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Concerns and Commentary
by
Leigh Standish

Regarding MDC's Pollution of
the Wethersfield Cove

 

Click Pix to Enlarge ~ ~ Terms ~ ~ ° WINA: Wethersfield Involves Neighbors Association ° DEP: (CT) Department of Environmental Protection ° MDC: (CT) Metropolitan District Commission ° CSO: Combined Sewers Overflow ° Leader Disconnections (LD): gutters collect water from roofs in South Hartford; leaders (vertical rain pipes) take the water to the ground (in Wethersfield) but dump directly into the sewer system in Hartford; leader disconnection ends this Hartford practice allowing the roof water to flow onto the ground not the combined sewers and hence to the Cove. ° SEA: SEA Consulting Engineers ° The Loop: direction of combined surface drainage and sewage from Hartford TO AND THROUGH the Wethersfield Cove and thence to the Connecticut River. "Out of the loop" means the direction of Hartford waste waters directly to the Connecticut River, bypassing the Wethersfield Cove. ° Older Background: ° 1999 Hartford Courant Cartoon by Phil Lohman about pollution triad assaulting Wethersfield Cove (includes allusion to 1997 MDC sewage overflow of 21 MILLION gallons). ° Recent Background: ° Minutes of Special Meeting of Town Council, Monday, June 10, 2002: (virus-free) MDC presentation on their problem with the Cove; Council Questions

11/22/2002 A Citizen's Call to Attend SPECIAL TOWN COUNCIL MEETING ON THE WETHERSFIELD COVE TOWN COUNCIL CHAMBERS MONDAY EVENING NOVEMBER 25, 2002 AT 6:30 PM Six months after the MDC agreed to "tweak", or recalibrate, their model with actual data in order to run our SEA plan to analyze its effectiveness, the MDC has not provided anyone (Town of Wethersfield, SEA Consultants, Fuss & O'Neill, etc) with any of the necessary model changes. This, after they indicated that the data would be forthcoming a month or two from our June meeting, which many of you attended. They have cancelled one meeting because they were not ready. Now, on Monday the 25th at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers, they will meet with Town Council in a public meeting to provide a progress report. THEY STILL DO NOT HAVE THE CALIBRATED MODEL FOR US!!! (though it is rumored that the calibration has been completed and the results show a problem of such magnitude that they are unprepared to deal with the public consequences!!!!) It is imperative that we attend this meeting en-masse to express our outrag e at their lack of progress... and to demand an immediate response. Their unresponsiveness to-date is hubris and arrogance to the utmost. Please be there. Ask your friends and neighbors to join you and let's hold their feet to the fire. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, the price of a clean Cove is constant vigilance. I would be happy to answer any questions at 263-0012 or 563-1341. SEE YOU MONDAY FOR A CLEAN COVE! Leigh Standish {{ Editor's Note: Click this link (when active) to read the minutes of the above-mentioned special meeting of the Town Council. KES. }} ~ ~ ~ 11/22/2002 From: Leigh Standish ( standish1@earthlink.net ) Subject: {{ Special Meeting of Town Council, 11/25/2002, with MDC representatives: re: Wethersfield Cove Pollution}} Thanks to everyone who attended last night's meeting. They (MDC, DEP and elected officials) clearly understood that we will not go away until the sewage in Wethersfield Cove does. We learned several new things last night. The first is that the problem is seven times bigger than they said it was before the model was calibrated (690,000 gallons at the one-year design storm vs. an actual 4,000,000 gallons). Secondly, we learned that they will need to spend about $13,000,000, just to get to where they thought they were before spending anything more. Thirdly, we learned that we've changed the boundaries of the dialog from thumb-in-the-dike, stop-gap solutions to bona fide sewer separation. Fourthly, we learned that Town Council and our legislative delegation have backbones and will no longer settle for partial solutions or talk. Given the fact that the one-year design storm is the benchmark for EPA clean water standards, there is Federal money available to get us to that point. However, we need to get the gatekeepers (DEP) to release it. Thus, not a dollar of the $10,000,000 our legislators secured from the State should be used for the Federal money phase. The $10,000,000 is above and beyond previous commitments to which the MDC is obliged by either Consent Order (leader disconnections) or the Clean Water Act (one-year storm). We also got the green light to have SEA Consultants get the data on the calibrated model from MDC and begin work on our alternatives. Therein is where we would direct the $10,000,000 and any additional monies the legislature and MDC would need to secure to reach our zero-discharge condition. Thanks again for your persistent willingness to stand up for a clean Cove. We truly are making progress and there's light at the end of Folly Brook tunnel. ~ ~ ~