Some News

Post date: Oct 12, 2009 11:33:21 PM

Officials Discuss Funds To Support Dredging

January 19, 2010 The Hartford Courant

Town officials and members of the harbor commission met recently to discuss potential funding sources to support additional drudging at the channel near the Pilot Point Marina.

The meeting was attended by the harbor master from Clinton, which is also planning to dredge its channel area near Cedar Island Marina. Those at the meeting discussed various grants and the possibility of collaborating in applying for stimulus funding.

Westbrook has appealed to U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd, who has agreed to convene a meeting at his Norwich district headquarters at 101 Water St., Suite 301, on Jan. 29 at 10 a.m., to discuss funding sources for municipalities.

First Selectman Noel Bishop said the channel provides employment opportunities and revenue for the town.

Clinton may resume dredging

Thursday, January 15, 2009 The New Haven Register

CLINTON — Should the finance board be willing, and with Mother Nature’s cooperation, the much-needed dredging of the town marina could resume later this month.

The finance board is expected to vote Wednesday on a $32,000 appropriation requested by selectmen and the Harbor Commission to complete the funding necessary for the project.

And, assuming Mother Nature’s anticipated deep freeze doesn’t keep the dredger out of Clinton Harbor, Connecticut Dock and Dredge Corp. of Clinton should be able to get to work by the end of the month, said Steven Hayes, Harbor Commission chairman.

The dredging is needed to remove 15 years’ worth of accumulated silt and other material that has raised the harbor floor to the point that some boats in the town marina are sitting on mud at low tide, officials say.

The Riverside Drive marina, with four docks and 52 slips, faces Cedar Island across the channel into Clinton Harbor, a waterway notoriously prone to accumulating silt in the lee of the island.

First Selectman William Fritz said the dredging was to have taken place last winter, when the docks were removed for a $1.1 million renovation of the facility, but the work was stalled by the U.S. Department of Fisheries for its potential impact on the breeding season of the winter flounder.

While $104,000 had been set aside to pay for the work, another $32,000 is needed to cover the removal of more material than originally planned and for the removal of the docks, Hayes said.

“Because we lost the opportunity to do (the dredging) last winter, it’s added quite a bit of money” to the bottom line, he said.

While the Harbor Commission is asking for the full appropriation, Hayes anticipates that the actual cost will be some $18,000 less than projected. “I’m hopeful we can reduce the footprint (of the dredge area) and not dredge in areas that don’t benefit our slip customers,” he said.

Hayes said plans call for the removal of 6,300 cubic yards of material, at a cost of $15 per yard. But, he said, if the area in front of Esposito Beach is eliminated from the dredging, the anticipated yard count would drop to 5,100 cubic yards and deliver a savings of more than $18,000.

About 1,100 cubic yards of material was removed in December, before the dredging company had to move to another job in Branford.

The cost breakdown allocates $119,500 for the dredging; $6,000 for surveys of the area before and after the work; $3,000 for project management; and $4,500 for a required dredge inspector, among other expenses.

Hayes said the inspector accompanies the barge that takes the material to Old Saybrook’s Cornfield Shoals disposal area to make sure the material is dumped where the permit requires and in accordance with standard practices, “so they’re not making a mess out there.”

Clinton to hold hearing on wastewater project

CLINTON — Making a push to finalize a list of potential sites for underground treatment of wastewater, engineers and the Water Pollution Control Commission are planning a public hearing this spring to discuss the latest developments in the project.

As WPCC member Darby Hittle put it, “There has to be a point where we show people what we’ve been doing for the past six months.”

Of the several tasks being handled by the commission, the principal endeavor has been the identification of all properties in Clinton that are five acres or larger — more than 300, it turned out — that therefore would hypothetically be suitable as a site where treated wastewater could flow beneath the surface of the land.

The site — or several sites — are the lynchpin in the plan being developed by the WPCC and its engineers, in collaboration with the state departments of Environmental Protection and Public Health to create a decentralized wastewater treatment in Clinton.

The town is under a state mandate to develop such a system to remedy wastewater issues identified in five distinct areas of town, with the undersized lots and poor soils of the Long Hill Road area putting it at the top of that list. The Shore Road neighborhoods also are listed, where small cottages are shoulder to shoulder on sandy soil, as well as the broad area from Route 1 to Clinton Harbor in the town center.

