Ridgefield has multiple projects breaking ground in 2022. Here’s what residents should expect.

Alyssa Seidman

RIDGEFIELD — The town has almost half a dozen projects breaking ground in 2022. From street realignments to facility expansions to additional parking. Here’s what residents should expect to see in the new year.

Sewer project

The second phase of the town’s long-awaited sewer project is expected to break ground this spring.

The project includes a top-to-bottom renovation of the District I treatment plant on South Street, which is ongoing, the closure of the District II plant on Route 7, and the construction of a new pump station and force-main sewer line.

The state pushed the town to undertake the projects to meet new regulations and environmental standards under the federal Clean Water Act.

Voters approved an estimated $48 million for the projects in 2018, but the actual costs came in at more than $55 million, according to calculations from Ridgefield’s Water Pollution Control Authority.

Last fall, voters approved $2.9 million of federal American Rescue Plan monies for the second phase of the project. The WPCA allocated $500,000 to further narrow the funding gap, and additional grant funding from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s Clean Water Fund will shave off more than $1 million from the total.

Once the South Street plant is fully upgraded and connected to District II through the new sewer line, it will be able to treat 1.12 million gallons of effluent a day while returning long-term operational cost savings, according to the WPCA.

Main Street

Work on the town’s Main Street realignment project will resume this year.

In April, the state Department of Transportation will begin milling, paving and restriping Main Street between Governor and Prospect. In addition to realigning the intersection near CVS, workers will add three dedicated turn lanes, install bumpouts and pedestrian push buttons at crosswalks and add new trees and plantings along the sidewalks.

The construction will take six to seven months, bringing the overall project to completion by Thanksgiving.

Branchville

Infrastructure improvements are also coming to Branchville.

This year, work will begin on a $2 million state program to add streetlights, crosswalks and sidewalks along the western side of Route 7 and pedestrian bridges to access the northern side of the Branchville train station.

Along with a federal local bridge program — coming in 2023 — the project is intended to upgrade roads and improve pedestrian accessibility, with the goal of turning the area into a bustling downtown village.

Facility expansions

The Ridgefield Theater Barn is hoping to “get a shovel in the ground” this March to bring improvements to its nearly 100-year-old facility, Executive Director Pamme Jones said.

The $1.3 million project comprises a 3,370 square foot addition and 1,500 square feet of renovations. The construction will tack on a new space to the building’s existing two-story frame and renovate a portion on the back end of the structure, allowing the organization to grow its programs.

The Boys & Girls Club of Ridgefield is also expanding its footprint to benefit its growing membership.

This August, construction is expected to begin on a 11,000-square-foot addition that will house a dedicated teen center for high school students, a middle school lounge, a technology café and an auxiliary gym.

With the new space, administrators can repurpose the existing clubhouse for “significantly enhanced” programs, educational activities and counseling services and thus engage more members, BCGR CEO Mike Flynn said.

Additional parking

Clearing for a new parking lot at Halpin Lane is anticipated to start some time this year.

The project will enhance traffic flow near and parking availability at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, the Theater Barn and the Ridgefield Rail Trail by creating a circular, two-way lot with 69 spaces. It will eliminate an existing pathway between the guild and a historic Norway maple to prevent people from parking or driving near it.

First Selectman Rudy Marconi said the town is looking at “several different additional projects for parking” to improve availability around town.

“The town's gonna be busy,” he said of the year ahead. “It’s time for badly-needed investments in our infrastructure. … Now is the time to get working on it and getting it done, and that’s what we need to do for 2022.”

CT approves $4 million for ‘next level’ I-95 study in Bridgeport area

Donald Eng

BRIDGEPORT — A $4 million study could lead to relief for commuters heading toward New Haven and the Valley on Interstate 95. But any congestion improvement is still years away.

Last month, the state Bond Commission approved a planning and environmental study of I-95 between exits 19 in Fairfield and 27A in Bridgeport. The study is expected to identify potential safety improvements along that section of the highway, especially northbound.

State Department of Transportation spokesperson Kafi Rouse said the stretch of I-95 between the two exits had been identified in the 2018 I-95 Improvements - Feasibility Evaluation Study as a key bottleneck for northbound traffic.

“It was demonstrated that if congestion relief could be provided, the improvements would be felt throughout a large part of the I-95 west corridor,” Rouse said.

The I-95 west corridor includes the stretch of highway from New York to New Haven.

Rouse said the planning and environmental linkage (PEL) study was expected to take about three years. The PEL study would take the 2018 report “to the next level” by exploring various alternatives for congestion relief, she said.

“The PEL study will evaluate existing needs and deficiencies within the project area, develop a draft purpose and need, design and evaluate concepts for congestion relief improvements, and identify potential environmental impacts within the study corridor,” Rouse said.

DOT is conducting three other PEL studies. The Greater Hartford Mobility Study began in 2020 and is assessing a variety of transit initiatives in the Hartford area. The study includes the CTfastrak expansion, Amtrak/Hartford Line Rail Corridor improvements, the I-84/I-91 interchange improvements and more.

The study is expected to last two to three years and result in “one vision and plan to serve all mobility needs across Greater Hartford,” according to the study’s website.

