PORTLAND, Connecticut (17 July 2004) -- The Board of Selectmen has imposed a moratorium on any future scuba diving in the Brownstone quarries while the town attorney reviews the question of the town's liability. The ban, which was enacted Wednesday, will -- at least for the immediate future -- prevent the Portland Volunteer Fire Department and the Connecticut State Police from continuing to use the quarries for dive-training programs. Enactment of the moratorium also comes as a group of professional divers are preparing an outline of a plan to make the quarries -- which measure 70-90 feet deep in some areas -- a dive training site. The fire department and the state police -- as well as the Bridgeport Police Department -- have used the quarries for training for a number of years; Deputy Fire Chief Robert Shea suggested dive training for the fire department in the quarries dates back perhaps as long as 15 years. But the diving is in conflict with an existing ordinance -- Section 12-2 of the Portland Code -- which specifically prohibits "underwater swimming or diving using a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus or other artificial breathing device or any diving equipment in any quarries or remains thereof within the municipal limits of the town." The issue arose in a roundabout way. First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield met late last month with three professional diving instructors to discuss a proposal to make the quarries a dive attraction. When Bransfield reported on the meeting to the selectmen last week, Town Clerk Bernadette Dillon noted the ordinance prohibits such activities in the quarries. Dillon said the ordinance was adopted after a man drowned in one of the brownstone quarries in 1966. There were additional deaths in the Quarry Ridge quarry, Dillon added. In light of Dillon's comments, Bransfield said, she went back and examined the code. "On reviewing the ordinance, I was concerned," she told her board colleagues this week, that the practice of allowing the police and the fire departments to use the quarries violates the town ordinance. | | As a result, she said, "I have changed the lock on the gate" that leads to the quarry. Adding yet another wrinkle to the issue: the professional divers who are preparing the dive-site proposal for the town proposed conducting a test dive in the quarry on the first weekend of August to determine how deep the quarries are and how clear they are -- whether they are viable and useful for what is being proposed, Bransfield explained, and whether the quarries are safe. She asked her colleagues for their thoughts. Selectman Thomas W. Flood appeared to speak for most, if not all, of his colleagues when he said, "There are questions of liability. I think Jean (D'Aquila, the town attorney) should look at this, and then we can ask her what she wants to do." "Where does that leave us?" Shea inquired. The board concluded that, until the issue is resolved, no further training should place in the quarry. It will also bar the proposed test dive next month. "What the town needs to be concerned about is are we doing the right thing," Flood noted. Shea suggested a compromise: having divers sign a waiver that they will not sue the town in the event some misfortune befalls them. "If you don't sign, you can't play," he said. In light of the need for the fire department to continue its training, Selectwoman Cynthia R. Varricchio asked that D'Aquila expedite her review. SOURCE - Middletown Press |
