – can you identify what the facility is and the model number?

Ron Salvatore: My name is Ron Salvatore. I represent Mathews Cremation. We are the manufacturer’s of the crematory. An application was submitted to DEP by Mr. Stevens back I believe – and please don’t put me on the exact date – around 1992 for a Model 1701. That unit was no longer manufactured. The information was sent to DEP for a new version of that unit called a 2500 Model and that is the unit that was permitted by DEP and that is the unit that was installed.

Commissioner Egan: Okay. On the test results that were submitted to DEP, were there results based upon process upset conditions or malfunction?

Ron Salvatore: When a stack test is done by an independent laboratory which we do not hire – the applicant has to hire them – they test the unit. Whatever happens during testing is what is recorded and reported as the result.

Commissioner Egan: But the question – a lot of stack testing is done and the Department of Environmental Protection requires that upset conditions or a malfunction be created so that they could test it under those conditions. My question to you – has that been tested under malfunction conditions?

Ron Salvatore: I would have no idea. No idea.

Commissioner Egan: The second question going through the documents, there’s nothing that I saw of operating manuals. I think you had mentioned it in the public hearings and there were questions about the operating manual and there’s nothing in the record and is it possible to get the operating manual for that?

Ron Salvatore: Of course. Of course. We can certainly send you one. That’s not a problem.

Commissioner Egan: And I assume that would cover upset conditions or malfunctions – what the proper procedure would be in handling them.

Ron Salvatore: Well, actually, the unit – the way it is designed, if there were an upset condition, I assume you are talking about creating an environmental impact. If there were smoke created from that unit, the unit would take corrective action automatically.

Commissioner Egan: But what if it didn’t take automatically. There must be some procedure. Automatic things sometimes don’t work in upset conditions.

Ron Salvatore: Well, in my seventeen years of doing this, I’ve never seen that happen where a unit does not take corrective action automatically.

Commissioner Egan: Well, I have about fifteen plus years in medical waste and pathological incineration and I have seen where these devices have malfunctioned or not performed. So, I guess the question is do you have a backup to a malfunction of your automatic?

Mr. Salvatore: Yes. It’s the operator’s responsibility to take corrective action and that manual will -

Commissioner Egan: demonstrate that.

Mr. Salvatore: Yes.

Commissioner Egan: The other thing you talked about is automatic and I would imagine that the 0-2 levels, the oxygen levels that are required – I guess the permit doesn’t really specify the oxygen levels. They just specify charging rates. But if this is automatic, there must be some calibrations done on equipment to keep it and you have those calibrations?

Mr. Salvatore: Yes. That’s all part of the records that Mr. Stevens keeps at the crematory. We also have the records of all the preventative maintenance inspections that have been performed on the equipment which would include recalibration of the burner air and gas settings.

Commissioner Egan: Okay, and I guess the final question – it’s getting late and I have some more but as far as the stack goes, I notice the discrepancy. The permit said it should be 19’ and I see that it’s 16’. Was there an amendment or a modification to the permit?

Ron Salvatore: I’m not sure what the stack height is. I thought it was measured at 19’ though.

Commissioner Egan: I think Mr. Fahey mentioned 16’.

Ron Salvatore: I think what we may have indicated – the unit is standard. The height of the unit is approximately seven feet where the stack is connected and we supply ten feet of flue as standard with each unit so your effective height from grade or ground level would automatically be at least 17’. It’s possible to use 16’ as an average.

Commissioner Egan: I just wanted to clarify but he did mention 16’.

Attorney Fahey: In the interests of being accurate what I did was summarize Ron’s testimony from the first hearing and he testified it was 16’ from grade. But the permit does say 19’ and that is the actual height.

Commissioner Egan: I guess the other question – on the gases you have an after burner unit. You don’t have any back house or any scrubbing unit. The gases go from the secondary chamber right up the stack.

