Vineyard Wind turbine farm draws CT fishing industry concern

Bill Cummings

The massive 804 megawatt Vineyard Wind turbine farm proposed for waters off Martha’s Vineyard is triggering concern about the impact on the state’s fishing industry.

During a meeting Thursday of the Connecticut Commission on Environmental Standards, a collection of regulators, fisherman and politicians, some members suggested that pledged research funding be directed toward protecting fishermen.

State Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton and a commission member, said she was particularly concerned about fisherman based in New London and Stonington.

“One of my biggest concerns is the impact on local fishing fleets,” Somers said.

“We don’t need a university studying something that does not help our local fishing communities,” Somers noted, referencing the University of Connecticut’s role in the project. “I ask that you consider that going forward.”

The Connecticut side of the massive electric project, dubbed Park City Wind, a joint venture between a subsidiary of Orange-based Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, plans to use Bridgeport’s port to stage and transport construction material to ocean leases off Martha’s Vineyard.

Eventually, the Bridgeport facility will be used for ongoing maintenance of the wind farm.

Park City Wind has allocated $2.5 million to UConn’s Department of Marine Sciences to study the impact of the wind farm on surrounding fisheries and $2.5 million to the Mystic Aquarium to better understand the impact on marine mammals and their habitat. Part of that work will focus on underwater noise generated by wind farms.

Atma Khalsa, environmental manager for Avangrid Renewables, said he will bring Somers’ suggestion to UConn researchers.

“I will try to get in contact with fisherman,” Khalsa promised. “The topics chosen did involve fisheries input. We can never engage enough with fishing communities.”

State Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme and a commission member, noted that 70 percent of insurance claims being paid in Europe because of damage attributed to offshore wind is related to underwater transmission cables.

“I understand we have issues when you have an emerging industry,” Formica said. “I just have not heard a conversation about what those solutions are.”

Christina Hoffman, a senior project manager for Avangrid Renewables, said the technology for underwater cable systems is evolving.

“There have been a lot of lessons learned in Europe and they are keying into aspects of the design, including cable burying,” Hoffman said. “There is a lot of effort going into cable design that will run north to Massachusetts and Cape Cod.”

The equipment necessary to build the wind farm will be staged and transported from a 15-acre port facility off Seaview Avenue in Bridgeport. A lease for an office is in place and Park City officials said progress is being made converting the site for its new use.

“Bridgeport is a big piece of the project,” Hoffman said. “We are committed to a strong Connecticut presence. The office opened this summer and we signed a lease for using Barnum Landing for construction staging for turbines that will be in the ocean. Discussions are underway to use the port for maintenance operations for the life of the project.”

Park City Wind officials explained a change in ownership structure in which one of the offshore leases will now be owned by Avangrid Renewables, Park City Wind and Commonwealth Wind. A second underwater lease will be owned by Copenhagan Infrastructure Partners.

An environmental impact statement for the project, a key component of upcoming permits needed to begin construction, are well underway, Park City Wind officials said.

Hoffman said the statement is expected to be published in August 2022 and a decision by a variety of federal regulators is due by July 2023.

The project is projected to generate $890 million in direct economic benefits and thousands of jobs. The developers have proposed investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Connecticut representing a range of infrastructure improvements and community programs.

Norwalk approves $7.1M Dreamy Hollow flood mitigation project

Abigail Brone

NORWALK — More than $7 million was approved Tuesday to alleviate flooding issues and reconstruct the storm and sanitary sewers in the Dreamy Hollow neighborhood.

The problem area in northern Norwalk has been on the city’s radar to fix for decades, Public Works Chief of Operations Anthony Carr said during the Common Council’s Public Works Committee meeting Tuesday, where the project was unanimously approved.

“This predates my tenure here. Some staff have seen different iterations of this project being discussed, but when I started there was a public outcry from that area,” Carr said. “There was a problem there, but we didn’t want to approach it from a Band-Aid perspective.”

The project will cost a total of $7.15 million and includes drainage, paving and construction. Of the total cost, about $1.1 million is dedicated to the sanitary sewer work.

The work will encompass about 400 acres and affect 60 homes from Assissi Way, Friendly Pond, Daphne Drive, Theodore Lane, near Betts Pond Brook Dam and Dry Hill Outlet, among other streets, according to city documents.

The project spans 3% of the city’s landmass, Carr said. The project was put out to bid in November and one bidder was chosen earlier this month.

