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Waterbury board OKs funds for demolition and clean up at former Anaconda American Brass site
Mary Ellen Godin
WATERBURY — The Board of Aldermen voted last week to spend another $5.44 million on removing foundations and cleaning the former Anaconda American Brass site, and readying it for redevelopment.
At its Dec. 15 meeting, the board voted 11-4 to approve hiring Manafort Brothers to get rid of the foundations and slabs that remained after demolishing the former brass complex. Manafort was the contractor for the demolition.
Once the building's remains are removed, the Waterbury Development Corporation will conduct testing under the soil to better characterize the site for future development, said James Nardozzi of the WDC.
The city used millions of state and federal grant dollars to acquire and raze buildings in the complex. The latest round will come from a pool of money already available and won't require bonding, city officials said.
The envisioned Freight Street Corridor District will be anchored by transit-oriented development of residential, retail and commercial properties on the site of the former brass factory complex.
The Freight Street Corridor Redevelopment Project is part of the city's Central Business District now under construction. A major part of the plan is to develop walkable communities near the train station.
The city used $7.3 million in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act and $10 million in state bonding to finance land purchases, demolition work and environmental remediation for the Freight Street Corridor Redevelopment Project.
The Dec. 15 Board of Alderman meeting lasted more than seven hours and included multiple agenda items, which had varying degrees of success. For instance, measures to install 10 red light cameras, and invest in new police body camera equipment and software passed easily. However, a measure to sign a $3.6 million deal to install solar panels on five city schools failed to get the 11 votes required
Corporation Counsel Daniel Foster told members that any measure deemed an expenditure requires 11 votes to pass even if the money is included in a grant pool. The solar panel vote will have to return to the board at its January meeting for a straight majority vote, Foster said. However, city and Waterbury Development Corporation officials reminded the board that it will lose a federal $500,000 tax incentive on the project for missing the year end deadline.
The new project aims to install solar panels at Wendell Cross, Generali, Tinker and Sprague elementary schools, as well as West Side Middle School in Waterbury. The state has also promised a 76% reimbursement rate.
“The energy that the panels generate we’re going to receive as revenue from Eversource,” said Finance Director Michael LeBlanc.
If the solar project is completed, the panels are expected to generate 1.2 million kilowatts of energy each year across the five rooftops, LeBlanc said. Officials expect that over a 20-year period, the panels would generate a total of $4.6 million in energy revenue, with $231,000 generated each year.
Trump administration pauses Revolution Wind again; CT leaders defend offshore energy project
Paul Hughes
Connecticut will defeat what Attorney General William Tong called “a new brazen attempt” from the administration of President Donald Trump to block construction of the Revolution Wind project on national security grounds.
The U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday announced the federal government is pausing leases for Revolution Wind off the coast of southern New England and four other offshore wind projects under construction along the East Coast over Pentagon concerns they would interfere with military radar systems.
The pause announced Monday comes three months after a federal judge overturned a stop-work order on the Revolution Wind project that the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued in August.
Construction on Revolution Wind, an offshore wind farm located 15 miles south of Rhode Island and 32 miles southeast of Connecticut, resumed in October. It is nearly 85% complete. When up and running, the wind farm is expected to produce enough electricity to power about 325,000 homes.
The pause on the five offshore wind projects will give the Department of the Interior to work with the Department of the Defense and other federal agencies time to assess the possibility of mitigating the national security risks posed by these projects with leaseholders and state governments, the Monday announcement said.
“The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in the statement. “Today’s action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our East Coast population centers. The Trump administration will always prioritize the security of the American people.”
In a statement, Tong said Connecticut will overcome this latest obstacle to the Revolution Wind project.
“This appears to be a second, even more lawless and erratic stop work order, reviving the Trump administration’s prior failed attempt to halt construction of Revolution Wind,” Tong said. “We went to court over this before. There is a court order blocking their prior stop work order and this appears to be a new brazen attempt to circumvent that order. The project has been vetted and approved through every layer of federal and state regulatory process, including a careful review of the issues raised in this announcement.”
Earlier this month, a representative for Orsted, a Danish energy company and one of the wind farm’s developers, reported Revolution Wind remained on track to reach completion in the second half of 2026. At that time, the project was about 85% complete, with 52 of 65 turbines, all 65 turbine foundations and two offshore substations installed.
In addition to Revolution Wind, the Department of the Interior order also applied to Orsted's Sunrise Wind project, a large-scale, 924-megawatt wind farm under construction off the coast of New York and New England that is also nearing completion.
Revolution Wind will be the first offshore wind farm serving Connecticut and Rhode Island, providing 704 megawatts of electricity as state officials look to expand renewable energy and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The wind farm sits in federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean, with staging operations based at the State Pier in New London.
Tong’s office said Revolution Wind is projected to save Connecticut and Rhode Island ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 years. The Revolution Wind project supports over 2,500 jobs nationwide in the construction, operations, shipbuilding and manufacturing sectors, including over 1,000 union construction jobs.
In a statement, Orsted said it is evaluating all of its options regarding the Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects. Meanwhile, Orsted said it is complying with the respective orders and taking appropriate steps to suspend related activities in a manner that prevents impacts on health, safety and the environment.
Gov. Ned Lamont also blasted the Trump administration’s latest move to block Revolution Wind.
“This is yet another erratic, anti-business move by the Trump administration that will drive up the price of electricity in Connecticut and throughout the region. At a time when my administration is working tirelessly to ensure Connecticut has a diverse energy supply and lower utility costs for families and businesses, the White House continues to be an obstacle,” Lamont said in a statement.
