NORWALK — The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks and its contractor may place dredged materials back into the water at the Norwalk Visitor’s Docks but they still could face a fine.
“Testing of stockpiled sediments that we required showed it was acceptable to place those materials back under the new boat ramp and adjacent areas of the harbor and shoreline,” said Dennis Schain, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. “The level of the presence of any contaminants is similar to the surrounding background material now in the waters there, so it is OK to place this material back.”
Schain said the city must apply for a Certificate of Permission to proceed with the work.
“No decision yet on assessment of any penalties,” Schain said.
Approximately 1,040 cubic yards sediment were dredged, placed ashore in the parking lot and later covered — per DEEP orders following a complaint — as part of the launch ramp replacement. The parks department and its contractor, Holzner Construction of Bridgeport, were handed violations because of the handling of the dredged material.
Holzner Construction is under a $2.1 million contract with the Norwalk parks department to replace the deteriorated underwater launch ramps, install a retaining wall and raise the parking lot at the David S. Dunavan Boating Center, otherwise known as the Norwalk Visitor’s Docks, at Veterans Memorial Park.During a Feb. 24 inspection by the DEEP, the contractor was issued a Field Notice of Violation and told to install proper sediment and erosion controls within 48 hours. The materials initially had been left uncovered.
On March 13, the DEEP hit Holzner Construction and the parks department with a second violation notice and ordered the contractor not to reuse the stockpiled material until it was tested. The state required the parties to enter into a consent order and “pay a civil penalty for the unauthorized work completed.” Penalties of up to $1,000 a day may be assessed for each day of each violation under state law.
“No decision yet on assessment of any penalties,” Schain said Thursday.The boating center closed at the end of October to accommodate the project. Officials set May 1 — the start of the boating season — as the reopening date. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Meriden train station nearing completion
MERIDEN — Carpenters, plumbers and engineers at the new Meriden train station worked from lifts and scaffolding Thursday preparing the boiler rooms and roof covering two platforms.
The view from the station’s second floor window showed a roaring Harbor Brook tumbling through the channel at the Meriden Green. Otis Elevator workers were on hand to check the elevator to the pedestrian bridge that crosses the track, which awaits finishing touches but is structurally complete. “Wait until a train goes underneath,” said state Department of Transportation supervising engineer Richard Unkel, as he walked the bridge. “On the shoreline you get the Acela roaring through.”
The new station is the same design as those being built in Wallingford and Berlin. All three are expected to be complete by July. Once finished, the DOT has six months to market and test increased commuter rail service on the Hartford line between New Haven and Springfield before its official roll out in January 2018. The agency is expected to name the line operator in April. Officials from both the DOT and its consultant Ammann &Whitney, said they have reassurances from subcontractors the work will be completed on time.
The platforms will be heated by tubes containing glycol, said Paul Elliot, resident engineer for Ammann & Whitney. They’re not designed to warm waiting passengers, but to prevent icing in cold temperatures, he said.
The yellow wrap that surrounded the building throughout much of the winter is removed as brick, panels and windows are added to the building. Glass enclosed areas are designed to keep the rain and wind off commuters.
The station will have parking, sidewalks and an entry from Colony Street through a landscaped lot. There are handicapped ramps on both sides of the tracks and sidewalks will provide access to East Main Street and State Street.
Additional train parking is available in a new garage at 24 Colony St.
PLAINVILLE — The roof replacement on Middle School of Plainville will no longer be included in more than $13 million worth of school projects.
“They decided it is in decent enough shape to last,” said Superintendent Maureen Brummett.
The Capitol Projects Building Committee agreed earlier in the week to remove the $2.1 million roof project. The change will be brought to the Town Council Monday.
The committee instead decided to implement a five year maintenance plan for the roof at a cost of about $5,000 a year.Initially, the roof replacement was part of the as-new renovation of Wheeler Elementary School and Plainville High School parking lot paving projects.
In total, the three projects were expected to cost the town $13.9 million with $12.1 million in expected state reimbursements for Wheeler and $1.3 million reimbursed for the roof.
However, the committee said that the new roof would eventually have to be removed during future renovations of the middle school.