“It encompasses 400 acres of watershed and drainage area, basically area that collects storm water runoff and drains to a certain point,” Carr said. “This project helps alleviate flooding issues many residents in that area have encountered since that subdivision was created in the (19)50s and 60s. The reason why is the topography is very flat, lots of low areas. The fill in the soil does not have good ability to percolate water.”

Construction will last about a year and begin once the funds are fully approved by the Common Council and a pre-construction meeting is held, Carr said.

A flood mitigation study was conducted in 2019 with engineering and operations company Woodard and Curran, which found that the flooding in the area exacerbated sanitary sewer issues.

“The fill material is not questionable ... environmentally, but things not compacted properly have caused utilities to shift,” Carr said. “Storm and sanitary sewer pipes became like a roller coaster. Moved and settled, disjointed pipes in that area are undersized to a degree and could benefit from a realignment in how it travels form point A to point B.”

The base bid for the project is $864,505 and there are two alternates at $682,815 and $5,598,675, for drainage, sanitary sewer and water main improvements awarded to Colonna Concrete and Asphalt Paving, according to city documents.

An additional $715,000 was set aside for the improvements and $291,400 for Woodward and Curran administration services, which are not part of the $7.15 million project total, according to the documents.

“The base bid is what the city committed to. To the scope of work, alternate one and two is sometimes if the city needs to allocate funding from different sources or don’t know what sources there are,” Carr said. “Some cases don’t have full amount to award. In our case it wasn’t lack of funding. We wanted to decipher which pots of money or capital accounts we were going to utilize that’s why we did it that way, with one and two.”

Funds for the project will come from Public Works and Water Pollution Control Authority capital accounts.

For any nearby homes or neighborhoods that may subsequently seek flood mitigation or become effected, the reconstruction lends itself to alterations, Principal Engineer Vanessa Valadares said.

For example, a homeowner who opted against part of the project’s easement could later opt in, Valadares said.

“The good thing is this easement was supposed to happen upstream of the project, so it’s very easy to add it on even if the property owner changes a few years from now and somebody approaches us,” Valadares said. “It’s very easy to accommodate and add that other pipe and benefit another neighborhood. We already left provisions into it in case in the future that happens.”

State hoping to use former prison site for high school

ASSOCIATED PRESS

MANSFIELD - State officials are working on a plan that would transform the site of a former prison into a technical high school.

The University of Connecticut, which had taken control of the former Bergin Correctional Institution in Mansfield in 2015, on Wednesday transferred the 35-acre site and 25 adjoining acres back to the state Office of Policy and Management.

Paul Hinsch, the state's policy director for asset management, said officials have been searching for an adequate site to replace the old Windham Technical High School for over a decade.

The site of the former prison could work, he said, because it already has infrastructure such as sewer and water hookups and the needed land for athletic fields.

The prison, built in 1988, was closed in 2011 as the state's inmate population declined. UConn took control of the site, hoping to use it as a centralized food service facility, Hinsch said. But that venture was eventually deemed too costly and the site has only been used for parking during nearby construction projects, he said.

The plan to build a high school on the site is still in its preliminary stages and the cost and timeframe have not been finalized, he said.

No matter what happens to the site, the existing prison buildings would be torn down and no students will ever serve detention in a former prison cell, he said.

If the site is not used for a high school, UConn will get it back in five years, he said.

“It's really a win-win if we can do this, because UConn and the technical high schools already have an existing agricultural relationship and those agricultural fields are right behind where this potential school could go," he said.

City, school officials celebrate completion of steelwork at Chamberlain Elementary School

Jeniece Roman

NEW BRITAIN – City and school officials visited Chamberlain Elementary School project site Thursday for a ceremony to commemorate the completion of steelwork.

Representatives from Newfield Construction, members of the School Building Committee, Board of Education, the Common Council and Mayor Erin Stewart visited the school for a topping out ceremony. Construction workers assisted in the placement of a steel beam on the building project to represent the “last piece of steel” erected in the structure.

Stewart thanked members of the Ironworkers Local 15 union and explained the significance of the topping out ceremony.

“It highlights that steel workers play a crucial role in turning the vision of a new building into a reality,” Stewart said. “The steel frame you see behind me is going to serve as the core, the heart of this new building and it's crucial to its functionality, longevity and practicality.”

