Siting Council OKs revised plan for Fairfield, Bridgeport with relocated power lines

Jarrod Wardwell

FAIRFIELD — United Illuminating Company has gotten the OK to build multi-story steel poles north of the railroad tracks between Fairfield and Bridgeport.

The Connecticut Siting Council approved the proposal, dealing a blow to local leaders and elected officials who have fought against the project for months.

The council's decision would relocate the monopoles that UI applied to build along the southern side of the tracks, where the structures, designed to support electric lines, would have sliced through 19.25 acres of private property that the company would be authorized to use.

The revised plan lowers that number to eight acres but has left municipal officials and community leaders wondering about the damage the monopoles could cause; their height and new locations remain unclear.

“The vote for the option to move monopoles to the north side of the railroad tracks, while it has the potential to be a step in the right direction, does a grave disservice to the town and its residents,” Fairfield First Selectman Gerber said in a news release issued after the approval. “Ratepayers as well as residents have a right to understand and weigh in on the impacts of potentially having new giant monopoles erected in their backyards.”

UI has touted the project as a necessary upgrade that will modernize its infrastructure and strengthen reliability since announcing the work in 2022. Gerber said town officials are weighing an appeal and consulting with its legal team. UI has not released the design for the revised project, leaving the height, location and overall impact of the monopoles unknown, according to the town release.

Critics in Fairfield have prodded UI to bury its transmission lines instead of building the monopoles, which could reach 195 feet tall. Leaving the poles above ground would forever tarnish the visual landscape, endanger the local community and environment and minimize property owners' autonomy over their land, they argued.

The ruling was the highly anticipated climax of a grassroots-led opposition campaign in Fairfield that has gained the backing of the town government, its state delegation, Bridgeport's administration, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

“The Siting Council’s responsibility is to balance the need for reliable and cost-effective utility services with the environmental and ecological impacts,” Andrea Ozyck, one of the leaders of a Southport group that has organized opposition to the project, said in the release. “Yet there’s no way for the council to know what the impact is because there is no engineered plan."

The council supported moving the monopoles north with a 4-1 vote with two abstentions. 

The vote cements the alternative plan the Siting Council favored in a straw poll earlier this month. According to a report by the council, the changes would reduce private property easements to eight acres, avoid more wetlands and bodies of water than the original plan and lower radiation levels. The approval carries a series of conditions, including measures to protect wildlife and move monopoles off the BJ's Wholesale Club property in Fairfield.

The project is set to start in the first quarter of 2025 before a projected in-service date of May 2028 and cost about $255 million, a quarter of which would be covered by ratepayers, according to the draft opinion from the council.

UI spokesperson Sarah Wall-Fliotsos said the design should be complete in 2025, and construction could start within a year after that. Community outreach would also happen during the first quarter of 2025.

UI officials said the company will create the project design with the relocated monopoles over the next nine months to a year to comply with the Siting Council decision. The revised plan is later than estimated in the original proposal and would take up at least part of 2025 to accommodate environmental surveys, engineering, permitting and community outreach to impacted properties.

“UI appreciates the effort the Connecticut Siting Council has put into evaluating the Fairfield to Congress Transmission Rebuild Project as well as the participation from both the Fairfield and Bridgeport communities," Jim Cole, the vice president of projects at UI, said in an email. "The CSC’s final decision for the project reflects the Siting Council’s consideration of all the evidence placed before it during these extensive proceedings."

The monopoles on the northern side of the railroad tracks will stretch from the Fairfield-Westport line to the substation near Ash Creek in Bridgeport's Black Rock neighborhood, where they would hang from double-circuit monopoles alongside a separate line that already runs north of the tracks.

Upgrades planned for Groton-New London Airport

Kimberly Drelich

Groton ― The head of the Connecticut Airport Authority said Wednesday that federal funding for safety and lighting improvements and snow removal at the Groton-New London Airport continues to help position the airport to realize its longtime goal of commercial airline service.

While the airport faces competition from Tweed New Haven Airport and T.F. Green International Airport in Rhode Island, it has a lot to offer with the population and businesses in the region, said Connecticut Airport Authority Executive Director Kevin A. Dillon.

The airport authority believes there’s enough demand to support “niche” commercial service, such as regional jet service to the Washington, D.C. area or Philadelphia.

“I think that’s a real potential for the airport,” Dillon said.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, toured the airport on Wednesday morning with airport authority and Federal Aviation Authority officials, Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut President and CEO Tony Sheridan who chairs the Connecticut authority’s board, and Groton Town Manager John Burt, to highlight almost $3.5 million in federal funding for the airport.

Courtney helped obtain the funding from Aviation Administration Airport Improvement Program funds, Transportation Security Administration funds, and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds.

During the bus tour, officials pointed out the areas of the airport that will be improved with the federal funding and discussed other projects being planned.

About $2.9 million in funding will benefit improvements, starting this spring, on two of the airport’s taxiways, said Bob Bruno, director of planning, engineering and environmental services for the Connecticut Airport Authority. Existing lights and signs will be replaced by brighter, more energy-efficient LED lights and signs that will provide a better line of sight for aircraft and save money on utility bills.

Extra pavement on the taxiways’ shoulders will be removed so there will be more grass and less impervious surface, according to the airport authority.

Specialized snow removal equipment for the airport also will be purchased at the end of the year or beginning of next year, said Bruno. That funding is for $590,000.

Separate from the $3.5 million in projects, work is being planned to make the terminal more energy-efficient, including new HVAC equipment, changing boilers and water heaters to gas, and installing hurricane-proof windows and doors, and improving the parking lot and entrance road, Bruno said.

Officials during Wednesday’s tour stopped by Modern Aviation at the Groton-New London Airport, which provides services such as fuel sales and hangar storage.