Without the roof, the two remaining projects will cost a total of $13.1 million to the town of Plainville.
The Wheeler state reimbursement will be available as long as the projects are approved before June 30.
The Town Council previously agreed to send the initial projects to the Planning and Zoning commission for approval. The construction manager for the project said an amendment was being sent to the state to remove the roof from the list.
“I support the decision of the Capitol Projects Building Committee,” said Town Manager Robert Lee. “I’m glad it reduces the cost.”
A new website was recently launched to show plans for Wheeler and the high school paving project. The site gives residents a view into the current conditions of both projects, as well as what the completions are expected to look like.
The Superintendent School Showcase on April 19 and the building committee public hearing on April 24 will give the community an opportunity to learn more and ask questions.
After four months of intense construction activity aimed at opening Dunkin' Donuts Park in time for Opening Day April 13, Hartford Yard Goats officials spent Thursday showing off most of the 6,000-seat minor league ballpark.
From the YG Club to the premium suites to the party decks along the left and right field lines, the $71 million, publicly financed stadium looked mostly ready for its debut before a sellout crowd in two weeks. Workers were still finishing punch-list items — the last step in a large construction project — and applying a non-slip product to parts of the concourse, restricting access to small portions of the stadium. But most of the ballpark was accessible and appeared ready for a year-delayed opening.
Last June, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin terminated the stadium's developers, Centerplan Construction Co. and DoNo Hartford, after they missed two deadlines to hand the ballpark over to the team for home games. The team ultimately played the entire season on the road.
The developers sued the city claiming wrongful termination, and the two sides are engaged in court-ordered mediation.
Tim Restall, the team's general manager, said Thursday that the team was "rounding third and headed for home" in terms of having the ballpark ready for its debut in two weeks.At Tuesday's final Hartford Stadium Authority meeting, Patrick Nails, senior vice president for Arch Insurance, which guaranteed completion of the project, said major construction was complete and he saw no reason that the ballpark couldn't open on time.
The April 13 home opener will occur 362 days after originally scheduled.
Walkway Makes Connection For New Manchester School
With little room for error, a crane operator and construction crew on Thursday eased a 27-ton steel walkway into place, connecting the campuses of a new fifth- and sixth-grade school.
The 90-foot-long walkway links Bennet Academy with the Cheney Building, a long-shuttered former vocational school that is being thoroughly renovated. This is the first project in an $84 million school modernization effort that also includes renovation and expansion of two elementary schools and the planned closings of two other schools.
The walkway over School Street is to be sheathed with glass panels. The section of School Street between the buildings will remain closed to traffic, with gates installed at either end.
The structural steel bridge arrived in three sections, which were welded together on site by workers with Hartford-based QSR Steel Corp. Late in the morning, crane operator Mark Gagnon, who works for A Quick Pick Crane Service out of Derby, lifted the approximately 55,000-pound walkway. Room to maneuver was limited, no more than six inches, construction supervisors said.
Workers on the ground held guide lines as the structure rose and was turned 90 degrees to a position above and between two steel columns on the Bennet side. The hovering bridge was two or three inches from the school's exterior wall. Slowly, Gagnon lowered the walkway between the columns to a seat on a connecting beam. It was then secured on both ends. The Bennet-Cheney project includes conversion of the Cheney Building into 18 classrooms, construction of three more classrooms in the adjacent boiler plant and an expansion of the Bennet cafeteria. The general contractor is Downes Construction Co. of New Britain and the site work contractor is Ellington-based Gerber Construction Inc.
The project is to be completed in time for the start of school in the fall, when the Cheney Building will be used as swing space, town facilities project manager Christopher Till said. Waddell Elementary School students will attend school in the building while renovation and expansion of Waddell is completed. All fifth-graders are to attend the Bennet-Cheney school in the fall of 2018.
Editorial: A plan to finance infrastructure
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has a long record of clever legislative proposals for financing infrastructure. His latest, announced Wednesday, is to increase the federal gas tax by up to 1.5 cents per year, with proceeds going to pay interest on an annual surface transportation bond issue of $17 billion through 2030. It would be the first hike in the gas tax, currently 18.4 cents per gallon, since 1993. The resulting dollars would pay for a 30 percent increase in spending from the Highway Trust Fund, above what’s currently planned.