City officials, representatives from Newfield Construction and members of the New Britain community who were associated with the project were invited to sign their name on the steel beam. Stewart said the ceremony is a customary tradition in the construction process and is the public’s first introduction to the building. The steel beam was erected with an American flag and a small evergreen tree to symbolize that construction has reached its “highest point” without injury or loss of life.

When completed, the building will include an updated security system, specialized rooms and services for hearing impaired students, and a 16,000 square foot addition for administration offices. The $50 million renovation project will be completed with reimbursed funding by the state.

Stewart said the project, which began in July 2021, is slated to continue throughout the winter.

“They’re going to be working really hard throughout the winter. Construction is not going to stop,” Stewart said. “So we can make sure that the building is delivered on time, hopefully under budget. But it's going to take a lot of work by everyone through the winter months.”

ERIN STEWART: Important updates on notable development projects in city

ERIN STEWART

We have reached the end of 2021, and what a year it has been. I look back on this year with pride because even while we continued to deal with the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, New Britain came back stronger than ever and thrived. Our city is in the midst of a renaissance unlike anything we have experienced in decades, and the block-by-block transformations can be seen in every neighborhood.

Throughout 2021 I announced multiple development projects that are essential elements to the bright future we are building for this city. Since these announcements were made, many residents have asked me for the latest details so it felt like a good time to provide an update on where we stand with some of our more notable projects.

In July I toured the progress of the Doris Building redevelopment project, located at 27 Main Street. This particular project is actually the city's first Opportunity Zone project, and is being overseen by developer Amit Lakohita. While the pandemic caused some delays in the supply chain, Mr. Lakohita is still hard at work transforming this building into beautiful apartments and we are looking forward to an expected grand opening in spring 2022.

Towards the end of August I announced that the old Burritt Bank building on the corner of Main Street and Bank Street was being demolished. Then a little over a month later we broke ground on what will be known as “The Brit,” a $14 million, 107-unit apartment building in the heart of New Britain’s downtown that will stand on this same site. The developer, Jasko Development owned by Avner Krohn, is moving forward with the engineering of the new building and the construction phase is expected to begin soon.

The 100-year-old Berkowitz Building at 608 Main Street has been empty for years, but is finally undergoing a transformation to become a beautifully renovated mixed-use building right at the edge of Little Poland. I toured this project over the summer, and now developer Douglas Bromfield is continuing to renovate this well-known building into about 24 apartments that will open this March. The second phase, which will involve the development of the parcel leading up to Beaver Street, is expected to begin in 2022.

One of the most notable events this past year was the official launch of the demolition of the St. Thomas Aquinas High School building on the East Side. While on the outside it might look like not much has happened since I jumped into an excavator and tore down part of the brick wall back in October, permits have been issued by the city and the environmental remediation is underway. We expect to begin construction of the single family homes that will take the place of the old high school building in summer of 2022.

Many of you have noticed the For Sale sign on the plot of land at 125 Columbus Boulevard, right next to Columbus Commons. The city is currently receiving an environmental assessment for this land from a licensed environmental professional. Once that process is complete, the city plans to sell this land through an RFP process in the spring.

We have accomplished so much together this past year, but the best is definitely yet to come. I will continue to keep you updated as these projects move closer to completion in the coming months. You can also look forward to the announcement of a few new projects as we continue to make New Britain an attractive place to live, work and have fun. Here’s to another great year!

Waterford moves forward with $3.45 million town center park project

Johana Vazquez

Waterford — The town is one step closer to actualizing a town center park projected to cost about $3.45 million.

After months of planning, the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday night adopted the master plan for Waterford Community Park.

Architecture firm Kent + Frost LLC was contracted in July to develop the master plan and provide an estimate of probable costs for an accessible system of connected trails and park amenities. The now dissolved Waterford Town Center Development Ad-Hoc Committee held multiple meetings and worked with the town planning department and Chad Frost, principal of Kent + Frost, on the project.

Frost said Tuesday they received a lot of good feedback from a public survey, which drew more than 160 responses, and two well-attended public hearings.

He presented the master plan to the Board of Selectmen and explained the different phases of development.

Phases 1-3 include the restoration of the pond, known as the Duck Pond, which will involve dredging and installing a water quality pump and filtration system.

It also includes the construction of an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant accessible path and boardwalk circling the pond and connecting the Community Center, playground and restrooms to the pond loop.

Frost said old and new trails will be marked and connected to sidewalks as well as the stand-alone gazebo and memorial trees, which now are obstructed from view.