“This project is nearing completion and providing good-paying clean energy jobs,” he said. “Businesses and residents deserve economic predictability, yet with the administration’s constant starts and stops they’re left with the opposite, so the one thing the people of Connecticut can count on is that we will stand up to the Trump administration and ensure this project continues to move forward.”
U.S. Rep. Joseph Courtney, D-2nd District, blasted the latest move from the Trump administration, saying in a statement that there have been clear decisions in all three branches of government that offshore wind power does not present a national security threat. He also quoted a December 2024 letter from the Department of the Defense under then-President Joe Biden that stated the Revolution Wind project would not adversely effect the department’s missions in the area.
Courtney further noted that U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month rejected an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2026 fiscal year that sought to raise national security as a statutory bar to offshore wind projects. Trump signed the annual defense policy bill Dec. 18.
“The Trump administration promised to cut energy prices in half,” he said in the statement. “We know that President Trump has a longstanding personal vendetta against offshore wind. Pausing these projects without any real justification will do nothing but increase costs for ratepayers and eliminate good paying jobs for the building trades.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., announced that he has sent a letter to Burgum demanding an explanation for the Trump administration's pause on Revolution Wind and the four other offshore wind projects, including information and records detailing how the Department of the Interior made its recent decisions to issue the stop-work orders.
“While the Trump administration plays political games with Revolution Wind, here’s what’s at stake for Connecticut: the loss of good paying union jobs, billions of public and private dollars wasted, and higher electricity prices. This latest attack on Revolution Wind is even more absurd than the first one. The president cites national security risks, but has not been able to prove or demonstrate that such risks even exist,” Blumenthal said in a statement.
U.S. Reps. John B. Larson, D-1st District, and Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3rd District, also issued statements condemning the Trump administration’s action. Larson said the latest pause is as baseless as the first one, and DeLauro said Revolution Wind is not a national security threat and said the administration’s “absurd delays” must stop.
CT Bond Commission OKs $1.4 billion in spending
Paul Hughes
HARTFORD — The State Bond Commission faced a standing room only crowd of happy, smiling faces while approving $1.4 billion in new bond issues Thursday during its final meeting of the 2025 calendar year.
Commission members unanimously approved $985.3 million in new general obligation bonds, $374.6 million in special tax obligation bonds for transportation initiatives, and $73 million in Clean Water Fund bonds. The governor chairs the 10-member panel of state officials and legislators in charge of state borrowing.
The latest funding round brought approved allocations for general obligation and transportation bonds to slightly more than $1.9 billion each for the calendar year.
For general obligation bonds, the new issues authorized Thursday were slightly less, $660 million under the $2.6 billion bond allocation cap for 2025. This budget control sets an inflation-adjusted amount of general bonding for the calendar year. There are also caps on the amount of bonds the state treasurer may issue and the bond requisitions the governor may authorize.
Gov. Ned Lamont put Connecticut on a "debt diet" shortly after taking office in 2019 because bloating bonded debt had been eating up more and more of the state budget pie. The self-imposed cap placed an annual $1 billion limit on general obligation bonds until the governor eased back in 2021.
Lamont said he remains comfortable with the current levels of state borrowing, but remains vigilant of the state's bonded indebtedness
"I'm watching it," he said during a news conference following the meeting.
On July 1, the state treasurer's office reported net indebtedness of $27.7 billion, including authorized and unissued bonds, plus the total outstanding debt.
The current two-year, $55.8 billion budget that took effect July 1 appropriated $3.6 billion for debt service for the 2026 fiscal year and $3.4 billion for the 2027 fiscal year. Debt service represents 12.5% of appropriations for the adopted $27.2 billion budget for 2026.
Lamont said he sees no need to re-impose a debt diet on Connecticut again.
"No, my North Star is making sure borrowing costs are not eating up more and more of our budget," he said.
Lamont said he expects borrowing will pick up over the next five years given the amount of infrastructure work, plus increases in construction, interest and other associated costs.
State Rep. Joseph Polletta, R-Watertown, a commission member, said after the meeting that he remains concerned about the level of state borrowing. But he said he remains comfortable while the amount of borrowing through general obligation bonds remains below the allocation cap.
"If we approach that limit, I would definitely raise a flag and probably oppose some items on the agenda, but we're still significantly below the bond cap," said Polletta, the ranking House Republican on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee.
The only issue raised during Thursday's meeting concerned a recent bond counsel opinion that found that UConn 2000 bonds are not subject to State Bond Commission's allocation cap. The opinion concluded these bonds are not considered general obligation bonds because are issued by the University of Connecticut, not the state government.
The UConn 2000 is a bonding program to fund major capital projects, infrastructure, research, and campus modernization at the University of Connecticut. There are $1.5 billion in outstanding UConn 2000 bonds, according to the treasurer's office.
During Thursday's meeting, state Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, the ranking Senate Republican on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, questioned the rationale for distinguishing between general obligation and UConn 2000 bonds. He is a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor in 2026.
Fazio said the change in interpretation will allow hundreds of millions more in general bonding that taxpayers will have to repay. He questioned whether it would be appropriate to include the legislature in such a major policy change.
Joshua Wojcik, the interim secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management, replied that the treatment of UConn 2000 bonds would be a matter that legislators could review in the future during legislative sessions.
Lamont agreed with Fazio that the state could potentially borrow more through general obligation bonds, but offered a caveat.
"To your point, theoretically it could be at risk, but not as long as I'm here," he said.
Deputy Treasurer, Sarah Sanders said she viewed the bond counsel opinion as clarifying how general obligation and UConn 2000 bonds are defined statutorily, rather than a policy change.
"I guess that wouldn't be my inference, and it would allow more borrowing to happen," Fazio said. "But I think it is important maybe we look into this a little bit more."