A penny-and-a-half per gallon is almost laughably modest, given that the failure to raise the tax for the last quarter-century amounts to a 40 percent cut in real terms. However, DeFazio set the figure that low in deference to the long-established political wisdom that says a major gas-tax increase would be political death — even as he notes that the political realities may be changing.While Congress has cowered at the prospect of a federal gas-tax increase, state governments have been raising theirs. Since 2013, 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted gas-tax increases or measures to prevent their erosion through inflation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The most recent action was a 23-cent-per-gallon increase last year in New Jersey.This is not a strictly blue-state phenomenon. More than half of the increases came in states that voted for Donald Trump in 2016, including such heavily rural red states as Georgia and Idaho. Alaska’s legislature is currently debating a tripling of its gas tax; Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, is pushing a 7-cent increase. What such states have in common is a backlog of highway maintenance and construction needs, and a willingness to ask drivers to share in the multibillion-dollar cost of meeting them.
To be sure, this demonstrates a strength of federalism; difficult trade-offs are more likely to be made by people who directly experience not only the costs but the benefits. By its nature, the federal gas tax funds projects that may be remote from motorists who pay it, which is one reason increases are harder, politically.Nevertheless, to the extent federal fuel taxes fund the Interstate Highway System, they help pay for truly national infrastructure that every American depends on to at least some extent. The fuel-tax increase needed to cover current Trust Fund spending plans would be small, roughly 10 cents per gallon, according to a 2015 Congressional Budget Office report — which is what we’d prefer. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Save The Roads With Tolls
Connecticut's roads and bridges need major repairs and improvements. And somehow, the state has to pay for them. That's beyond dispute.But how to pay? Tolls are the only fair way, and legislators know it. House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz told The Courant's editorial board last week that tolls are "inevitable," and he's right.
Connecticut is the only state in the region that doesn't charge passers-through for the use of its roads. Trucks that wear heavily on our highways have been getting a free ride. Those days must come to an end.
Arguments against tolls are weak and growing weaker. Concerns that the billions of dollars brought in by tolls would be raided by a spendthrift legislature were eased earlier this week, when a legislative committee approved a joint resolution that would establish a lockbox for the state's Special Transportation Fund, the mechanism it uses to pay for transportation expenses.
The proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, would firmly protect transportation funding from being used for other purposes.
The Special Transportation Fund is in danger of becoming insolvent. As vehicles become more fuel-efficient, the gasoline tax will provide less revenue. Tolls could bring in tens of billions of dollars, money that is absolutely critical to keep highways safe and up to date. Some have raised the possibility that Connecticut could jeopardize federal transportation funding if it established tolls. But the Federal Highway Administration recently notified the state Department of Transportation that while simple border tolls might not pass muster, variable-price tolls — such as so-called congestion tolls that change depending on the time of day — would work.
The state Office of Legislative Research makes the same assessment. Safety concerns raised by toll booths are eliminated with the use of transponders and license plate cameras. Brick-and-mortar toll booths are a thing of the past.
Spreading the burden among those who use the roads the most is equitable, safe and efficient.
The other option is to let roads crumble into the horse paths they were centuries ago, and risk disasters like the Mianus River bridge tragedy — or, perhaps, raise the income tax, the sales tax, the gas tax and enough other taxes to generate the $60 billion that tolls could provide.
Do any legislators want to sign up for that?
D.C. Eyes Infrastructure Again After Healthcare Setback
The rebuilding package was expected to sit on the sidelines until the fall, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill think that timeline could be accelerated with more room on the legislative agenda and an administration eager to score a victory.
“This just leapfrogged,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.), who was on Trump's transition team, told The Hill. “This is something the president has wanted to do. But with healthcare pushed to the back burner, I believe that it's infrastructure that gains steam.”
“It moves everything up if you take [healthcare] out,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee's subcommittee on transportation and infrastructure.