Phases 4-6 consist of improvements to the playground, expansion of the Waterford Public Library parking lot and an outdoor "civic plaza" at the library that overlooks the sledding hill and park.

Frost said the playground would be expanded and shaded seating for parents would be added.

The work shown on the master plan in the area of the softball fields and Recreation and Parks facility are not included in phases 1-6 but intended for future years.

Planning Director Abby Piersall said pending approvals during budget season in May, work for the first three phases could begin after July 2022. The final three phases could take place after July 2023, depending on funding requested through the town's capital budget.

With the master plan endorsed, First Selectman Rob Brule will enter into a contract modification with Kent + Frost to continue design work and begin the permitting process for the first three phases.

A total of $167,180 remains of the original $200,000 appropriated in capital funds for the planning of this project.

Selectwoman Beth Sabilia asked Piersall Tuesday if the planning department was looking into grants for the costly project.

Piersall said the town applied for a CT Recreational Trails Program Grant in the amount of $260,000. The application seeks funding for the two bridges at the north and south ends of the pond, the entry area from Rope Ferry Road and a portion of the boardwalk costs.

The town budget request for phases 1-3 will include $375,450 to cover the design work of all phases; Piersall said this is so the town is prepared to apply for grants with "shovel-ready" projects. She said the project will require some fundraising.

Piersall said the park would serve as a "vibrant community space."

"It's an opportunity of pop-up space for winter activities, an outdoor classroom, the Farmer's Market and walking art show," she said.

Frost said the park has the potential to serve as the town's center and "crown jewel," connecting all of its civic assets.

First bucket of infrastructure act funds heads to states for water, lead pipe remediation

Julie Strupp

The first major infusion of funds from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law last month, is heading to states, tribes and U.S. territories in 2022, the Biden administration announced on Dec. 2. The EPA will distribute $7.4 billion to remediate ailing water infrastructure and lead pipes.

The funding is part of the legislation's $50 billion investment in water infrastructure, which will be doled out over five years. Of the initial distribution of funds, $2.9 billion will go to replace lead pipes and service lines, and $866 million is designated to address "forever chemicals" and other drinking water contaminants. 

EPA Administrator Michael Regan told NBC that the funding represents the "single largest investment in water infrastructure" in the history of the federal government. Experts say while the sum is likely not sufficient to address all of the country's lead pipes, it should still make a significant impact.

Lead service lines and plumbing components were banned nationwide in 1986, but lead contamination in water continues to affect millions of homes, businesses and schools. It has been linked to a variety of health problems including irreversible organ and cognitive damage, and children in particular are at risk, per the EPA.  Earlier this year, President Joe Biden pledged to replace every lead pipe in the country.

"It's going to create jobs replacing lead and — lead water pipes so every American, every child can drink clean water, improving their health and putting plumbers and pipefitters to work. How long have we been talking about that? It's a gigantic issue," Biden said in remarks after the House of Representatives passed the infrastructure act.

There are up to 10 million lead service lines in the U.S. and the average cost of replacing them is $4,700 per line, according to a 2019 EPA report. However, the exact number of lead pipes is uncertain because many states do not track them, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, which puts the figure at closer to 12 million. While lead pipes persist in every state, NRDC's data shows the problem is most widespread in the Midwest.

The majority of infrastructure act funds will be distributed to states, which are charged with deciding which projects to fund and executing them. Other sums will be disbursed through federal grants for specific projects. Nearly $44 billion of the $50 billion for water projects will go through State Revolving Funds, created to provide low-interest loans for cities, counties and utilities to invest in water and sanitation infrastructure. 

A historic, if insufficient, investment

The infrastructure package in total has $15 billion earmarked for replacing lead pipes and another $10 billion for dealing with drinking water contaminants. A senior Biden administration official said the act also provides $23.4 billion in State Revolving Funds that will be eligible to go toward lead service line replacement projects, according to The News & Observer. 

While the federal government cannot dictate how most of those funds are spent, the EPA is urging state and local leaders to prioritize projects in historically underserved communities, which have faced particularly acute challenges in accessing clean water.

The Biden administration initially proposed allocating $45 billion to eliminate all of the nation's lead pipes and service lines, which water experts said was a realistic sum for mapping and removal. While the ultimate funding ended up at only a third of that amount, it nonetheless represents the federal government's most significant investment to date to address the issue.