Proposed Montville water line touted as economic boost for town
Montville - A presentation on a proposed new pipeline that would bring water to Montville High School spurred questions among residents who attended the event at Oakdale Fire Department Thursday. Town officials have partnered with Middletown-based GHD Consulting to explore putting in a roughly 2,400-foot pipeline starting on Route 163 near Town Hall. The pipeline is intended to spur economic development by increasing access to water in town, increase public safety by introducing more pressurized water to feed fire hydrants and allow the high school to cease using bottled water. The high school has used bottled water for more than two years due to abnormally high levels of manganese in its current well water. "Water lines bring economic development, they bring tax dollars and they bring jobs," said GHD project director Sarah Cwikla. She said that new pipelines built in 2005 and 2007 resulted in economic expansion. The gathering was the second in a series of four planned by the town. The next presentation is set for 10 a.m. on Dec. 5 at the Senior Center and the final presentation is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Jan. 8 at the Public Safety Building. Audience members were curious about how the town would pay for the new pipeline, which will cost $6.8 million to build. Some wanted to know if they would be required to hook up to the new pipeline if it came through their neighborhood. Water Pollution Control Authority Administrator Brian Lynch said hooking up to the line would be optional, and connection fees would go toward paying down bond debt for building the pipeline to mitigate tax rate increases. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Power plant plan at step 1
NEW BRITAIN — The Connecticut Siting Council on Thursday agreed to consider an application for a larger power plant that would be built off Woodruff Hill Road in Oxford. The decision means there will now be public hearings in Oxford, a site visit by regulators and consideration of studies from various agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration and state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The decision, made at a meeting in New Britain attended by approximately 100 people, is the first step in deciding whether to allow the upgrading of the proposed CPV Towantic Energy Center to an 805-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant, to be constructed by June 1, 2019. The project had been approved based on permits from 1999 allowing for a 512-megawatt plant on 26 acres in an industrial zone a half-mile due east of Waterbury-Oxford Airport.
Massachusetts-based Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) wants to build the larger facility at the same location. "We as a company are pleased to have this opportunity to basically take an approved project and improve it," said Andrew Bazinet, CPV spokesman. "When you step through the things we're proposing to do and the reasons for them, there's a solid, fundamental logic that speaks to how that's improving what's already there." Melanie A. Bachman, acting executive director of the Siting Council, said the agency was not expecting such a large crowd for a regular meeting, particularly because there was no time allotted for public comment. "I don't think it impacted the decision to reopen the docket, and I don't think it will at all until we hear the concerns of the residents during the public hearing process," Bachman said. "The council has been aware of the opposition and has been aware of it for the last 15 years, and they came out today." Bachman said the earliest the hearing can be scheduled is Jan. 12, 2015. As many as 100 people from Oxford, Middlebury and Naugatuck turned out for the meeting at the council's New Britain headquarters. Most people were not permitted inside the hearing room during the meeting because it had reached its maximum capacity of 45 people. They rallied outside the building after the decision was announced, stickers with a "no" symbol through the letters "CPV" emblazoned on their coats. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
CL&P job to shut I-84
WATERBURY — While most people are asleep Saturday morning, Interstate 84 will close in both directions and crews will install new overhead wires in preparation for the upcoming highway widening project.
Sometime between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., I-84 will shut down for an hour and traffic will be diverted off the highway at Exit 23, in both directions, where it will follow detours past the construction zone.
Westbound traffic will follow Hamilton Avenue to Union Street and be directed back onto I-84 at the on-ramp across from the Brass Mill Center mall. Eastbound traffic will follow the parallel frontage road off Exit 23 to the Hamilton Avenue intersection, where there is an I-84 on-ramp. During the hour-long closure, Connecticut Light & Power Co. will install new wires over the highway near Exit 23. They will transfer power to the overhead wires from an underground circuit below the Hamilton Avenue overpass. The underground wires need to be de-energized before I-84 construction begins in the spring. As part of the project, the Hamilton Avenue bridge will be rebuilt. The new overhead wires are expected to take less than an hour to install. Poles on both sides of the highway are already in place. "We will run the wire across Interstate 84 Saturday morning, connect it at both ends and suspend it," said Frank Poirot, a spokesman for CL&P. CL&P will reinstall the underground wires when the four-year highway widening project is complete. The electric company prefers to run wires under the highway because they're easier to service. "When we have to do any work on that circuit, it can be done without impacting traffic," Poirot said. The state Department of Transportation will pay for the cost of relocating the wires. A cost estimate wasn't available Thursday. There will be no disruption to customers' electricity while the project is underway, Poirot said. Preliminary work for the DOT's widening project has already begun. The project involves widening the highway to three lanes in both directions between Exit 23 and Exit 25A. Also, the highway will be realigned to eliminate an S-curve, which will be accomplished by moving Reidville Drive about 2,000 feet south of its current location. In the westbound direction, the Plank Road on-ramp will be eliminated and the Exit 24 off-ramp will be eliminated to remove a weave section, where traffic entering the highway merges with traffic that is exiting. Plank Road will be renamed Plank Road East and will be extended so that it runs parallel to I-84 from Scott Road to Harpers Ferry Road.