Leddy Beach in Burlington’s New North End remained closed on Friday following a nearby chemical spill two days earlier, according to the city’s Department of Public Works.
Robert Goulding, a spokesperson for the department, said that roughly one gallon of styrene, a carcinogen, was mixed in with about 50 gallons of steam condensate being used in storm drain relining work on Dale Road on Wednesday. Contractors performing the work inadvertently allowed the steam byproduct to escape into a drain that led to a stream that flows to Lake Champlain near Leddy Beach.
The beach could remain closed for water recreation at least through Monday, Goulding said, when the city expects results back from water tests.
Goulding said a member of the public initially spotted a “milky, frothy discharge” in the stream underneath the bike path at Leddy Park on Wednesday. The state Agency of Natural Resources was alerted to the spill, he said, and cleanup efforts began immediately.
According to the agency’s database on environmental spills, city workers and contractors used absorbent spill kits in an effort to prevent the discharge from reaching the lake, and water was tested at multiple sites near the stream. When state crews returned to Leddy Beach one day later, they observed a sheen in a part of the lake contained within a sandbar, but noted that absorbent booms appeared to have captured any oil.
Goulding said the contractors had been relining storm drains, part of an ongoing effort to address aging infrastructure. Public Works is planning to investigate the spill to understand how it happened, but Goulding said the work is important and allows the city to fix older pipes without as much intrusion and at a lower cost.
“We want to keep doing this work to make sure our pipes don’t suffer from other potentially worse issues, should they break or should there be any other issues,” he said.