The I-84 Danbury study is expected to be complete by the end of 2022 and is examining various improvements for the I-84 corridor in that city, from the New York border to Exit 8. According to the DOT, the 50-year-old highway carries 20 times more traffic than it did in the 1960s and is considered to be at capacity.

Potential improvements included in the study are revisions to the Route 7 interchanges and better access to Danbury Hospital.

The third PEL study that’s underway is the I-84/Route 8 Interchange Replacement study. Constructed in 1968, the Waterbury interchange commonly called the Mixmaster has a designed service life of 50 to 60 years. The replacement study aims to modernize the interchange to meet current safety and structural standards and reduce traffic.

The study is expected to conclude in 2023.

Public hearing on farm solar panels delayed in Southington

Jesse Buchanan

SOUTHINGTON – Rogers Orchards owners are looking to install a solar panel array that’ll offset the farm’s energy usage.

Peter Rogers, the eighth generation of the family to farm the Long Bottom Road land, said it’s the next step in sustainability efforts he’s been taking.

“It’s important to our business, it’s important to our family,” Rogers said Tuesday. “It’s just another step in that direction to make our operation more sustainable for generation nine and beyond.”

Rogers and his family are applying for town approval to construct the solar panel array. He attended Tuesday night’s Planning and Zoning Commission meeting but no action was taken.

Commission Chairman Robert Hammersley said he wanted Rogers to continue talking to town planning staff about the best way to site the solar panels. Had he started the public hearing scheduled for Tuesday night, Hammersley said those conversations could not occur outside of public meetings.

“I think that having conversations with Maryellen (Edwards, town planner) and her staff might lend itself to at least figuring out the best process and avenue to go down,” Hammersley said.

Rogers had no objection to the delay. Hammersley said the commission meets again in two weeks.

Rogers said he’s been working with the Connecticut Farm Energy Program on the effort.

Rogers Orchards has nearly 400 acres. The panels will be located near, and somewhat hidden from public view by, the farm buildings on Long Bottom Road.

Rogers said he hopes the final array will produce 102 percent of the farm’s energy usage per year.

As with residential solar panels, the farm will continue to use energy from the power grid when needed and give power to the grid at other times. Rogers is hoping to produce more energy than needed to offset the farm’s usage so new equipment can be added in the future.

Will Lamont’s State Pier and budget office scandals collide?

David Collins

Who could have known, back in February 2020, soon after Gov. Ned Lamont's deputy budget chief was put in charge of the scandal-plagued, cost-spiraling project to transform State Pier in New London, that a fresh new scandal would engulf the pier construction czar at the end of 2021?

Thanks to excellent reporting by Hartford Courant columnist Kevin Rennie, we now know that Konstantinos Diamantis, deputy budget director, was associated with his daughter getting a plum $99,000-a-year executive assistant job, personally hired by the state's top prosecutor, Richard Colangelo, who met her at a party also attended by her father.

And, oh yes, we know from Rennie's reporting, Colangelo had been lobbying Diamantis and his budget office for pay raises for prosecutors just before the lead prosecutor decided he needed to hire Diamantis' daughter.

It's always sticky business when the state's leading prosecutor is implicated in a scandal.

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't feel so confident in the governor's solution: hiring outside lawyers to investigate. I see a more likely sweeping of ethical failures under the rug than the uncovering of wrongdoing.

After all, this is the governor whose minions offered hush money to keep a critical former employee from the Connecticut Port Authority from going to the news media, as a cascade of revelations about hiring friends, skirting bid procedures and a total lack of proper accounting procedures engulfed the quasi-public agency.

Lamont is also the governor who pulled the plug on funding for a state agency as it was trying to investigate alleged irregularities in contract awards by the port authority.

The governor's hand-picked chairman of the port authority once balked at providing information to state auditors investigating a whistleblower complaint about a $500,000 success fee paid to the company of a former port authority board member.

The Lamont administration has gotten very experienced in screwing lids on pots of simmering scandal. Indeed, the governor's new top lawyer, Nora Dannehy, a former prosecutor, knows her way around a corruption scandal. It is interesting that the governor would choose a chief lawyer with a background in corruption investigations.

Lamont has never explained the "personnel issues" that led to his decision to place Diamantis on paid leave. Diamantis retired instead of accepting the suspension.

We only know of the irregular hiring of his daughter to a plum job because of independent reporting. We have no idea what specific allegations led the governor to suspend the budget deputy chief, who was managing a vast amount of money for school construction projects before being put in charge of the massive State Pier project in New London, which experienced spiraling costs under his watch.

It's hard to imagine the only allegation against Diamantis warranting an investigation by expensive, high-octane lawyers is his daughter's securing a cushy state job. By  that standard, much of the Hartford power hierarchy might be under investigation.

We know from reporting by Mark Pazniokas of the CT Mirror that Diamantis' daughter worked for a time for a company that had a large no-bid schools contract with the state, one overseen by her father.

She curiously omitted the construction job, with its potential for problematic conflict with her father's job, on the resume she submitted for the job with the prosecutor's office.

It will be hard to disguise the odor of corruption around the Lamont administration that seems to be growing stronger as we head into an election season.

