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CT Construction Digest Friday February 28, 2020

EPA to resume project to bring water line from Middletown to Durham Superfund Site
Cassandra Day
DURHAM — Work will soon resume on the Durham Meadows Superfund project in the center of town, bringing fresh drinking water from a yet-to-be-built water tank near the Middletown line to families and businesses dealing with the effects of 30 years of contamination.The water line project will remedy 50 private wells serving 54 locations. All have been using carbon filters and bottled water provided to them by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The goal is to resume work in April. “We have a very ambitious construction schedule that we hope to achieve. It will set us up to really get the vast majority of work done by the end of next year,” said project manager Ed Hathaway of the EPA’s Boston office.
The project will encompass building an 800,000-gallon water storage tank at the top of Talcott Ridge Road in Middletown, which also will provide fire protection.
In September, state, federal and local officials from Middletown and Durham gathered at 281 Main St. to herald the start of the $24.4 million construction project.
That property, a privately owned field, has become a staging area for construction crews, Hathaway said. Work is expected to be complete this year.
When construction wrapped up for the season in December, due to the weather and unavailability of asphalt plants in cold weather, much had been accomplished, according to Hathaway
Crews installed 10,000 linear feet of water main, mostly up Route 17, to three miles away, along Talcott Ridge Drive in Middletown. That included the clearing of trees at the water tank, booster station, and meter vault locations, Hathaway said. “We’re gearing up for year two, and we’re very excited.”Next up will be laying the water main from Middlefield Road along Route 68, and then to the skating pond in Durham, Hathaway said.
“Once we get the get the main work done on 17 and 68, we’ll start branching down the side streets: Talcott Lane, Maple Avenue, Maiden Lane, and we may or not get to Pickett Lane to put the water in for the school district this year,” Hathaway said.
“We’ll start curb-stop connections, which is where we jump out from the water main to the edge of individuals’ property to set them up for water connections; then bring water into houses. But we won’t actually start the water flowing yet. That will be next year,” he said.
During the Durham Fair in late September, which draws up to 200,000 people from throughout the area, as well as New England, work was halted to accommodate crowds.
The two-year process of preparation involved several hearings and discussions with Middletown residents concerned about what construction would entail, Hathaway said.
“We did lower the tank a little bit, and made some other adjustments to the clean-up plan to address concerns to the extent we could. In the end, they recognize it’s a water line that needs to go in. It will be a short period of time for which they’ll still have some inconvenience,” he said. The water storage container will be 79 feet tall.
Many Middletown residents were worried about a possible disturbance to the neighborhood as trucks move back and forth. “Then there was the physical appearance of the tank. We tried to give an understanding as to whether they’ll be able to see the tank, and how much of it they will see,” Hathaway said.
“It really should not be visible to the vast majority of the neighborhood. Some part of the top of the tank will stick out above the trees,” he added.
Work on Route 17 takes place at night, side roads during day. “Safety is one of our most important considerations. We make sure we have flaggers, and clear demarcation of our work area,” Hathaway said.
A public hearing on the issue is scheduled for March 24 at the Durham Library, 7 Maple Ave., at 7 p.m. For information, visit epa.gov/superfund/durham or contact Community Involvement Coordinator Darriel Swatts at 617-918-1065 or swatts.darriel@epa.gov.

Eversource to acquire MA gas pipeline after $53M criminal settlement
Alexander Soule
Eversource Energy is spending $1.1 billion to acquire the Massachusetts assets of Columbia Gas, which was hit with a $53 million criminal penalty this week after natural gas ignited in September 2018 to damage dozens of homes in multiple towns north of Boston.
Any remaining legal liabilities for the Merrimack Valley fires will remain in the hands of NiSource, the Indiana-based owner of Columbia Gas. The purchase is subject to approval from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.Columbia Gas pipes natural gas to about 330,000 customers in 60 cities and towns in Massachusetts, effectively doubling Eversource’s existing customer base in the commonwealth where it has corporate offices in Boston in addition to Hartford.
In the aftermath of the 2018 disaster in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker named Eversource the caretaker of the Columbia Gas operations as investigators launched probes.
In announcing the acquisition, Eversource noted that there is overlap between the existing Columbia Gas customer base and its own for electric service in Massachusetts, where it has some 1.5 million accounts.
The price Eversource is paying exceeds the net income the utility holding company generated in 2019 spanning electric, gas and water operations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Profits totaled $909 million last year on revenue of $8.5 billion, with natural gas operations contributing $96 million in net income.
In addition to the historic Connecticut Light & Power electric grid, Eversource subsidiaries include Yankee Gas and Aquarion Water. In partnership with Orsted, Eversource is now moving ahead with an offshore wind farm it will stage out of New London, with the goal of adding others over time.
Eversource CEO Jim Judge noted the company is well into an investment initiative to replace older iron and steel piping for natural gas to reduce emissions and improve safety, while speaking last week on a conference call.
“By excelling at our basic business, we enjoy strong credibility with our regulators and other state and federal policymakers,” Judge said. “I think we’re perceived as an excellent operator — whether you look at electric, gas or water.
But in a written statement from NiSource announcing the deal, the executive leading Columbia Gas acknowledged the hurdles remaining to rebuild its reputation in Massachusetts after the September 2018 explosions, which killed one, forced 30,000 people to evacuate, and rattled the nerves of natural gas customers nationally. “While we have taken significant restoration and safety steps over the past 17 months, we acknowledge that events have led many to lose trust in Columbia Gas,” stated Mark Kempic, president of Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, as quoted by NiSource. “We believe that Eversource's proven track record of investing in its infrastructure, employees and operations to enhance system reliability, combined with its deep familiarity with the region and our operations, will enable Columbia Gas ... to be a part of a strong local gas distribution company.”
 
