Construction to begin soon on $200M Norwich sewage treatment plant

Claire Bessette

Norwich ― The biggest single construction project in Norwich Public Utilities’ history is expected to begin this fall, and like building a new school, the utility will need to ensure the existing obsolete sewage treatment plant stays open while building its $200 million replacement on the same site.

Utility officials and a project design consultant presented the plans to the City Council on Monday.

This came in advance of a Sept. 18 public hearing and council vote on a proposed ordinance authorizing $200 million in revenue bonds for the project to be paid through sewer customer rates.

The current sewer plant was built in 1955 and upgraded in 1973 with equipment that was expected to last 20 years but is still in place, said Craig Wagner, principal engineer for CDM Smith.

NPU General Manager Chris LaRose said the upgrade project must be done now to avoid state fines for water contamination caused by the outdated plant, which frequently sends untreated sewage into the Thames River following major storms and nitrogen contamination.

“We’re basically looking at incorporating 50 years of new technology that the plant doesn’t have today,” Wagner said.

Along with improvements in daily operations, more automation, flood prevention upgrades and expanding the plant capacity from 15 million to 20 million gallons per day, the project also will place a modern cap on the city’s old landfill at the far end of Hollyhock Island.

The landfill never was capped properly. Material excavated to prepare for the plant construction will be spread on top of the landfill, graded and capped. The site then could be used for a solar array to help power the sewage treatment plant, LaRose said.

The entire project will be funded through the state Clean Water Fund, with $72 million in grants and $128 million in a 2% interest loan to be paid by the city’s 10,000 sewer customers over 20 years. The Board of Public Utilities Commissioners is expected to vote Sept. 26 on proposed new utility rates, including a 12.1% sewer rate increase to help pay for the new plant.

LaRose said NPU reached a regional agreement with surrounding towns in the hopes of generating some $20 million in new revenue to help pay for the plant, but new hookups in those towns has been slower than expected. Expanded sewer lines are planned to stretch into Bozrah and Franklin as well as Preston to serve development at the former Norwich Hospital property, LaRose said.

The new plant construction is expected to break ground this fall and take five years to complete. As with a new school construction project, the old plant must continue to operate and remain in compliance with state and federal environmental regulations during construction.

Once the sewer plant project is completed, NPU will pursue other sewer system upgrades recommended by DEEP. One calls for installing a wet weather treatment process adjacent to the existing sewer plant to treat higher volumes of wet weather flows prior to discharging the material into Norwich Harbor. DEEP also wants NPU to rebuild its main wastewater pumping station to reduce combined sewage and stormwater overflows into the harbor, NPU officials said.

“These two other projects will require additional, significant investment by NPU ratepayers,” NPU wrote in a news release providing an overview of the sewer system upgrade project. “We will continue to balance the environmental and regulatory requirements from DEEP with our goal of minimizing the impact on our wastewater customers.”

Proposed new Norwich police station goes to Nov. 7 referendum

Claire Bessette

Norwich ― Voters will be asked at the Nov. 7 election whether the city should build a $44.75 million new police station at a site to be determined.

The City Council onTuesday approved an ordinance to bond up to $44.75 million for the new police station and passed a second resolution to send the measure to the voters in a referendum during the Nov. 7 municipal election. Most speakers favored the project during an Aug. 21 public hearing. The vote was delayed that night to Tuesday so the wording could be changed to allow state or federal grant money to be used to reduce local taxpayers’ share of the cost.

Mayor Peter Nystrom announced he was supporting the new police station ordinance, saying he hopes it would help the city department with recruitment and retention of police officers. Aldermen voted unanimously to approve the ordinance without further comment.

The ordinance describes a police headquarters facility that would include a community room, a community room, training classrooms, emergency operations center, main desk, dispatch center, areas for the public, prisoner processing, detention and transport, armory, parking and electric vehicle charging stations.

The price would also include new equipment and furnishings, property acquisition, demolition and environmental remediation.