The Rocky Ledge neighborhood also is listed, as is Boulder Lake in the western part of town, and all three mobile home communities.

Enhanced wastewater treatment will come from improved on-site septic systems, computer-monitored systems and in areas where conventional treatment is not possible, from neighborhood sewer systems feeding small treatment plants.

The WPCC needs property with the appropriate size and geology to accept treated wastewater from the small treatment plants, as well as sites for the plants themselves.

Camp, Dresser and McKee, the engineering firm for the project, and the WPCC have winnowed the original 300 properties down to 106 by eliminating those that are compromised by wetlands or other considerations. Now they plan to reduce that list to about 10 that actually can be tested, assuming the owners agree.

CDM official Kristie Gersley Wagner said CDM had “expected to get to a smaller list (at this point). It’s turning out some of the data is widespread and not available electronically.”

The engineers need to know now which properties are covered by buildings or have uses that make them unsuitable — information which is readily available from the assessor’s data base, WPCC members pointed out.

Hittle said he didn’t understand why CDM hadn’t already accessed that information. “I just think it should have been done by now, and you have access at the computer. It’s a $267,000 project and there isn’t four hours in the budget for this?”

The WPCC and Wagner agreed to assign a CDM staffer to assemble the needed data for presentation at a hearing, possibly in March and likely the first of three such meetings to explain the project to the public.

Clinton to be reimbursed for wastewater spending

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

CLINTON — The town is scheduled to receive a state reimbursement of $308,000 for funds spent since 1998 in planning and engineering studies for a municipal wastewater treatment system.

First Selectman William Fritz said the money will cover 55 percent of the $558,000 spent over the 11 years in developing a state-mandated remedy for town wastewater problems.

The Water Pollution Control Commission has been steadily working toward a decentralized wastewater treatment system, using “neighborhood” sewer systems and enhanced on-site treatment by conventional septic systems that has been approved in concept by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

WPCC Chairwoman Lynn Pinder said the funds spent thus far were for engineering work — most of it by Camp, Dresser, and McKee of Wethersfield — approved by the DEP to evaluate how the town can address its treatment issues.

“It’s a nice letter to get, for sure,” she said of the state notice. “It takes the sting out of the money we’re spending now.”

A substantial portion of the reimbursement represents money withheld by the state in the absence of a signed agreement that the town would proceed with the mandated work during the administration of former First Selectman James McCusker Jr.

With a signed consent order long in place, as well as legislation allowing a decentralized approach, Fritz said the town and state officials are in agreement on the appropriate treatment technology for Clinton.

The principal task for CDM and the WPCC over the past several months has been the evaluation of all properties of five acres or more that may prove suitable as underground disposal sites for treated wastewater.

Pinder said those properties have been winnowed down, through subjective and scientific criteria, to a point where the commission hopes early in the new year to begin selecting properties for possible testing. The plan calls for evaluation of privately-owned parcels, with their owners’ permission, and town-owned properties.

And the WPCC has assembled an ad hoc group, including representation from the town’s beach communities, to craft language for a new septic tank pump-out ordinance.

The ordinance would require septic tanks to be pumped at least once every five years and for the pumpers to log the completed work with the town. It’s important, she said, as an interim measure to minimize wastewater problems while the commission continues to develop an engineered solution.

Pinder was encouraged by the WPCC’s progress. “We’re doing OK,” she said. “We’re all working together, and each of us has a piece of the problem to focus on.”

Report: Conn. beach quality improves

Friday, July 31, 2009

By the Associated Press

BRANFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut has moved up six places to No. 12 in a new report on beach quality by a national environmental group, but state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says much work remains to be done to reduce pollution.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s report says 4 percent of all water samples taken from Connecticut beaches in 2008 exceeded state limits for bacteria. Blumenthal calls the report an “indictment” for the state and the nation.

The report also says Connecticut had 135 beach closing and advisory days last year, down from 172 closing days in 2007.

The defense council says the most polluted beaches in the state include the Clinton town beach, Kiddie’s Beach in Waterford, Branford Point Beach in Branford and Greenwich Point Beach and Byram Beach in Greenwich

Bacteria levels in Sound often exceed standards

Thursday, July 30, 2009 By Mark Zaretsky, Register Staff

BRANFORD — Connecticut and the federal government need to do more to improve Long Island Sound water quality, environmental and elected officials said at a press conference Wednesday morning at Branford Point beach.