Greg Bordonaro
The next phase of an ambitious 400-plus apartment development in Bloomfield’s town center could break ground by early fall, pending final town approval and other factors, according to the project developer.Paul Butler, the principal of 25 Jerome Avenue LLC, said he is seeking final site plan approval to build a $9-million, 42-unit apartment project on Bloomfield Avenue.
The development is part of Butler’s larger master plan to build 407 apartment units in three phases on Bloomfield and Jerome avenues and Jerome Way.
The first phase of the project — construction of the 215-unit Heirloom Flats luxury apartments — was wildly successful, having been fully leased within a year before being sold in early 2019 for $61 million to a New York investor.
Butler said this would be the largest project he’s ever developed and it will include six, two-bedroom units and the rest one-bedroom units targeted at Millennials, empty nesters and others.
They will all be market-rate rate apartments. Rents will vary depending on market conditions post construction, Butler said.
“This will be the largest project I’ve ever taken on,” said Butler, adding he moved from West Hartford to Bloomfield because he’s bullish about the town’s future.
Bloomfield’s planning and zoning commission will consider site plan approval for the 42 units at a meeting Thursday, Feb. 27. Once the town gives its blessing Butler said he’ll look for traditional bank financing and he expects several community lenders to be interested in the deal.
Butler said he’s also working on moving forward the third phase of the project, which would include 129 market-rate apartments built on Jerome Avenue. He’s currently in talks to find a developer for that project.
Meantime, Butler is also eyeing a potential fourth phase. He said his development group recently bought eight additional homes on Bloomfield Avenue and he’d like to present a plan this summer to create a public dog park, walking trail and more apartments there, including potentially some affordable housing.

