Ansonia OKs rock-crushing operation over neighborhood objections

Eddy Martinez

ANSONIA — The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission removed any doubt about whether Burns Construction was allowed to run a rock-crushing operation on its Riverside Drive property, approving a zoning amendment for rock crushing during its Sept. 27 meeting.

But the amendment also comes with numerous concessions to residents that include restrictions on the activity. Residents have stated that the operation has lowered their quality of life, with complaints including loud noise and dust from the site.

Opponents have consistently claimed that the amendment contradicts previous statements made by city officials and the company that rock crushing was previously allowed.

During discussion of the amendment, some commission members suggested issuing Burns a special permit rather than passing an amendment.

“I think this should be handled by special permit, similar to how we’re handling the hotels, etc going forward,” said Jared Heon. It gives a little bit more control. It also allows you to look at the parcels specifically before granting any approval and also gives us the opportunity for a little bit more of a concentrated hearing or application process.”

Restrictions on rock crushing inclide limiting the time of such work to between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. and prohibiting rock crushing on weekends and holidays. Additionally the company is prohibited from crushing rocks within 200 feet of residences.

Leonard Marazzi, whose home is near the Burns property, said the zoning decision would put an end to his fight against the company.

“If they vote to change it, it’s a done deal, we have no case unless we get a different administration,” Marazzi said on Sept. 22.

Haddam, East Haddam to share $300,000 cost for new bridge sidewalk

Josh LaBella

The towns that flank both sides of the East Haddam Swing Bridge have committed $150,000 each in funding to build sidewalks to further connect the two riverside areas.

Haddam First Selectman Rob McGarry said the work is the result of a multi-year effort on behalf of the municipalities and Lower Connecticut River Valley Council of Governments to pressure the state Department of Transportation to put a sidewalk on the swing bridge.

“We applied for a couple of grants that we didn’t get,” he said. “In the last design iteration (of the planned overhaul), DOT agreed to put a sidewalk on the south side of the swing bridge. They can use their federal aid 80/20 split to do that.”

But, McGarry said, the state required both towns to commit to funding sidewalk construction from where it ends on the bridge to sidewalks in town. He said Haddam approved its half of the funding, which was included in this fiscal year’s budget.

East Haddam First Selectman Rob Smith said the town approved its funding during a meeting last week. He said the sidewalk will serve as a continuous walkway from the Goodspeed Opera House all the way through to the Tylerville section of Haddam.

“Haddam has a separate DOT project for sidewalks from, basically, Little Meadow (Road), or the railroad crossing, all the way to Route 154,” Smith said. “This will basically make the final connection. Obviously, people were excited about that part of it.”

The funding for the project comes as the state plans a two-year, $58 million overhaul of the bridge, which connects the two towns, starting next spring. The DOT initiative is intended to improve safety and access, as well as operations for vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists traveling on Route 82.

“Improvements include a major rehabilitation of the bridge to extend service life, improve roadway rideability for traveling public, and improve swing span operation reliability,” according to the project’s website.

Connectivity and development on their respective sides of the Connecticut River are important to both towns, Smith said, and it makes sense for the towns to work in unison on it.

McGarry said it was important to get sidewalks on the bridge because people already walk and bike across it, which can be unsafe. An even more pressing issue is connecting the two areas.

“You’ve got Eagle Landing (State Park) on our side of the river, and you’ve got the Valley Railroad with their dinner trains,” McGarry said. “It connects the two commerce centers, and we both think its better for both towns.”

This federal agency could shut down if Congress doesn't pass an infrastructure bill this week

Ian Duncan, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - Thousands of Transportation Department employees have enjoyed protection from past government shutdowns, but if a $1 trillion infrastructure bill doesn't pass the House and make it to President Joe Biden's desk by Thursday night, they face the prospect of being furloughed for the first time in more than a decade.

It would also mean hundreds of millions of dollars to cover the cost of road-building projects would stop flowing from the federal government - potentially leaving states short on cash - while work on a small number of projects on federal land would grind to a halt.