Ron Salvatore: The way the unit is designed, DEP as well as every other state environmental agency in the country requires only an after burner on a crematory. So the gases flow from the primary chamber where the body is located into the secondary chamber. They mix with the flame of the after burner. That’s called a mixing chamber. It then goes into another part of what we call the secondary chamber which is called a settling chamber and then the gases are released to the atmosphere.

Commissioner Egan: But there’s no jags and it doesn’t create any longer residence time for the process.

Ron Salvatore: No sir. What happens is the retention time of the unit is approximately one and a half seconds. There are no state requirements, I believe, where Connecticut requires a specific retention time but we do a retention time of approximately a second and a half. There are multiple turns that create turbulence to insure proper mixing of the gases.

Commissioner Egan: The stack isn’t straight –

Ron Salvatore: The stack has nothing to do with the turbulence. The turbulence is in the secondary chamber which is now part of the stack.

Commissioner Egan: But you still haven’t answered my question.

Ron Salvatore: I apologize. I’m sorry.

Commissioner Egan: Okay, you’re in the secondary chamber and the gases – sometimes there are baffles.

Ron Salvatore: There are baffles inside the unit – correct.

Commissioner Egan: So what you’re saying in the secondary chamber before it goes out, there’s a residence time of a minute and a half?

Ron Salvatore: A second and a half.

Commissioner Egan: A second and a half – during the primary chamber, your permit required one percent of residence time.

Ron Salvatore: I don’t know if the permit says that or not. I’ve never heard of a retention time in a primary chamber.

Commissioner Egan: Well, it does. Check it. 1800 degrees in one second.

Ron Salvatore: 1800 degrees in one second in the secondary chamber perhaps but not in the primary.

Commissioner Egan: I’m just trying to get the stack – there’s nothing to impede the gas flow out of the stack?

Ron Salvatore: The copy of the permit is secondary chamber residence time of one second. Minimum secondary chamber temperature of 1800 degrees. The unit actually would exceed this requirement.

Commissioner Egan: It would.

Ron Salvatore: It gives us a second and a half approximately.

Commissioner Egan: Okay. But as far as the gases, there’s no –

Ron Salvatore: The gases are in the secondary chamber. That is where all the turbulence takes place. That is where you want it to take place – in there to insure proper mixing of the flames of the burner along with the gases that are created from the cremation process.

Commissioner Egan: You’ve answered my question. There is no – it goes right to the atmosphere.

Ron Salvatore: After going through the secondary chamber – yes.

Commissioner Sarno: My question is not of a technical nature but I would like to understand the process more of the cremation that happens from out of town. How – you know the gal that we heard from – she inspects the bodies. Does she inspect all bodies or just all bodies that are in Connecticut. And the business that you get outside of Enfield. Do you have contracts with funeral homes where you get all their cremations? How does that whole process work?

Richard Stevens: My name is Richard Stevens. I’m President of Leete-Stevens. We have three funeral homes in three different communities. We serve people in a number of communities. We have families from Suffield, East Longmeadow, Longmeadow. We have people once in a while come from a great distance and say we want to use your services, we want to use your facilities, we trust you with our loved ones. What happens is when someone dies, whether they are at a hospital or a home and the family decides they want to use our services, they may have a wake, they may have a funeral, they may have a grave side service, they may be buried, they may be buried at sea, they may select cremation. They can have a wake, a funeral and then have the body cremated at our facility and then buried in the cemetery or if the family wishes to be taken home or to be buried at sea, it’s there choice. So there’s a multitude of things that someone can do. Again, to accommodate these things, we are required by state law to meet certain legal requirements. The doctor has to sign a death certificate. We have to fill out the information and the death certificate has to be filed in the town in which the person died. If the person is to be cremated, we need a cremation certificate which is obtained through the medical examiners’ office and a representative of the medical examiners office comes to our facility, views the body, looks at the death certificate, determines that there is no need for any further investigation. We have to wait by law, unless we get a waiver, forty-eight hours until the cremation can take place. In turn, we take the death certificate and the cremation certificate to the town in which the person died, in most cases, and then we’re issued a burial permit and we’re also issued a cremation certificate which has to be signed by the next of kin or in today’s regulations, you can have self-authorization for cremation. So there’s quite a bit of paperwork that has to be done. So if somebody dies in Hartford Hospital, the paperwork is filed there. There is one regulation in the state that says that you can file your cremation paperwork in the town in which the funeral home is located. Okay. Once we get all that paperwork completed and then the authorization from the family for the cremation or the next of kin then we do the cremation. So we can have a wake, a funeral.