No site has been identified yet for the proposed new station. Police Chief Patrick Daley said city and police officials will review top-rated sites from previous studies, especially sites owned by the city to reduce property acquisition costs.

Voters in 2012 rejected a $33 million plan to convert the former Sears building downtown into a police station. Three years later, city leaders rejected bids from private developers for a leased police headquarters.

Now that the item has been placed on the official referendum ballot, city officials are limited on how they can discuss the issue. City officials are restricted from using city resources to advocate either for or against the issue.

Daley said he would be willing to speak with city or civic group to explain the proposal and answer questions.

The police station proposal is one of two referendum bond questions on the Nov. 7 agenda. The City Council voted earlier this summer to send a $6 million bond request to voters for road and bridge construction and related drainage work on streets throughout the city. Voters have approved similar road bonds five times since 2009, most recently for $5 million in 2019.

New London ready to replace more than 3,000 residential water lines

John Penney

New London ― The city is poised to begin a multi-million project to eventually replace more than 3,000 lead-lined residential drinking water lines with copper versions.

The nearly $32 million project, anticipated to be paid with a combination of state subsidies and low-interest loans, represents a “monumental” step toward providing residents with better quality water, Barry Weiner, Water & Water Pollution Control Authority chairman, told the City Council on Tuesday.

“This isn’t something we started thinking about just yesterday,” Weiner said. “We’d be the first in Connecticut and probably one of the first in New England and the country to do this.”

Residents will not be charged for the work.

In New London, the service lines that run from water mains consist of sections owned by a customer and the city. The mains, not made of lead, ferry drinking water to service lines — many of which do contain lead — and into a dwelling where they feed sinks, shower heads and toilets.

The city service line portions end at a resident’s property line, typically identified by a curb stop. Director of Public Utilities Joseph Lanzafame said lead that leaches out through drinking water pipes and is ingested can cause developmental issues for those who drink it, especially youngsters.

The three-phase project is anticipated to cost $31.6 million for the replacement of 3,279 lines, though that number could change. Lanzafame said the number of replacements needed is based on an examination of 150 resident basements that was then extrapolated with statistical models.

Weiner said 75%, or nearly $24 million, of the overall project cost will be covered by state and federal grant money with the remaining $7.9 million paid for with a 2%, 20-year loan guaranteed by the state.

“And there’s a chance for loan forgiveness, something we’ll be pursuing,” Weiner said.

Bids open on Sept. 27 for the project’s $11.3 million first phase which will replace 1,175 lines in the northern and downtown areas of the city. The state subsidy will cover $8.5 million of the cost with the city responsible for $2.8 million.

A program timeline for the initial phase calls for the council on Oct. 16 to approve a bond appropriation resolution for the first phase of work and construction to begin either in late fall or in early spring 2024.

Phase II and III would concentrate on 2,100 residences in the city’s western and southern sections, though no schedule for that work has been set.

Lanzafame acknowledged the street-by-street work will be disruptive to residents at times, with water shut off for several hours as the digging, construction, flushing and restoration work proceeds.

The city is currently engaging in several project outreach efforts, including mailing project participation postcards to residents and leaving information packets at residences. A project open house will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Sept. 13 at the city’s senior center to give attendees an overview of the project.

“This is a proactive project and not a reaction to any requirements,” Lanzafame said. “When you’re forced to do this kind of work, its usually too late, in my opinion.”

South Windsor will replace 62-year-old water main, fire hydrants by 2024 to improve water quality

Joseph Villanova

SOUTH WINDSOR — The Connecticut Water Company plans to replace 7,200 feet of water main in town by the spring, a $3 million project funded through customer bills.

The 62-year-old water main being replaced runs through High Street, Steep Road, and Aroda, Greenfield, and Hillside drives. The new pipes, along with 10 new fire hydrants, are intended to improve water quality for residents and provide additional fire protection for public safety.