One of Trump's chief campaign promises was to revitalize the country's roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure. He promised to deliver a massive infrastructure proposal to Congress within his first 100 days in office and even highlighted the issue in his victory speech — one of the very few policy areas that got a shoutout.
Some lawmakers warn that Trump's infrastructure agenda could actually be complicated by the failure to repeal ObamaCare, which would have cut into the deficit and provided a budgetary offset for other legislation.
“It could be devastating,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) told The Hill. “The fact we don't have revenue generated from saving many Americans from the high costs of ObamaCare and the taxes in ObamaCare leaves us with less revenue to invest in an infrastructure plan.”
The ObamaCare repeal bill would have eliminated most of the 2010 health insurance law's taxes, making it easier to pay for lowering tax rates.
Tax reform legislation could include “repatriation,” which would allow corporations to return money held abroad that would be subject to a low tax rate on a one-time basis. This would provide new revenue for the government, but with healthcare off the table might be used to pay for tax reform instead of infrastructure. To do tax reform, you're in a bit of a hole now,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.). “Some of us had envisioned being able to fight for a chunk of that [repatriation] money. Now it gets more complicated.”
But if the White House advances tax reform and infrastructure at the same time — a move that Axios on Monday reported the administration is considering — that could signal that Trump is serious about ensuring infrastructure does not get left out of the tax discussion.
Transportation leaders think that will give both issues their best shot at passage.
“The best path to get both across the finish line might be that,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, told reporters Tuesday. He suggested it could provide bipartisan interest in getting something done.
Pairing the issues could get more Democrats on board with tax reform, while also convincing conservatives to swallow massive transportation spending.
“I think this defeat on healthcare … will make [Trump] reconsider whether he should be following the House or the congressional playbook,” Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) told The Hill. “They were following the House lead before. After this, I could see them saying they're going to set their own agenda.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
The project is to be completed in time for the start of school in the fall, when the Cheney Building will be used as swing space, town facilities project manager Christopher Till said. Waddell Elementary School students will attend school in the building while renovation and expansion of Waddell is completed. All fifth-graders are to attend the Bennet-Cheney school in the fall of 2018.
Editorial: A plan to finance infrastructure
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., has a long record of clever legislative proposals for financing infrastructure. His latest, announced Wednesday, is to increase the federal gas tax by up to 1.5 cents per year, with proceeds going to pay interest on an annual surface transportation bond issue of $17 billion through 2030. It would be the first hike in the gas tax, currently 18.4 cents per gallon, since 1993. The resulting dollars would pay for a 30 percent increase in spending from the Highway Trust Fund, above what’s currently planned.
A penny-and-a-half per gallon is almost laughably modest, given that the failure to raise the tax for the last quarter-century amounts to a 40 percent cut in real terms. However, DeFazio set the figure that low in deference to the long-established political wisdom that says a major gas-tax increase would be political death — even as he notes that the political realities may be changing.While Congress has cowered at the prospect of a federal gas-tax increase, state governments have been raising theirs. Since 2013, 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted gas-tax increases or measures to prevent their erosion through inflation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The most recent action was a 23-cent-per-gallon increase last year in New Jersey.This is not a strictly blue-state phenomenon. More than half of the increases came in states that voted for Donald Trump in 2016, including such heavily rural red states as Georgia and Idaho. Alaska’s legislature is currently debating a tripling of its gas tax; Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, is pushing a 7-cent increase. What such states have in common is a backlog of highway maintenance and construction needs, and a willingness to ask drivers to share in the multibillion-dollar cost of meeting them.
To be sure, this demonstrates a strength of federalism; difficult trade-offs are more likely to be made by people who directly experience not only the costs but the benefits. By its nature, the federal gas tax funds projects that may be remote from motorists who pay it, which is one reason increases are harder, politically.Nevertheless, to the extent federal fuel taxes fund the Interstate Highway System, they help pay for truly national infrastructure that every American depends on to at least some extent. The fuel-tax increase needed to cover current Trust Fund spending plans would be small, roughly 10 cents per gallon, according to a 2015 Congressional Budget Office report — which is what we’d prefer. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Save The Roads With Tolls
Connecticut's roads and bridges need major repairs and improvements. And somehow, the state has to pay for them. That's beyond dispute.But how to pay? Tolls are the only fair way, and legislators know it. House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz told The Courant's editorial board last week that tolls are "inevitable," and he's right.