Commissioner Sarno: Do you do cremations for other funeral homes, though?

Richard Stevens: Yes. On occasion, we do when people are requesting us to do that. Again, we had a family – Holmes Funeral Home – they did not want to use the crematory in Hartford. They insisted that they come to our facility. So, yes, we do.

Commissioner Sarno: It’s the same process.

Richard Stevens: Right. All the paperwork comes and that has to be done. If we have our Windsor Locks funeral home, somebody who lives in Windsor Locks, we use our facility in Enfield. And then somebody says why don’t you put your crematory in Windsor Locks or in Somers. We’re located on a gas line. It’s our main place of operation. It’s just a logical business decision to do it.

Commissioner Sarno: Do you do a lot of business for other funeral homes.

Richard Stevens: No. No.

Commissioner Sarno: So mainly it’s through yours.

Richard Stevens: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. There’s no question. But it does happen.
I can explain the paperwork a little more.

Chairman DiPace: We roughly have about seven minutes left before we do have to adjourn. Before we go any further, I’ve got a couple of questions, procedural questions, for staff. Number one, I know we need to continue this. Does it have to be re-legal noticed in the paper? It’s a continuation. I don’t believe it does.

Attorney Matthew Willis: It’s a continuation but due to the prior history of this, if you are going to continue this public hearing, we’re going to republish this. I mean I’m not going to mess around because we already had this once happen where there wasn’t a public notice and because there was a change, that’s why it came back to us. So we will publish it and that’s my strong recommendation based on the history of this application.

Chairman DiPace: Well, as long as there’s no changes in the application, we usually don’t.

Attorney Matthew Willis: That is true. Most commissions usually don’t but because of the history of this application, I really want you to publish a legal notice every time there’s a public hearing because I don’t want any claim made by any party that there’s any kind of change just like has already happened once.

Chairman DiPace: The other concern I have – it was something that was brought up earlier this evening – was the attorney for the intervener stated that it needed a wetlands permit. Now, we have memos from Neil stating that it did not.

Attorney Matthew Willis: The question is and I’ll ask this of Jose because I’m not typically here for this Commission. If there is something from Mr. Angus that was received today, I don’t know if this is typically considered a wetlands report by this Commission. Because that’s what the statutes require – you have to receive a report and I don’t know if this is what – he apparently sent in two documents and I don’t know if that is what’s considered a wetlands report.

Mr. Giner: It’s just an agent report and that’s typically the way he sends it.

Chairman DiPace: That is our agent report. Does that satisfy the requirement?

Attorney Matthew Willis: If this is the report, yes, the answer is yes.

Commissioner Egan: We usually get the minutes of Inland Wetlands that deals with that issue. We get the minutes of their meetings in which they discuss particular applications.

Chairman DiPace: So, but he’s the wetlands agent so that satisfies that. That’s my concern. I’m looking to make sure we’re following the letter of the law. The next thing is we do need to continue this because, unfortunately, we only have about three minutes and I think we have a lot of information here to read. Believe it or not, I could probably read through that in about a morning’s coffee – not a cup, a pot. But if we’re going to continue this, we’re going to have to have another special meeting then. We have a full agenda for July 7. We have seven public hearings for July 7.