Connecticut Water said crews will work Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with construction beginning this week at the Sullivan Avenue side of Hillside Drive. 

The company said its customers in the area would be notified in advance of any water service interruption related to the project.

Funding for the project comes through the Water Infrastructure and Conservation Adjustment, a rate adjustment on water bills. Connecticut Water aims to replace one percent of its 1,850-plus miles of water main every year using the money collected through the semi-annual service fee, with over $52 million in water investments planned throughout the year.

Connecticut Water is a public water utility that is regulated by the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. The company provides water service to more than 107,000 customers in 60 Connecticut towns, including Bolton, East Windsor, Ellington, Enfield, Hebron, Manchester, Somers, South Windsor, Stafford, Suffield, Tolland, Vernon, and Windsor Locks, as well as wastewater services to 3,000 customers in Southbury.

Bridgeport City Council refuses to give up control of road paving decisions

Brian Lockhart

BRIDGEPORT — Road paving and maintenance are basic public services and also visible improvements politicians tout to voters during election season. 

In fact, in Bridgeport, per municipal regulations, the elected members of the 20-person City Council have final say over which streets get improved, a power their peers in Hartford, New Haven and Stamford lack.

And it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. The council has shot down a proposal to instead give the public facilities director authority over "pavement activities."

"The council needs to remain the decision making body of this," Council President Aidee Nieves said in a recent interview. "This is about the checks and balances."

But others question whether it is the most objective, most efficient way to take care of Bridgeport's 278 miles of municipally maintained thoroughfares and byways and the estimated $92 million backlog of fixes and upgrades.

In August the council's ordinance committee took up some proposed regulation changes recommended by the public facilities department. All were approved except language giving that agency's director "discretion to make pavement alterations, repairs and repavings" using their "best judgement" and "in consultation with" Bridgeport's local legislative body.

And that proposal was not revived Tuesday when the full, all-Democratic council convened and gave final approval to the other public facilities-related amendments the ordinance committee had authorized. 

The paving power proposal was so unpopular that two council members known for having a hostile working relationship — Ernie Newton and Maria Pereira — were united in condemning it during last month's committee meeting.

"The City Council runs every two years," Newton said at the time. "We're on these streets. ... I will not support usurping the power of City Council to make recommendations in their district on what streets should be paved."

Pereira agreed "wholeheartedly."

"We are the front line to our constituents," she told her colleagues at the August ordinance committee gathering. "I (receive) tons of calls about cracks, potholes, whatever. To say the public facilities will 'consult with us' is saying, 'I'll talk to you, but if I don't want to do what you want to do, I'll do what I want to do.'"

City Engineer Jon Urquidi that night argued that the current process — divvying up the annual allotment of budgeted paving dollars among the 10 council districts and obtaining council representatives' lists of priorities — is not the best approach.

"It's very difficult to come up with a long-term paving plan on a year-to-year basis," Urquidi said. He added it also makes it difficult to coordinate with utility companies to avoid having them dig up newly-improved roadways.

"Sometimes you have a street and literally a month or a couple months later a utility company's coming in and cutting into brand new pavement," Urquidi continued. "I just want to make that point."

But Pereira argued Mayor Joe Ganim's administration could work with the council and develop a longer-term plan and more stable funding for roadwork.

"It works two ways, here," she told Urquidi.

Why did city officials propose the change now? As previously reported, a consultant hired by the city to review the conditions of Bridgeport's roads in its report issued last year concluded $7.5 million needs to be invested annually to tackle a more than $92 million backlog of road repairs.

That firm, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc., gave Bridgeport's streets an overall average rating of "fair," a 75 on a scale of 0 to 100, but just three points outside of the "deficient condition" range. 

The study broke that "fair" ranking down further: 73.7 miles require "preventive maintenance" costing $13.4 million; 67.4 miles require "structural improvement" worth $29.4 million; 48.7 miles require "base rehabilitation" — the most expensive type of work — totaling $47.9 million; and 41.9 miles need $1.2 million worth of "routine maintenance."