Those with a stake in the quality of Long Island Sound, led by Save the Sound and Environment Connecticut, organized the press conference as part of the release of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s 2009 “Testing the Waters” report.

According to the report, the nation’s beaches “aren’t doing that well,” said Leah Schmalz, director of legislative and legal affairs for Save the Sound, a program of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

As she spoke, a pristine white egret poked around for fish along the rocks on the beach below her.

But Branford Point, for all its placid beauty, had the third-highest incidence last year of exceeding federal bacteria level standards among Connecticut’s 66 public beaches on the Sound, the study found.

Schmalz was flanked by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Branford First Selectman Anthony “Unk” DaRos, General Assembly Environment Committee Co-chairmen Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford, and Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, state Reps. Lonnie Reed, D-Branford, and Patricia Widlitz, D-Guilford, and environmental leaders, including Emmett Pepper of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Chris Phelps of Environment Connecticut and Tom Baptist of Audubon Connecticut.

Four percent of the Connecticut beaches tested last year “exceeded national standards” for bacteria, and while that may not seem like a lot, “4 percent is too much,” Schmalz said.

The good news is that while Connecticut beach closings and advisories rose from 108 in 2007 to 135 in 2008, the state moved up in water quality from 18th in the nation to 12th, Schmalz said. Last year’s 135 beach closings also were still far below the 224 in 2006 and 200 in 2005, according to figures NRDC released Wednesday.

Many beach closings are unavoidable — and not always related to contamination. In 2008, 72 percent of the closings were the result of heavy rain or issues involving wildlife, with 28 percent the result of tests showing excessive levels of some sort of contaminant.

Schmalz said one reason 2007 had so few beach closings was because there wasn’t a lot of rain.

“We know that Mother Nature is responsible for most of our overflows, but we also know that we can’t rely on Mother Nature” to provide drought to keep the waters clean, she said.

She said Connecticut “put its clean water legacy back on track” when it invested $515 million to create the state’s Clean Water Fund two years ago. But she called that enough to help deal with “the tip of the iceberg,” and called for greater investment over time — including separating antiquated sewer and storm water systems in Bridgeport and Hartford.

The six beaches with the most incidents of exceeding bacteria levels were the Clinton Town Beach, which accounted for 19 percent of the 2008 total, Kiddie’s Beach in New London County (16 percent), Branford Point beach (14 percent), Greenwich Point Beach (13 percent), Byram Beach in Fairfield County (12 percent), and Clark Avenue beach in Branford (12 percent).

Blumenthal called beach closures “a little bit like the canary in the coal mine,” a warning “that we must do more to reduce sewage, fertilizer and other runoff polluting Long Island Sound.” He called the report “an indictment in terms of water quality.”

High bacteria levels, along with a growing incidence of hypoxia, or low oxygen levels — a particular problem in the western Sound in the summer — often are the result of “outright human excrement flowing into Long Island Sound,” he said.

Blumenthal, Meyer and Reed, who was responsible for a law passed over Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s veto to create a Connecticut-New York commission on Long Island Sound, said the body can be used to get the states working together to clean up the Sound.

Meyer called the study “a call to us to lead better” with regard to the Sound’s future.

Widlitz said “there are certain things you expect from your government” and clean air and clean water are among them.

Now “is a critical time for the Sound,” said Baptist. “Funding for clean water projects ... is at risk at both the state and federal levels.”

He called on Congress to double the proposed $15 million for the Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Acts, and also to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which would reduce global warming emissions “and help our coastal communities prepare for sea level rise” and the flooding and other problems that would accompany it.

The New Haven Register

Conn. officials say LI Sound 'dead zone' worse

Monday, July 20, 2009

BRIDGEPORT (AP) — Environmental officials say the so-called "dead zone" of low oxygen in Long Island Sound continues to get worse.

The formal name for the condition is hypoxia and has been present in the Sound for decades, appearing during warm summer months.

Hypoxia reduces the area where fish can live and can lead to mass fish kills.

In 2008, the hypoxia area reached 180 square miles, up from 162 square miles in 2007.

An official of the Interstate Environmental Commission says the increase may have been caused in part by high temperatures and calm weather conditions.

Hypoxic conditions in the Sound are not new. State officials have documented low levels of dissolved oxygen in the western half of Long Island Sound for more than 20 years.