Unlike much of the government, the Federal Highway Administration doesn't rely on annual appropriations to keep running. Instead, its operations are paid from the Highway Trust Fund, which Congress typically authorizes for several years at a time. The fund is filled with gas tax receipts and the occasional top-off from the government's regular coffers.

But the fund is set to expire Thursday, a deadline that looms as factions of the Democratic Party disagree over the infrastructure bill and a larger multitrillion social spending package, whose fates in Congress are intertwined.

The expiration of the highway program is one of three fiscal cliffs Congress is grappling with this week. Government spending and the trust fund are set to expire Thursday - the last day of the federal budgeting year - and the government is running up against a cap on borrowing. If the appropriations are not extended, tens of thousands of Transportation Department employees would face furloughs or unpaid work as part of a broad government shutdown.

Susan Howard, program director for transportation finance for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said the immediate impact of a lapse in the trust fund would be fairly minor, but construction could suffer amid a lengthy shutdown.

"I don't think any of our members are panicking yet," Howard said.

About half the money in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which the Senate passed in August with bipartisan support, would support transportation programs. Much of the money would be routed through the Highway Trust Fund, which also pays for transit projects.

The bill would dramatically increase spending on highways, transit and intercity rail, but also would serve the more basic function of authorizing the underlying federal transportation funding system.

More liberal members of the Democratic Party are vowing to halt the bill's passage unless congressional leaders move forward with the $3.5 trillion social spending package.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is pressing ahead with a plan to hold a vote on the infrastructure package Thursday, telling her caucus Monday the social package was not yet ready to advance.

The infrastructure bill has only lukewarm support among leaders on transportation issues in the House. During opening debate on the measure Monday night, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the transportation committee's chairman, said he would have preferred to meld parts of a more environmentally minded bill he crafted with the Senate's effort.

"The reality today before us is this is the only option with an evenly divided Senate and the stupid rules of the Senate, including the filibuster," he said. "It's this or nothing on the long-overdue investment in America's infrastructure."

Some House Republicans pointed to the larger social-focused bill as Democrats' real priority. Missouri Rep. Sam Graves, the Republican leader on the transportation committee, called the infrastructure measure a "Trojan horse."

"The speaker hijacked the process to hold infrastructure hostage," he said.

The Transportation Department issued a plan Tuesday spelling out the ramifications of a shutdown, saying "States', Tribes', and territories' active and planned transportation construction projects and related operations relying on Federal funds from the Highway Trust Fund will be impacted by a lapse in authorization."

A 2019 plan spelling out how the department would respond to a broad government shutdown noted that some 8,700 employees were protected because their positions were funded outside of the regular budget. They included many at the highway agency and the car and trucking safety regulators, who are paid out of the trust fund. It's those positions that are risk now.

The Highway Trust Fund briefly lapsed in early 2010 after a single senator objected to a $10 billion spending package. Then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood furloughed 2,000 employees.

"I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country," LaHood said at the time.

Still, the immediate effect would be blunted because the federal government doesn't build many roads or bridges itself, instead passing money to states, which design projects and hire contractors. Howard said state transportation departments would probably have enough money on hand to continue paying those contractors, at least in the short term.

But a lengthier shutdown, she said, could have a "chilling effect."

A review by the Congressional Research Service last year concluded that some states would continue work on highway projects on the expectation of ultimately getting reimbursed, "but without current repayments, they might experience cash flow problems."

Projects on federal lands would stop because they are directly overseen by the highway administration, according to the review.

The highway administration expects it would furlough 2,568 employees, according to the shutdown plan issued Tuesday.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would keep 274 employees for work "necessary to protect life and property," the plan says, while 798 would be furloughed. Some work at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Transit Administration would be disrupted.

While transportation spending has typically enjoyed bipartisan support, Congress often has struggled to agree on long-term funding bills, opting instead to roll over existing policies - sometimes for as little as a week or two. There were five short extensions in 2014 and 2015 before a five-year bill passed, according to a tally maintained by Jeff Davis, a senior fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation, a policy group.

