Full of unanswered questions, residents wary of Gales Ferry Intermodal project

Brian Hallenbeck 

Ledyard — Cashman Dredging and Marine Contracting, the Massachusetts company behind a plan to develop a sediment-processing facility in Gales Ferry, has had little or no contact with town officials since November and has yet to apply for local permits, the town's planning director said Thursday.

Nevertheless, residents living near the proposed development site — the former Dow Chemical property between the Thames River and Route 12 — are wary of the plan, as evidenced by the turnout Wednesday night at a community meeting organized by the Gales Ferry District, a town taxing district.

About 150 people attended the meeting at Ledyard Middle School, including state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, and state Reps. Mike France, R-Ledyard, a candidate for Congress; Kevin Ryan, D-Montville, and Greg Howard, R-Stonington.

Among the many questions residents raised was whether Gales Ferry Intermodal, the Cashman Dredging entity formed to pursue the proposal, will be required to seek a special-use permit to build a facility that would accept dredged material shipped up the river by barge, process and temporarily store the material and either truck it or ship it by rail to off-site destinations.

Speakers, including district member Bruce Edwards and Ed Lynch, a former Planning and Zoning Commission member, disputed a suggestion that the impact of the Cashman Dredging operation would be similar to that of Dow Chemical’s.

“This is not even close to what Dow operations were like,” Edwards told the audience. “It’s not the same. Where’d they get that information?”

Lynch noted that the site has long been zoned for industrial use and that the Planning and Zoning Commission would determine whether the Gales Ferry Intermodal plan qualified as a “permitted use.” If not, he said, Cashman Dredging would have to seek a special permit that would enable the town to impose restrictions.

“We’re not going to make them go away, but this has to be a limited operation,” Lynch said.

Town Planning Director Juliet Hodge said the town is revising its zoning regulations. “They might be able to find something in the new regulations that’s permitted,” she said, referring to Cashman Dredging. “It sounds to me like it’s manufacturing.”

Hodge, too, rejected the suggestion that the proposed facility would be similar to Dow’s operation. “Dow had nothing to do with dredged material being stored outside, which is what this would be,” she said. “This would all be outside, mixing (dredged material) with other products in a stabilization process. ... I don’t know what we’re going to call it.”

Hodge said she found it “strange” that Cashman Dredging had closed on its purchase of the former Dow property before securing the necessary approvals for its proposal. “It seems risky,” she said.

Gales Ferry Intermodal purchased the former Dow property — 1761 and 1737 Route 12 — for $5 million on May 19, according to Adrianna Hedwall, Ledyard's assessor. Trinseo, a Dow spin-off that operated a latex plant at the site and continues to have some operations there, was the seller.

During an informal discussion at the Planning and Zoning Commission’s meeting on Nov. 18, 2021, commission members who spoke were supportive of the proposal. Nate Woody, then the chairman of the commission, said the proposal seemed to be “very fitting” and he didn’t see “any major roadblocks” to its approval. Woody since has resigned from the commission.

According to the meeting minutes, Harry Heller, an attorney representing Cashman Dredging, said during the discussion that the company’s proposed uses of the site were permitted in the town’s industrial zones.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection tentatively has approved an “Environmental Justice Public Participation Plan” filed by Cashman Dredging, which required the holding of a public meeting. That meeting, first set for May 11, then rescheduled for June 15, was canceled. No new date has been set.

Residents’ concerns about the proposal center on the traffic it will generate, its potential impact on the environment and to what extent their quality of life might be affected by a facility that would operate around the clock at peak times.

Edwards said information Cashman Dredging has filed with the town indicates as many as 500 trucks a day could travel to and from the Gales Ferry Intermodal site. He said “wear and tear” on Route 12 would be a major concern, as would such traffic’s effect on Route 12 businesses and schools in the area. 

He also wondered about the proposal’s impact on air quality, a resurgent eagle population and oyster beds seeded near the channel that barges and scows would ply en route to and from the site.

“We need more details,” Edwards said.

In researching Cashman Dredging, which he acknowledged is “no fly-by-night company,” Edwards found it agreed in 2021 to pay $185,000 to settle alleged violations of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations in its transport of dredged material from New Bedford Harbor, off the Rhode Island coast. The alleged violations occurred in 2020.

From 2014 to 2016, Cashman Dredging performed maintenance dredging in several areas of the Mystic River, transporting 159,000 cubic yards of material dredged from a federal channel to the New London Disposal Site south of Eastern Point, Groton, and removing another 27,000 cubic yards of material from state channels, according to the company’s website.

More recently, Cashman Dredging was awarded a contract through the Kiewit Infrastructure Co., the construction manager for the State Pier improvement project in New London, to perform dredging and disposal operations, according to Andrew Lavigne, manager of business development and special projects for the Connecticut Port Authority. 

“There is no known connection between the State Pier project and the proposed facility in Ledyard,” Lavigne wrote in an email.

Next step in Meriden flood control project focuses on Hanover St., Cook Ave. corridor

Michael Gagne

MERIDEN — The next phase of the city’s decades-long effort to reduce flooding along Harbor Brook will include two bridge replacements and multiple channel improvements along Hanover Street and Cook Avenue to Cooper Street.

During a remote meeting Thursday night, City Engineer Brian Ennis and Elsa Loehmann, a project engineer for Fuss & O’Neill and lead designer for this phase, reviewed preliminary plans for a phase that is projected to cost around $20 million.

It will likely be at least three years before the phase is completed. Once it is finished, officials expect to significantly reduce the number of buildings in the floodplain — from around 300 to less than 50. The floodplain itself will be reduced from 220 acres to around 80. 