It is interesting now to watch a video, still on YouTube, of the news conference Feb. 11, 2020, in which Lamont and Diamantis expressed confidence in what was then a $157 million projected cost of the State Pier remake — an enormous increase from the original $93 million estimate.

Diamantis had ".... gone over these numbers real tight," Lamont said then, giving a big salute to his trusted deputy budget chief.

The estimate later skyrocketed to $235 million, before Diamantis was pushed out the door.

The port authority said recently it is confident about the price holding.

I don't have much faith in those assurances, any more than I did in the ones for a much lower number Lamont and Diamantis insisted nearly two years ago was final.

And I can't help but wonder how the scandals at the port authority and budget office might finally connect, given the common cast of characters, and how tightly Lamont will be able to keep the pot lids screwed on.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

Federal agency ruling deals Killingly power plant a serious blow this week

Jon Penney

Plans to construct a new power plant in Killingly were dealt a serious blow this week after a federal agency upheld a request to end an energy supply agreement between the developers of the project and ISO-New England.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday accepted a November termination filing by ISO-NE citing the likely failure of NTE Energy to achieve certain “critical path schedule milestones,” including commercial operations of the Killingly plant, by June 1, 2024, as laid out in a 2019 capacity supply obligation tariff.

NTE, developers of the planned 650-megawatt, natural gas-fired plant slated for Lake Road in the Dayville section of town, secured an obligation in ISO-NE’s 2019 forward capacity auction for the 2022-23 supply period.

That means it agreed to produce a certain amount of power at a specific cost that would be funneled into the larger New England power grid.

But ISO-NE, which operates the New England bulk energy power system and administers its wholesale electricity market, contends NTE has not met the financial or operational benchmarks that would enable the plant to produce the promised power within the contracted timeframe.

NTE agreed to begin producing power in June 2022, but an automatic two-year extension moved that deadline to mid-2024. ISO-NE argued its monitoring of NTE’s progress found the developer won’t hit its “critical path schedule milestones” in time to meet that extended deadline.  

FERC commissioners wrote they agree with ISO-NE's characterization that NTE has made “virtually no progress” on the Killingly project since first awarded a capacity supply obligation.

“We do not agree with NTE that ISO-NE’s requested termination is premature or based on faulty assumptions,” the FERC statement read.

FERC’s ruling, which went into effect on Tuesday, means NTE will be unable to take part in a Feb. 7 ISO-NE energy auction.

In its written rebuttal to ISO-NE’s filing request – which NTE described as “unripe" – the development company said it experienced three significant developmental delays: a challenge by incumbent generators; administrative challenges by environmental groups that resulted in a complaint to the state Supreme Court; and various COVID-19 issues.

NTE Managing Partner Tim Eves, in an emailed statement on Tuesday, said the company is “very disappointed” with FERC’s decision.

“The Killingly Energy Center is important for grid reliability, and we will continue to work to be the bridge for the region’s carbon-free future,” he wrote. 

The Connecticut Siting Council, the agency responsible for approving such projects, in February 2019 approved NTE Energy's petition to refile for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need, a crucial document needed before construction could move forward.

The council rejected NTE's application in May 2017 without prejudice, meaning although the company did not demonstrate a public need for a combined-cycle plant off Lake Road in Dayville, developers were free to reapply in the future.

The council partly cited the failure of the company to qualify in that year's energy auction as a reason for the rejection. It formally approved NTE's application for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need in June 2019.

No plant means millions in unrealized town revenue

Under a pair of 2018 Town Council-approved agreements, the town of Killingly was in line for $5 million under a community environmental benefit agreement, or CEBA, once the facility was built, along with $120 million in projected tax revenue over the course of 20 years of operation.

Town Manager Mary Calorio said that projected revenue was never a sure thing.

“None of that money was appropriated for any projects since we knew everything was in a holding pattern until the plant was actually built and running,” she said. “We’re not an affluent community and that money would have gone a long way to helping with certain capital and community projects, but it’s not realistic or fiscally responsible to allocate money you don’t have in hand.”

Town Council Chairman Jason Anderson called FERC’s decision a “huge blow” to the project.

“They didn’t have all their financing lined-up and for them to finish the project in time to meet a June 2024 deadline – with a 30-33 month construction period -  meant they’d have to break ground today,” he said. “And with that kind of rush, what risks does that take?”

He said noting NTE’s inability to take part in this year’s energy auction would push any development off for several years, at best.

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“It they can’t bid again until the 2025-26 auction, it makes it more difficult to finance if they don’t have power to sell until then,” Anderson said. “Yes, having that revenue coming into the town would be great but there was always the possibility it wouldn’t come through. There was never any guarantee and we’d never look to spend money before we had it.”

The project has drawn sharp criticism from some environmental groups and state lawmakers, including Gov. Ned Lamont, who in January 2020 bluntly signaled his opposition to the project.

“I don’t want to build Killingly,” he said at a Connecticut League of Conservation Voters summit. “I'm not positive you're going to see Killingly built at all.”

The largest public proponents of the plan have been union workers anticipating the hundreds of new construction jobs such a project would require.