Michael Looney is director of public works in Hartford.

"We don't do it the way Bridgeport does," he said after the local process was explained to him.

Looney said Connecticut's capital city employs "asset management software" to rate the condition and life of its roads, creates an internal paving list built around those in the worst condition, and forwards it to utility companies to avoid conflicts.

Looney said his department works to balance the condition data with "geographic distribution" so one side of town is not unfairly excluded. But in the end, he continued, the final decision on a paving program is his.

"I give it my final blessing and hand it off to our milling and paving contractors and say 'go for it,'" Looney said. "I may get a call from a (council) member saying, 'Such and such street is in really bad condition.' My answer usually is, 'I agree. We've seen it on our list. ... It's probably not going to be this year but probably next year because we've got others in worse condition and we have to take care of those first.'"

Matthew Quinones, Stamford's director of operations, said the situation is similar in that city with a third party analyzing street conditions and recommending improvements.

"Nothing prevents (Stamford's board of representatives) from requesting (paving). But we are driven off of our priority list," Quinones said.

Quinones, prior to working for municipal government, was a member of Stamford's board of representatives for eight years, four of those as its president. He said he cannot fault local elected officials in Bridgeport who want the power to pave roads — "they want to deliver for their district" — but noted that such a system can be inefficient.

"When you create a city-wide policy you should have citywide decision makers," Quinones said. "Their (individual council members') role is to advocate for the needs of their district. Someone running a department is going to be able to have a different perspective."

New Haven's approach is different from Bridgeport's but also Hartford's and Stamford's. That city has a resources allocation subcommittee of two members from its board of alders and two mayoral appointees. At least once every four years a consultant will review New Haven's streets for that board, and annually aldermen are asked to submit a list of projects for their neighborhoods ranked in order of greatest priority. That resources board then takes all of that information and consults with New Haven's public works director and city engineer.

Back in Bridgeport, Nieves in an interview argued that giving a mayoral-appointed public facilities director discretion over street work does not necessarily mean the resultant decisions are apolitical. 

"It's just an appointee of the mayor. Due to that dynamic, the loyalty of the public facilities director usually lies with the administration," Nieves said. "And that's a lot of power to wield from that one chair." 

Bridgeport Councilman Tyler Mack, an ordinance committee co-chairman, said when running for office two years ago he pledged to work to try and make the council more of an equal branch of government with the mayor. Mack in an interview said taking away road-paving power would be a step backward.

Mack also argued that while council members tour their streets and consult with constituents, they also discuss pavement conditions with public facilities staff to "make the best decision for our districts."

"If council members are making (paving) decisions based on political convenience, they shouldn't be on the council," Mack said.

City Council pushes Cook Avenue site ahead for Meriden senior center project

Christian Metzger

MERIDEN — The City Council unanimously voted this week to move ahead with the senior center project at 116 Cook Ave.

The site’s blighted medical office complex which has stood vacant for 25 years will be demolished to make room for a modern, centrally located community center. The council plans to establish a building committee in late October or November and begin toward a tentative timetable, with ground being broken some time in 2025. 

The estimated $48 million project will see the reclamation of the 5.6-acre parcel and the construction of a 33,000-square-foot building that will serve not only as a senior center, but as a consolidated office space for the city’s health and human services divisions, with an 8,000-square-foot multipurpose gymnasium that can be used for events or disaster relief.  

Cook Avenue was chosen as one of two potential properties for the new senior center site after design firm EDM Studios conducted surveys and focus groups, fielding over 500 respondents from patrons and staff about what they wanted to see at the new facility. 

Although all the plans presented before the council are loosely conceptual and don’t portray what the building may look like once ground is broken, the new center will have a number of dining and multipurpose rooms, exercise and fitness spaces, several arts and crafts studio spaces, and flexible lounge facilities that can accommodate different events. 