Modern Aviation Regional Vice President Thomas Dunn said aviation helps the local business community, pointing out that Electric Boat, one of its largest tenants, is able to fly employees that work in the Groton shipyard to Newport News, Virginia, so they can work there for a day or more, and then fly back to Groton.

The officials were welcomed at the hangar where the Connecticut Army National Guard repairs helicopters.

After the tour, Courtney said airports are precious installations and if they aren’t maintained and kept usable, there’s the potential for the property to be redeveloped and then lost forever.

He said he heard during the tour that the volume of business justifies the airport’s operation, but the airport “is looking a little shabby and long in the tooth” and the infrastructure bill was timely in terms of funding basic but necessary improvements.

Courtney said many people, including himself, would love to see commercial traffic at the airport. The last commercial service at the airport was about 20 years ago.

The Groton-New London Airport, a general aviation airport is a Part 139 airport, which means it can operate commercial passenger service, according to the Airport Authority.

Dillon said prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Airport Authority got very close with bringing a commercial carrier to the airport, but unfortunately the economics didn’t work. He said the Airport Authority is constantly talking to potential carriers about Bradley International Airport as well as Groton-New London Airport.

Courtney said at the end of the day, commercial passenger service at Groton-New London Airport is a market decision for the airlines, but there’s no question that a state-of-the-art airport helps that effort immensely.

New London will bond $2.4M to pay for infrastructure and equipment costs

John Penney

New London ― The city this year will bond $2.47 million to pay for infrastructure, emergency service equipment and other capital improvements, including those related to a recent church steeple collapse.

The bonding is split into two portions ― $1.8 million for road, sidewalks and other infrastructure work, and $673,000 for fire, police and municipal computer equipment purchases.

The total bonding amount is approximately $500,000 less than in past years, Finance Director David McBride said on Wednesday, a reduction he attributed to “numerous reasons.”

“One is that the interest rate market has increased in the last year or so and, as a result, our borrowing power has decreased,” he said. “So, we needed to reduce our request to stay consistent with prior years’ debt service.”

McBride said the city can still draw on previous bond allotments approved for school renovation and community center construction projects.

The City Council, which approved the bonding requests on Feb. 5, modified the infrastructure portion of the proposal on Tuesday to include $250,000 for costs related to the Jan. 25 steeple collapse at the former First Congregational Church on Union Street.

The city on Friday placed a lien on the property until it’s reimbursed by the church owners, Engaging Heaven Ministries.

Public Works’ Director Brian Sear said the $1.8 million bond amount is slightly less than the $2 million or so allotted in past years for infrastructure-related work across the city.

Sear said the infrastructure money is historically portioned out for sidewalk and curbing replacement, road milling and paving and individual “spot” repairs.

“The balance of that money has been used in past years for things like parking lot creation and building work,” Sear said. “For instance, we used some a few years ago to upgrade police cells.”

This year, some of the $1.8 million will be used to pay for a road re-configuration project on Governor Winthrop Boulevard required as part of a Garde Arts Center loading dock project.

In the runup to this month’s ordinance approvals, department heads created a “wish list” of proposed bonding projects that totaled $7.4 million, McBride said.

He said some of the requests not included in the bonding packages, including those for several new police vehicles and park improvements, will likely be addressed with the city’s remaining pool of American Rescue Act Plan funding.

In 2020 and 2021, the city received a total of $26.2 million in ARPA funding. McBride said the roughly $1 million in federal funding still not allotted by the city must be earmarked for use by the end of the year.

McBride said the infrastructure bond will be financed over 20 years at an estimated 3.65% interest rate. The interest rate for the vehicle and equipment bonding is tentatively pegged at 5% for five years.

The city’s bond rating was upgraded from A+ in 2022 to AA- by both Standard & Poor and Fitch credit rating agencies.

Construction Associations Back State Challenge to Federal Rule that Diverts Infrastructure Resources From Vital Projects

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) jointly filed amicus briefs in support of 22 states challenging the Biden Administration's new Greenhouse gas performance measure for state transportation departments.

The two associations noted the new rule is likely to divert resources from vital new infrastructure projects and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) lacks the statutory authority to impose the measure.

The briefs, which were filed on Feb. 16 in Federal District Courts in Kentucky and Texas, back state challenges to a new Greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure regulation that was imposed Dec. 7 by FHWA.

Supporting the plaintiff states motions for summary judgment, the two national construction associations highlighted the absence of Congressional intent and statutory authority for the rulemaking. They emphasized that Congress had debated and rejected the inclusion of this mandate from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

The Greenhouse gas rule requires state transportation departments to set and report on two- and four-year statewide emissions reduction targets as part of the planning process for highway and bridge projects. States must set initial targets by spring of this year, with subsequent targets due by Oct. 1, 2026. Those states failing to meet these goals must submit updated plans to FHWA outlining actions to achieve them.

While FHWA claims states won't face explicit penalties, AGC and ARTBA noted concerns of plaintiff states that mandating GHG reductions will limit the types of projects they can undertake in the future. The two associations also noted states may need to divert funding for unplanned administrative costs to comply with the rule.

Attorneys general from 21 states sued FHWA Dec. 22 in Kentucky Federal District Court, while Texas sued separately Dec. 19.

"Had Congress intended to grant FHWA authority to enact this mandate, they would have included it in the legislation," said Dave Bauer, ARTBA's president and CEO. "We believe that unless there is a clear congressional directive, states should — and can — make these types of policy decisions themselves."

"This new mandate puts pressure on state officials to shift funding away from needed new infrastructure projects to lower priority projects so their reports can look better," said Stephen E. Sandherr, chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of America. "The president and his team don't have the authority to create measures that Congress specifically reviewed and rejected."

Oral arguments in both cases are expected in early March, with decisions anticipated by the end of that month.