Mounds succeeds Drajewicz as Lamont’s chief of staff

One of Gov. Ned Lamont’s highest-profile recruits from the private sector, Ryan Drajewicz, is leaving the administration after 13 months as the governor’s chief of staff, a long-rumored departure resulting in a reshuffling of two other appointees, Paul Mounds and Josh Geballe.
Mounds, the chief operating officer and deputy chief of staff, succeeds Drajewicz, giving the governor a top aide with a deeper well of political contacts inside the State Capitol. Geballe, a former IBM executive who has been tasked with reorganizing and modernizing government as commissioner of administrative services, will continue that project as the commissioner and the state’s chief operating officer.  
The changes come on the heels of a signal failure: The administration’s abandonment of a year-long campaign to win passage of some form of highway tolls to finance CT2030, a 10-year transportation infrastructure program Lamont deems crucial to economic growth.
Drajewicz’s exit does not appear forced as he has confided for months his plan to leave in February, once the tolls issue was resolved. Drajewicz acknowledged Thursday the resolution was not the one he envisioned: On Feb. 19, Lamont effectively gave up on Senate Democrats ever putting his plan to a vote.
By all accounts, the governor and chief of staff had developed a close relationship. Chief of staff is a job that requires a political sense, management skills, and an ability to serve as a reliable conduit between the governor, the legislature and the rest of state government.
“It’s incredibly intense, what this job is and what you go through, the paces you go through,” Lamont told reporters, outlining the changes. “And you get very close to people, and I got very close to Ryan.”
Lamont, who called Drajewicz a brother, recruited him from the giant hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates
“I said, ‘Please give us a year. I need a year.’ And he said he’d give us a year. And he gave us a year plus some,” Lamont said. “And I just want you to know that as chief of staff he’s been my friend, been my compadre. He talks me off the ledge when I ought to be talked off the ledge. He comes with me into battle when it’s time for battle.”
On transportation, Drajewicz said, he believes he followed the governor’s charge to “leave everything on the field.”
He said the efforts produced a well-received plan for what needs to be done to speed up commutes by erasing highway bottlenecks and improving rail service on Metro-North, even if the legislature could not embrace tolls as a new revenue sources.
The administration still intends to utilize the low-cost federal loan programs that were identified as a key element of CT2030, though it will have to find new sources of guaranteed repayment. “I can tell you with confidence Connecticut is going to take advantage of these programs that are offered out of Washington,” Drajewicz said.
Drajewicz, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd before he joined Bridgewater Associates, stepped down as Lamont’s top aide at the end of business Thursday, but he will remain for a few weeks to ease the transition. Drajewicz said he has no immediate plans, other than a likely return to the private sector.
He worked for Lamont for nearly 18 months as a volunteer or staffer. Lamont had tapped Drajewicz during his campaign to craft a transition plan, then chose him to oversee the assemblage of a new administration and become his chief of staff. 
“It’s a year and a half, almost, in dog years,” Drajewicz said.
Lamont and Drajewicz each arrived at the State Capitol with few close relationships in the building, and Drajewicz conceded this was an obstacle as the new administration quickly sought passage of a comprehensive system of highway tolls on all vehicles. The plan was twice downsized, most recently to trucks only tolls on a dozen highway bridges.
“It’s not a question of ‘shouldn’t have done it.’ It’s not a question of I should have pushed harder here, there or wherever,” he said. “I guess for me it was [understanding that] doing something like this requires you have to have rock-solid relations with legislators and staff.”
Drajewicz said he has developed those relationships “in the trenches” during the long fight over transportation. Had he started with them, the path might have been smoother, he said.
His successor, Mounds, was an aide to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for five years, leaving the administration in late 2016 as the director of policy and government affairs for a policy and communications job at the Connecticut Health Foundation. He also worked on the staffs of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. John B. Larson.
“Paul, as you all know, he knows the building, and the building knows him,” Lamont said. “And if I’ve learned one thing, this is a building that really runs on relationships.”
Mounds was first named to the newly-created post of chief operating officer, a position recommended and never implemented decades ago in Connecticut, while becoming increasingly common in governors’ offices across the U.S. Last summer, he was also given the title of deputy chief of staff in an earlier staff shakeup.
Geballe, a former IBM executive and tech entrepreneur, has a resume more fitting with COOs in other states, where governors have looked to corporate executives and state agency heads for the post.
“In many ways, Josh has already been acting like a COO, which is the chief operating officer, trying to consoldiate personnel, consolidate technology, leading the search of what this government is going to look like with the silver tsunami of people retiring,” Lamont said.
Demographics and a change in retirement benefits are expected to send a sizable chunk of the state workforce out the door by the end of Lamont’s first term.
By the estimates of the comptroller’s office, 14,764 state employees — a quarter of the workforce — will be eligible to retire on July 1, 2022, when a concession deal negotiated in 2017 by Malloy takes effect. It will slow cost-of-living adjustments for all new retirees and raise health costs for a few, primarily high earners.
The governor was asked Thursday if more changes were coming.
His reply: “Not at this point.”

Democrats: GOP has a healthy appetite for borrowing too

Republican legislative leaders may be on Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s “debt diet,” but rank-and-file GOP lawmakers are bypassing the proverbial salad bar and eyeing the burger and fries.
Over the first three weeks of the 2020 session, Republicans sponsored 11 bills authorizing more than $112 million in new bonding in their home districts. GOP lawmakers also backed another five measures seeking undetermined amounts of financing for various projects.
Republican leaders said their colleagues simply are doing their duty by asking to use Connecticut’s credit card for theaters, community buildings, rail facilities, police and fire stations, a 4-H camp and other projects.
But majority Democratic legislators — whom Republicans routinely blast for borrowing too much — are crying foul.
“This is the disconnection from the facts that the Republican party in the General Assembly is struggling with,” House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said Thursday.
“The Republicans’ math just doesn’t work,” said Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who co-chairs the Appropriations Committee. “It just doesn’t fit.”
But Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, countered that rank-and-file Republicans are “duty-bound” to seek bonding for the projects their respective communities need the most. “This is a wish list legislators get from their towns,” he said.
Sen. Heather Somers, R-Stonington, asked for $4.25 million — $3 million to fund a water and sewer line extension in North Stonington, $500,000 to help construct a new, regional senior center in Griswold, and $750,000 to replace a fuel tank and the ice machine that support the fishing industry at Stonington pier.
“If a community asks you, as a senator, to put in a request that is essential to your community, that is your obligation,” Somers said.
But Lamont said Connecticut needs to get a better handle on these obligations.
With more than $26 billion in bonded debt, Connecticut outranks most states on a debt-per-capita basis.
The governor had called for General Obligation bonding — borrowing to be repaid out of the budget’s General Fund — to be limited to slightly less than $1.4 billion per year.
His fellow Democrats in the legislature pushed back, saying this would harm economic development and affordable housing efforts. 
Lamont was willing to consider an annual borrowing level of about $1.77 billion — provided legislators supported truck tolls to bolster transportation. The tolling plan never garnered sufficient support and Lamont abandoned it in mid-February. Republican leaders now want the governor to go back to his “debt diet.”
Rep. Chris Davis of Ellington, the ranking House Republican on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said GOP lawmakers can advocate for their respective communities and still support an overall, lean borrowing plan.