Connecticut is the only state in the region that doesn't charge passers-through for the use of its roads. Trucks that wear heavily on our highways have been getting a free ride. Those days must come to an end.
Arguments against tolls are weak and growing weaker. Concerns that the billions of dollars brought in by tolls would be raided by a spendthrift legislature were eased earlier this week, when a legislative committee approved a joint resolution that would establish a lockbox for the state's Special Transportation Fund, the mechanism it uses to pay for transportation expenses.
The proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, would firmly protect transportation funding from being used for other purposes.
The Special Transportation Fund is in danger of becoming insolvent. As vehicles become more fuel-efficient, the gasoline tax will provide less revenue. Tolls could bring in tens of billions of dollars, money that is absolutely critical to keep highways safe and up to date. Some have raised the possibility that Connecticut could jeopardize federal transportation funding if it established tolls. But the Federal Highway Administration recently notified the state Department of Transportation that while simple border tolls might not pass muster, variable-price tolls — such as so-called congestion tolls that change depending on the time of day — would work.
The state Office of Legislative Research makes the same assessment. Safety concerns raised by toll booths are eliminated with the use of transponders and license plate cameras. Brick-and-mortar toll booths are a thing of the past.
Spreading the burden among those who use the roads the most is equitable, safe and efficient.
The other option is to let roads crumble into the horse paths they were centuries ago, and risk disasters like the Mianus River bridge tragedy — or, perhaps, raise the income tax, the sales tax, the gas tax and enough other taxes to generate the $60 billion that tolls could provide.
Do any legislators want to sign up for that?
D.C. Eyes Infrastructure Again After Healthcare Setback
The rebuilding package was expected to sit on the sidelines until the fall, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill think that timeline could be accelerated with more room on the legislative agenda and an administration eager to score a victory.
“This just leapfrogged,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.), who was on Trump's transition team, told The Hill. “This is something the president has wanted to do. But with healthcare pushed to the back burner, I believe that it's infrastructure that gains steam.”
“It moves everything up if you take [healthcare] out,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee's subcommittee on transportation and infrastructure.
One of Trump's chief campaign promises was to revitalize the country's roads, bridges, airports and other infrastructure. He promised to deliver a massive infrastructure proposal to Congress within his first 100 days in office and even highlighted the issue in his victory speech — one of the very few policy areas that got a shoutout.
Some lawmakers warn that Trump's infrastructure agenda could actually be complicated by the failure to repeal ObamaCare, which would have cut into the deficit and provided a budgetary offset for other legislation.
“It could be devastating,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) told The Hill. “The fact we don't have revenue generated from saving many Americans from the high costs of ObamaCare and the taxes in ObamaCare leaves us with less revenue to invest in an infrastructure plan.”
The ObamaCare repeal bill would have eliminated most of the 2010 health insurance law's taxes, making it easier to pay for lowering tax rates.
Tax reform legislation could include “repatriation,” which would allow corporations to return money held abroad that would be subject to a low tax rate on a one-time basis. This would provide new revenue for the government, but with healthcare off the table might be used to pay for tax reform instead of infrastructure. To do tax reform, you're in a bit of a hole now,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.). “Some of us had envisioned being able to fight for a chunk of that [repatriation] money. Now it gets more complicated.”
But if the White House advances tax reform and infrastructure at the same time — a move that Axios on Monday reported the administration is considering — that could signal that Trump is serious about ensuring infrastructure does not get left out of the tax discussion.
Transportation leaders think that will give both issues their best shot at passage.
“The best path to get both across the finish line might be that,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, told reporters Tuesday. He suggested it could provide bipartisan interest in getting something done.
Pairing the issues could get more Democrats on board with tax reform, while also convincing conservatives to swallow massive transportation spending.
“I think this defeat on healthcare … will make [Trump] reconsider whether he should be following the House or the congressional playbook,” Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) told The Hill. “They were following the House lead before. After this, I could see them saying they're going to set their own agenda.” CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE