New Canaan First Selectman Rob Mallozzi III.
After New Canaan Town Hall workers were told they could leave the building for the day last Tuesday, Feb. 9, when a suspicious odor spread through the building, New Canaan First Selectman Rob Mallozzi III decided to reassure the employees that he was addressing the situation.
First, addressing what was reported on another news site, Mallozzi said that Town Hall was not closed on Tuesday. He emailed this to the Advertiser on Wednesday, Feb. 10:
“We allowed people to leave Town Hall yesterday due to a strong odor coming from a boiler malfunction but there was no evacuation. We were open all day and held a meeting last night which (Advertiser editor) Greg (Reilly) attended.”
Then in an e-mail to Town Hall workers sent Thursday, Feb. 11, and obtained by the Advertiser, Mallozzi explained what happened and that there was no danger that day or hopefully going forward. Here is that e-mail:
Dear Town Hall Staff;
I wanted to pass along a summary of what has transpired and what has been accomplished over the past 2 days as it concerns our boiler issue. I took it upon myself to delay the opening of the building on Wednesday and will be prepared to delay or close the building again if air quality issues were to be discovered.
As many of you are aware, on Tuesday, February 9th we experienced a boiler malfunction. The boiler malfunction was caused by a loose set screw (factory installed) between the air damper motor and the actual air damper. The combustion air damper remained closed while the boiler fired. The boiler ran overnight in this condition. This caused the boiler to billow black smoke overnight and caused the combustion chamber to be coated with un-combusted # 2 fuel.
This malfunction and the materials used to clean up the un-combusted # 2 fuel caused the odors.
Action items taken since 2/9/2016:
1. Boiler 2 was shut down immediately.
2. Boiler 1 was used to heat the building.
3. The boiler technicians were onsite within one hour to identify, fix, and clean problem. They were on site from 7:30 AM until midnight.
4. February 10th the boiler technicians cleaned the inside of the boiler and work area. They were onsite 7 AM to 3:30 PM.
5. The air handling units were set to 100% outside air to flush out the building.
6. All air filters were changed in the air handling equipment.
7. The burner manufacturer’s representatives tested and re-certified boiler 1 as a precautionary measure.
8. The burner manufacturer representative reviewed boiler 2 and it is ready to be restarted this weekend. There will be additional odors generated during start up on Saturday, but we expect to have the building purged of odors by Tuesday morning.
9. An Environmental Hygienist was called in to test indoor air quality. As of this date, no air quality issues have been detected.
I thank all of you for your concern and patience.
Robert E. Mallozzi III
First Selectman
The post EXCLUSIVE: Mallozzi explains Town Hall safety issues to workers in e-mail appeared first on New Canaan Advertiser.