At first, some members of the council were hesitant to accept the Senior Center Review Commission’s recommendation of the Cook Avenue site, wanting to assess if the second reviewed property — the more rural 65 Westfield Road — would be a better fit for the center.  

Mayor Kevin Scarpati urged the members of the council, however, to make a decision at the meeting, expressing a concern that any delay will see the progress of the center project stalled and lost in committee for months — trusting in the judgment of the commission’s recommendation for the Cook Avenue site. 

“I don’t see any benefit to say no to this, even if you’re against the committee’s proposal on 116 Cook Ave., to at least get us to the next step, and that is to form a building committee,” Scarpati said.

He said that the expansion of the greenspace provided to the area by the senior center by the outdoor walking trails would be a “wow factor” to that area of downtown and draw more people to the area. The fate of the 116 parcel, if not for the senior center, he said, would be only more high-rise apartment developments. 

“The question is what does 116 look like in the future. We take the building down, we cap it, we have an open space that’s adjacent to Factory H, you bundle that together and you look for a developer,” Scarpati said. “I can tell you that, from what we’ve seen, attracting into the downtown area specifically, that I can only think that it’s going to be larger high-rise type towers or apartment-style buildings, one that I don’t think is beneficial to the future of Meriden. I don’t think we need more of that type of housing in and around downtown where we’ve saturated it already.” 

There has been some pushback regarding the committee’s recommendation of the Cook Avenue site, both in public comment at meetings and online. Some believe that the Westfield property would be better, even if it is two miles out from downtown, as it is believed to be quieter due to its more rural location and safer from potential traffic concerns. 

One of the biggest criticisms of the Cook Avenue site is that it doesn’t have enough parking space to satisfy the needs of its capacity, requiring the construction of an additional parking lot across the street. According to representatives from EDM, however, the parking would only be an issue when hosting larger events and it won’t be a problem during normal operating hours. 

During the discussion, Councilor Michael Rohde asked his council colleagues to consider who they were building the new center to serve. 

“I think we have a fundamental paradox here in terms of, are we creating this senior center for the suburban or urban population? (We are) unlike Wallingford, which is a suburban town without much of a downtown like we have, and their senior center is for a suburban population,” said Rohde. He added that there is a large population who will attend the city center with mobility issues, who would have a more difficult time accessing it if it were two miles out of downtown.

“I think the people who use the senior center now live in the downtown area,” he said. “For the life of me, I don’t know if this were on Westfield Road how this population, which is our major population now, gets to Westfield Road without a massive busing operation, plus the traffic issues — trying to get onto Broad Street at certain times of day is virtually impossible. … It’s an urban center, we’re an urban city. We’re not a Wallingford.” 

Rohde added that the city could assess other options for parking if that was a concern — such as acquiring land from the adjacent housing properties to expand parking and keep it all in one space. 

Should the Cook Avenue property be constructed similar to how it was presented, it will include a large greenspace area that allows for walking and lounging opportunities, along with connecting to a walking path along adjacent Harbor Brook. For those who have noise concerns from the downtown area, there will also be an enclosed courtyard space inside the building which will allow seniors to enjoy the sun without the sounds from the street. There will also be multiple entrances to the Cook Avenue site, unlike Westfield, which are anticipated to reduce potential traffic or congestion concerns that might arise with the Westfield property. 

Demolition costs of the medical complex are not factored into the $48 million price tag for the center, as that is considered a separate project being handled by the city. It is currently unknown how much it would cost to raze the building, given the presence of hazardous materials like asbestos on the site. However, with the formation of a building committee to occur later this year, demolition of the structure could occur sometime in 2024. 

Selection of the building committee will be a month-long process with nominations by the mayor, confirmed by the City Council. The committee will begin to thoroughly assess the Cook Avenue site and draft a more complete version of the plans. It’s yet unknown whether the city will continue its work with EDM to continue the design process or select another architectural firm.