Then, before that bill expired on Sept. 30, 2020, lawmakers extended it another 12 months, setting up Thursday's deadline.

Passing a short extension as Congress has done in the past also is an option this week.

Ridgefield Water Pollution Control Authority allocates $500K to defray costs of sewer project

Alyssa Seidman

RIDGEFIELD — The town’s Water Pollution Control Authority voted unanimously on Monday to allocate $500,000 toward the Route 7 sewer project.

Selectwoman Maureen Kozlark, the board’s liaison to the WPCA, said the authority’s revised rate model makes the allocation possible.

A second unanimous vote provides that any grant money or rebates would be used to defray the overall project cost.

“The intent was to get the Route 7 project brought to completion, but not use as much of the ARPA funds,” said Kozlark, of the American Rescue Plan Act money from the federal government. “We want to preserve as much of that as we can.”

The installation of a new pump line connecting two of the town’s sewer plants and subsequent closure of the District II sewage treatment plant, which serves the area around the intersection of routes 7 and 35, was estimated to cost $5.8 million in 2018. The bids for that project, however, came in “substantially over what the estimate was,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.

The lowest bid came from M&O Construction Co., Inc. in New Milford at $8.3 million. Additional “soft costs,” such as on-site engineering, brings the total expenditure to more than $9 million, Marconi said.

“What we are looking at is a difference of ... over $3.4 million,” he added.

Because Ridgefield’s charter requires a referendum to approve an expenditure of more than $3 million, officials wanted to bring the cost below $3 million and move the item to a town meeting instead. The allocation from the WPCA brings the cost down to $2.9 million.

“At the last Board of Selectmen’s meeting, (we) all agreed that a town meeting would be a better way to bring this to the voters,” Kozlark said. “The town will have the ability to vote on the use of those (ARPA) funds.”

Additional grant funding could shave another $600,000 off the total, Marconi added, meaning the town would use less of the American Rescue Plan money. Kozlark said she reached out to state Sen. Will Haskell, D-Westport, and state Rep. Aimee Berger-Girvalo, D-Ridgefield, to see if additional ARPA funding could be funneled in from Hartford.

Dates for a public hearing and town meeting on the matter have yet to be determined.

“The grant dollars and the bid are precarious if we don’t move forward with the project,” Kozlark added. “I encourage everyone to come out and learn more ... and vote positively for it.”

Project history

A top-to-bottom renovation of the District I treatment plant on South Street is about 50 percent complete. The goal is to close the District II plant and pipe that wastewater to South Street for treatment at the upgraded District I plant through a new force-main sewer line.

Voters approved $48 million for the two projects in 2018. Both were designed and are being overseen by the consulting firm AECOM.

The state pushed the town to undertake the project to meet new regulations and environmental standards under the federal Clean Water Act. Upgrades to the District II plant, which is 30 years old, were sidelined since the town would’ve had to hire personnel to operate the facility 24/7.

“When you begin calculating all of those costs to upgrade the plant due to age and environmental standards, it’s extremely expensive, hence the reason to go with the pump station,” Marconi said. “The capacity numbers will not be impacted at all. Everyone who has sewage capacity in that plant today will have it tomorrow.”

Marconi expects the second phase of the sewer project to break ground in the spring of 2022.

Costs of Tweed improvements to terminals to accommodate Avelo rise up to $11 million

Mark Zaretsky

NEW HAVEN — The cost estimate has more than doubled for near-term improvements to Tweed New Haven Regional Airport’s existing facilities on the New Haven side of the airport to accommodate Avelo Airlines’ upcoming service, Tweed officials said Tuesday.

On May 6, cost to renovate the existing terminal off Burr Street and the old terminal that now is used as the airport’s administration building originally was announced to be $4 million.

It later was pitched in various meetings at $5 million.

The Tweed New Haven Airport Authority, after meeting in closed-door executive session, approved an amendment to the management agreement with Avports LLC that raised it to “up to $11 million,” authority Executive Director Sean Scanlon and Chairman John Picard both confirmed.

