The Board of Selectmen held a special meeting Monday that included reports from state Sens. George "Doc" Gunther, R-Stratford, and Louis C. DeLuca, R-Woodbury, as well as state Rep. Len Greene, R-Beacon Falls.
In 1999 residents approved the $5.5 million sewer project that brought both city water and sewer to 216 homes. But at that time, the residents were told that the assessments would run about $15,000 per house, and could be paid over a 10-year period.
Shortly after that approval, it was discovered that the town was millions of dollars in debt, a situation that was only resolved after a special 3-mill tax was assessed. At that time, all major projects, including the sewer project, were put on hold, First Selectman Robert Koskelowski said.
It was almost four years later
that work finally began, and recently the bills for the sewer
hookup arrived. Shocked residents found that sewer assessment
alone ran $15,000, with the water hookups yet to be billed.
[Please read the rest of this article at the CT POST website]
And across the state
line...Weston doesn't have this problem (or a big water
tank), but environmental headaches can always crop up!
Lead Found Near Another Westerly Water
Tank; Town property on Tower Street found to be
contaminated
By DAN PEARSON
Day Arts Writer, Westerly, North Stonington
Published on 9/8/2004
Westerly — A “very significant” amount of lead paint contamination has been discovered on town property and on at least one residential property around a water tank on Tower Street.
At the same time, an inspection report on the Winnapaug water tank calls for the town to repair the tank to prevent it from falling down in a windstorm.
George Prete, the town's special projects coordinator, said Tuesday that Pare Engineering has found lead contamination on at least one private property on Ledward Avenue and under blacktop on the town-owned tank property. A copy of Pare's report was unavailable Tuesday. But Prete said lead levels in some places were 10 times higher than allowed for safe residential exposure limits.
Lead also may have contaminated a commercial property on Granite Street and entered a drain on Tower Street. Prete said the drain is blocked and that it is believed the lead did not travel.
Lead paint was sandblasted from the Tower Street tank before it was painted with non-lead paint in 1985.
Prete said Pare would continue testing and was working on testing guidelines with the Rhode Island departments of Environmental Management and Health. He said the town may conduct lead testing at a water tank site in Bradford.
The
discovery
of lead on Tower Street comes months after the town found high
lead levels on public and private property at and around the
Winnapaug tank off Winnapaug Road, where the town is preparing
to replace the 500,000-gallon tank with a one-million-gallon
tank. Before the town can build the tank, it must clean up lead
on its property, a process that soon will be completed. It is
now conducting further testing on residential property and plans
to clean that as well.
[Please read the rest of this article at THE DAY (New London, CT) website]
A small cottage on the shore might accommodate a family of five for a few days, but a 250-gallon septic tank will not.
Brushing their teeth, flushing the toilet and doing the dishes, mom, dad and the kids will send close to 375 gallons of wastewater gurgling through the pipes of their home into the undersized tank each day.
Eventually, the system will fail and waste will come bubbling to the surface.
Such septic woes have come to plague towns along the Connecticut shoreline, where small cottages often host big crowds in the summer. Even when septic tanks are adequately sized, small plots and high water tables make it hard for the systems to function properly. The result: pollution of groundwater and possibly Long Island Sound.
But a typical alternative, a sewage treatment plant, isn't right for all towns, local officials say. They argue that sewers and a large treatment plant would promote uncontrolled development. High-rise apartment buildings and chain restaurants - familiar sights in other communities with sewers - would destroy the towns' character, they say. Put them in the ground, they warn, and the developers will come.
In 1989, Old Saybrook residents balked at a state Department of Environmental Protection order requiring the town to construct a sewage treatment plant that would also serve Westbrook and Clinton. Since then, the festering problem has gone largely unaddressed, as the towns and DEP continue to haggle over the best solution.
"I don't want to rush anything,
but I do think we need to address [this problem]," said State
Rep. Brian O'Connor, D-Clinton. "We don't want people dragging
their feet."
[Please read the rest of this article at the Hartford COURANT website]
"From my experience, it's not normal," said Craig Motasky, the DEP inspector who gathered the spill records yesterday from the South Smith Street facility.
A spate of spills in Norwalk and
at other plants, including one in Bridgeport, have led the
state Bureau of Aquaculture to consider streamlining the
process for determining if harmful bacteria has been released
into waterways. Under the current system, state
wastewater treatment facilities are not required to
immediately test spills to determine
whether hazardous bacteria
was released. In such cases, the state may send inspectors,
such as Motasky, to check claims by plant personnel that the
spills do not pose health hazards to the public.
Subsequent water sampling and testing by the state require beaches and shellfish beds to be temporarily closed. The process can take several days. "The minute they (plants) have a problem, we want them to be able to take a sample from their effluent pipe and find out the next day the bacterial numbers they're getting," said Lori Romick, an environmental analyst for the aquaculture bureau, which makes the decision to close the shellfish beds. "Right now, I'm using my best professional judgment to close (the beds) on a precautionary basis. Sometimes it may prove necessary, sometimes not."
[Please read the rest of this article at the Stamford ADVOCATE website]