Mr. Giner: I know. The seventh we do. For the twenty-first, we only have a couple. I don’t know if you want to try to tackle it on the twenty-first with the twenty-eighth as the backup. The only hearings we have on the twenty-first that are big ones are the forty-two units of senior housing. I don’t know how controversial that may or may not be.

Chairman DiPace: July 21st falls within the time frame.

Mr. Giner: And then at that evening – the 28th will be the next Thursday that’s open after that. If we need to, it will be a week later.

Commissioner Duren: Mr. Chairman, I for one would poll the Wetlands Agency and not just the agent. I prefer that with the history of this. I mean he makes the decision whether or not they should hear it and that’s what he’s written but I’d like to see the full group rule on this. There’s too many questions out there.

Commissioner Egan: The escarpments are the major issue of the wetlands.

Attorney Fahey: Mr. Chairman, could I comment just a second on the wetlands.

Chairman DiPace: Please. Use the microphone, please.

Attorney Fahey: Just so the Commission is aware, when this hearing was scheduled, the first thing I did was contact Neil Angus and say, you know, I want to make sure that – could you take a look at this application. What do we do? Do we need a no jurisdiction letter? What’s the procedure in Enfield for that? In some towns you have to apply to the commission and appear before them to get a letter of no jurisdiction. Other towns, you use the agent. I contacted him. I sent him the as built plans and the exhibits regarding wetlands that were submitted previously. He went to the site, did an inspection and generated an initial letter saying you’re not within the jurisdiction of the wetlands. I asked him if I needed anything else and he said no, I’ll put my email in the file. Then, this evening I was handed this follow-up report which, I guess, is generated by a 1976 map apparently that he referred to there and I’m guessing from reading that letter that that is still his position. I just want the Commission to know that we were told by Neil in his letter that there was no wetlands jurisdiction and we didn’t need to file any application.

Mr. Giner: I’ll talk to Neil. I’m pretty sure he reported that at the Wetlands. Normally what he does when he does just agent determinations, he will send a memo and then he’ll report to the Commission at their next meeting. I think they had a meeting last Tuesday so I’m sure when the minutes come out – I’ll talk to him and I’ll provide you with the minutes of the Wetlands meeting.

Attorney Baram: Mr. Chairman, if I could. It was my client who brought some additional maps to the wetlands agent. He did not have those maps before.

Chairman DiPace: Excuse me. Excuse me. I was asking staff for comments. We’re adjourning this meeting in one minute so I need to just rectify something. I asked them a question and he answered part of it for me. This meeting is adjourning whether we adjourn or it automatically adjourns in about sixty seconds. I don’t have time right now.

I personally am satisfied as far as Neil Angus. I know how Neil Angus works. I know how the regulation works. I have no problem with that. Seeing that we are continuing this to another meeting, if you want to have him write another report, that’s fine. I know that if it’s outside a certain area, there is no jurisdiction. There is no jurisdiction no matter how hard you try and twist, you cannot make it jurisdiction if it’s not. If Neil says that and he’s the agent – I’m taking his word for it. He’s the paid professional. I’m satisfied as far as that goes with the wetlands.

The meeting does need to be continued.

Mr. Giner: Do we need a motion to continue it to a date and time certain.

Chairman DiPace: Well, the date would be July 21, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.

Mr. Giner: In the Town Hall Chambers. Is someone going to make that motion?

Commissioner Duren: Is that a regular date?

Chairman DiPace: It’s a regular meeting night. The Chairman can continue the meeting.

Mr. Giner: You can continue it that night if you want to another week.

Chairman DiPace: Right. But I’m just saying that normally I just continue the meeting.

Mr. Giner: Now I think we’d probably like a vote.

Commissioner Duren: I make a motion to continue this public hearing to July 21, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.

Commissioner Krebs: Second. (The motion was approved by a 7 – 0 – 0 vote.)

Last Modified: 7/20/2005 10:49:16 AM