Renderings showed the apartment buildings that comprise Hanover Towers and Harbor Towers currently sit within the floodplain. Once the project is completed, the buildings would no longer be in the floodplain. 

Loehmann said two access bridges to Hanover and Harbor towers will be replaced. One crosses the brook to Butler Street, the other to Hanover Street. 

The replacement bridges have been designed for their existing footprints, Loehmann said.

“But they will have more capacity and they will be higher than the existing bridges,” she said.

So in the event of a historic 100-year storm, floodwaters would flow under the bridges and not flood streets. 

The project, which includes regrading and planting of new vegetation, would also create a five-acre brookside wildlife corridor, Loehmann said. 

In addition to the bridge replacements, extensive channel work will allow the brook to contain waters that would otherwise overflow, Loehmann said.  

Community benefits

The project also seeks to build a buffer between existing properties, including the backside of residences along Cherry Street, and the proposed wildlife corridor, which Loehmann said would be maintained as a floodplain meadow. It would be buffered from properties through new planting and berming. 

The project will also involve the installation of a new sewer system in that area, along with other utility work. 

Loehmann said the work, once completed, will provide more parking. The project also aims to create a new recreational corridor, that is wider than a traditional sidewalk, and would accommodate bicycles and pedestrians along with an open esplanade area. The new bridges will also have sidewalks on both sides. 

“As designers we were very careful to make sure that we were taking the community benefits into consideration,” Loehmann said.

Timeline

Loehmann gave a timeline for when the work is expected to meet certain benchmarks. It is currently in the middle of its preliminary design phase. 

Following the completion of a preliminary design, the project plans must be reviewed for permitting by federal and state agencies. Loehmann said the proposal has already been permitted “in the grand sense,” with approvals from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. 

But the preliminary plans will need to be rechecked by those agencies. According to the timeline Loehmann shared, officials expect to submit the preliminary design for permitting by this fall. 

Loehmann anticipated it may be at least a year before the city receives permits, as the permitting agencies are “swamped” with proposals, she explained.  

After the city receives permits and comments from regulators, the project would then move to final design to prepare construction documents to go out to bid. 

So final design might not be completed until the fall of 2023 with the proposal expected to go out for construction bidding the following winter. The first phase of construction would be carried out from the spring of 2024 into that fall. 

The first year of the project will include the bridge replacements, which Loehmann said would happen consecutively. 

“We will keep one open, while the other is under construction — to have it impact parking as little as possible,” Loehmann said. 

While the bridge work is underway, there will be detours. 

When the bridges are complete, contractors would move on to the channel work, which will include regrading and the removal of existing channel walls and replacing them to increase the channel’s capacity. 

According to the city’s timeline, officials would seek construction bids for the second phase during the winter of 2024-2025, with work to be carried out from the spring through fall in 2025.

Funding

Meanwhile, officials will seek federal and state grants to fund the initiative. 

Loehmann said the city is “aggressively seeking funding” for the project, including grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. The funding would come from FEMA’s “Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities” or BRIC program, which funds work to reduce risks related to disasters and other natural hazards. 

“This project is an excellent candidate for that funding,” Loehmann said. 

Ennis, during the presentation, noted that one of the slides presented showed the former International Silver Factory H slab and 116 Cook Ave., which was damaged by fire this past winter. Ennis briefly discussed plans for the two sites. 

Ennis said officials originally planned to refurbish the Cook Avenue building, but that is no longer feasible. 

“We are working on getting some brownfield funding reallocated for the demolition of 116 Cook Ave.,” Ennis said. “Once that gets done and the Factory H slab remediation is complete, we will have a relatively large developable parcel.”

Developer buys former Ames Rocky Hill HQ for $2.3M; $60M redevelopment now underway

Greg Bordonaro

The Hamden developer who plans to covert the former Ames headquarters in Rocky Hill into a mixed-use residential community has purchased the property for $2.3 million, property records show. 

Michael Belfonti of Belfonti Cos. said an LLC he controls – Rocky Hill Gateway LLC – closed on the property last month and remediation on the 12.1 acre site has already begun. The property includes a 225,000-square-foot building that will be knocked down and replaced with  213 apartments in 11 buildings, 5,000 square feet of office space and 15,000 square feet of retail.

Nine of the buildings will contain apartments; one will be for commercial use; and the remaining property will be mixed-use residential, Belfonti said. 

Remediation and demolition will take about eight months, Belfonti said Wednesday morning, and construction will start soon after. No completion date has been set yet, he said.

“We are excited about the closing and happy that the project is underway,” Belfonti said. 

The former Ames headquarters went from a bustling office building with hundreds of workers to an abandoned hulk over two decades.
After years of planning and negotiation, officials voted in February to approve Belfonti’s mixed-use development plan.

Town leaders say the Ames redevelopment could be the start of building a true downtown center for Rocky Hill, a central-Connecticut bedroom community of about 21,000 that has been the fastest-growing municipality in Hartford County over the past decade, according to U.S. Census figures.

The Ames property sits at the end of a commercial stretch of Silas Deane Highway populated by small to midsize shopping plazas and freestanding stores. Visitors drive in on a 40-miles-per-hour road to visit individual businesses.

Town officials hope, over time, to create a more traditional, walkable New England-style town center.

They also want to connect this downtown to amenities along the Connecticut River about a half-mile away, including a town park, the historic Rocky Hill-Glastonbury ferry and a seasonable restaurant – possibly with more riverside development to come.

Belfonti’s plans will help by creating additional street-facing retail, along with public spaces including a parklet on one 
corner of the property and a public gazebo on another. 

Belfonti’s plans include sidewalks, trees and lighting along the front of the property, which borders Main Street and Dividend Road. These improvements will mirror $2.5 million in streetscape work recently completed in the area, officials say.