Asked whether the plan changed or the initial cost estimate was inaccurate, Scanlon said, “It’s a little bit of both.”

“The initial cost estimate was based on our understanding of the needs ... at the time we approved it, in May,” said Scanlon.

“Once the board approved it in May, we were able to do a more thorough analysis ... and when you combine that with the rising cost of materials, which is happening worldwide.” it resulted in the higher price estimate, he said.

“I don’t think it will be up to $11 million, but the board wanted to be sure we had the cushion” Scanlon said.

Avelo will begin serving Tweed in early November with flights to three Florida cities, ramping up to five cities — Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and Palm Beach — by mid-December.

Under the near-term plan, Tweed and Avport will renovate the existing terminal and the airport’s older administration building into departure and arrival terminals and add 271 parking spaces and several temporary trailers.

Passage of the change, billed on the authority’s Sept. 15 agenda as “Amendment No. 1 to Amendment No. 5 of the Management Agreement for the operation of the Airport between Tweed New Haven Airport Authority and Avports, LLC,” won’t affect the airport’s bottom line, Scanlon and Picard both said.

“It’s a loan technically from Avports, so they’re fronting us the cash and giving us a loan,” said Scanlon. But ‘if the deal with Avports goes through, then they’ll forgive the loan.”

Avelo has agreed to pay $1.2 million toward the total for the project. The authority has hired Walsh Construction Co. to do the work.

A major part of the authority’s deal to have Avports, owned by a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, step in as a broader partner in the years to come and assume full responsibility for Tweed’s operation costs, was approved Thursday when the Board of Alders unanimously approved a 43-year extension of the authority’s lease of Tweed.

The authority now has to negotiate a long-term contract with Avports, which has operated the airport for 22 years and would do so for at least another 43 if the agreement is approved.

Avports CEO Jorge Roberts and Avports spokesman Andrew King said in a statement, “Our initial cost estimate reflected our understanding of needs and requirements based on best available information.

“Subsequently, the approval of the fifth amendment afforded the airport the time and resources required to do a complete analysis of what is needed for a complex renovation of two aged buildings that need to be ready to service increased activity as Tweed New-Haven adds new direct flights to new destinations,” they said.

“This analysis, along with rising costs of goods and services throughout the construction industry, resulted in an increased projected costs, Roberts and King said. “The First Amendment to the Fifth Amendment reflects our full understanding of all needs and requirements, our plans for bringing an old property up to current code, a buffer for unforeseen renovation challenges, and our commitment to an improved passenger experience at HVN.”

Tweed’s longer-term plans calls for a broader partnership under which Avports will invest an initial $70 million, and up to $100 million, to extend Tweed’s runway from 5,600 feet to 6,635 feet and build a new, 74,000-square-foot, carbon-neutral terminal with 4-6 departure gates on the East Haven side of the airport. A new entrance would be constructed off Proto Drive in East Haven.

Avports also would be fully responsible for Tweed’s operating expenses, eliminating the need for $1.8 million in state and city subsidies.

Picard estimated that 10-15 percent of the increase for the near-term improvements “was the cost of product, labor — everything went up,” he said. “I’m not sure if the project, the original scope, was underestimated.”

But the work “is a necessity for us,” he said.

The authority unanimously approved the change, with one member, East Haven appointee Anthony Verderame, abstaining.

Verderame, athletic director for the East Haven Public Schools system, expressed concern that “the $11 million is quite high. I’m not totally satisfied with the budget and the list I was given for the costs on this,” he said.

Beyond that, “The town will not be supporting any eminent domain of the residents of East Haven. Also, we’d like to have all studies done on the East Haven side, as was done for New Haven side,” and “have those studies vetted by our boards and commissions and elected officials prior to my approval.

“Additionally, we would like the confirmation that there will not be any cargo ... coming through the roads of East Haven,” Verderame said.

Scanlon said later during a virtual meeting, which was recorded and archived on the Tweed website, “I heard you loud and clear and I appreciate the feedback.”