DEEP Offers $17m Grant for Old Lyme Sewer Project, Keeps Consent Order
Cate Hewitt
OLD LYME — The Connecticut Department of Energy and
Environmental Protection will offer $17 million in grants toward the cost of
the beach sewer project, according to a meeting on Friday that included state
officials, the town and the beach associations.
“With those additional funds that brings the project back
into a reasonable cost for the residents, and the town of Old Lyme,” said
Douglas Whalen, president of Old Colony Beach Association, in a phone call with
CT Examiner.
The long-delayed project would install sewers in Sound View
Beach, the town’s beach area, as well as three chartered beach communities –
Miami Beach Association, Old Colony Beach, and Old Lyme Shores – to satisfy a
2012 state consent
order.
Costs for the project were originally estimated at about $10
million, but bids came in at $17.5 to 18.5 million – deemed too high by the
four entities – and were re-estimated at
$14.1 million to $21.1 million.
In a Feb. 1 letter, Old Lyme Shores declared the
project too
expensive and said the association would ask for the state to modify
or lift the consent order.
But in Friday’s meeting, DEEP “informed Old Lyme Shores that
there will be no change in the consent order. The consent order will stay as
is. We must conform to the consent order,” Whalen told CT Examiner.
Whalen said in addition to the $17 million grant, the town
is also applying for a State and Tribal Assistance Grant, or STAG, through Rep.
Joe Courtney’s office.
“We had originally
applied for $14 million, but now that we have the $17 million coming
from the DEEP, we’re trying to apply for a $3 million STAG grant,” he said.
“We’re applying for all these different things and hopefully something sticks.”
First Selectman Tim Griswold said that the distribution of
the $17 million grant money among the four entities has yet to be determined.
For the shared infrastructure, the town is responsible for 29.7 percent of
costs.
“The agreement has certain ratios prescribed but that’s for
the shared infrastructure, so this wouldn’t be necessarily tied exactly to
that,” Griswold said.
Griswold said it was unclear whether multiple grants —
including the 25 percent Clean Water Funds grant that is already approved for
the project — would be be workable.
“Whether all of the grants would tolerate multiple grants
and how it all fits together — but if we can parlay enough of this stuff, then
the major objections go away,” he said.
In addition, Whalen said that State Sen. Martha Marx, D-New
London, and State Rep. Devin Carney, R-Old Saybrook, are applying for a $26
million bond for the project.
“If everything runs smooth, our goal would be to get the
funding in place before June and try and go back out to bid by the summer and
award the bids by the fall, which means we could have construction by the end
of 2023. So it’s a real big, big positive. Things are moving along at breakneck
speed,” said Whalen.
Norwich to apply for funding to build new Greeneville, Stanton elementary schools
NORWICH — A massive $385 million project to revamp Norwich’s
school buildings moves a step closer.
The Norwich City Council approved
resolutions giving the Norwich Board of Education permission to apply to the
state Department of Administrative
Services for funding for three of the four elementary school projects
– Greeneville, Stanton and Moriarty elementary schools. School Building
Committee Chair Mark Bettencourt said the application for and the work on the
Greeneville and Stanton school projects would be done first.
“We’re trying to get the ground running with the grant
application process,” he said.
Stanton is a priority because it’s a worn-out building, and
building the new Stanton and Greeneville schools first provides more
flexibility for the rest of the process.
“We’ll be able to move kids around and do what’s necessary
that way,” Bettencourt said.
More:Multi-million dollar school building project passes in Norwich.
Here's what happens next.
How the city got here
Back in November, voters approved the city’s plans to spend
a total of $385 million to discontinue use of all the existing
elementary schools and build four large new ones, alongside turning the Samuel
Huntington Elementary School into the new district office, and a remodel
of Teachers Memorial
Global Magnet Elementary School. The cost is $385 million, but the cost to
the city was said to be only $149 million, after getting state grants.
A self-imposed deadline for the application is Oct. 1, but
it will likely be filed sooner. Bettencourt said the application should be in
by the end of June, but state Sen. Cathy Osten said the city should have the
application in by April or May.
This is so the city would get added to the School
Construction Priority List for 2023-2024, which is how the state handles grants
for school construction. The project will be voted on by the state’s Education
Committee to be added to the list. Then, it needs to be voted for approval as a
part of the education implementer during the budget process for the state's
2023-2024 fiscal year, Osten said.
The City Council resolutions were a requirement of the grant
application process. The resolutions to seek grant funding for the remaining
school projects will come at a later date, Bettencourt said.
In January, the city sought an owner’s representative for
the school building project, and Norwich picked Construction Solutions Group,
LLC. Bettencourt was out with the owner’s representative and Norwich Public
Schools personnel conducting site inspections Wednesday. With Stanton, there
have been septic and sewer issues, but it is being fixed, he said.
Bringing back an elementary school to Greeneville
On Monday, former Greeneville Elementary School Assistant
Principal Jan Swicki said to the city council that she hopes returning a school
to Greeneville is a positive, and that it becomes a hub for the community. She
also said she would miss the current Stanton building when it's gone, as she
was also principal there.
When the School Building Committee came up with the school
plans, Greeneville was chosen for a location due to the available land at the
site of the former school, and the area’s population density, Bettencourt said.
After the original Greeneville School closed over a decade
ago, the students needed to be bused to different schools. Some families in the
area may have children going to different schools in the city, making things
hard to coordinate, said Greeneville Neighborhood Committee vice president
Cynthia Jean-Mary.
“It’s going to be nice to have families with multiple
children at the same school,” she said.
Greeneville is an up-and-coming part of the city, and having
a school back there would complement an area with its own main street and fire
house.
“It’s got all the pieces of the puzzle to bring things back
around in the area,” she said.
Federal infrastructure funds begin to flow, mostly to roadwork
Local and state government contracts for highway, road and bridge projects dramatically
increased between 2021 and 2022, a sign that bipartisan infrastructure funds
are starting to have an impact, but contracts for rail and transit projects
slowed significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according
to an analysis conducted by the American Road & Transportation Builders
Association.
The dollar value of contract awards for all transportation
projects jumped 25% from 2021 to 2022, with the number of contracts up 12.4% to
39,500, according to ARTBA Chief Economist Alison Premo Black.
“It’s a very positive sign that money from the federal
investment is starting to make its way into the project pipeline,” said Black
in an interview. She explained that state and local governments began to commit
funds in 2021, the year the bipartisan infrastructure law was enacted, and last
year started to award contracts, “a leading indicator of what is going to
be done.”
Highway, pavement, bridge and tunnel projects vastly
outnumbered rail and transit projects in 2022, both in total value and the
number of projects. The 38,220 contracts for roadway-related construction
totaled $102.2 billion, according to Black, while the 180 rail and transit
contracts were valued at $3.5 billion. That represents a significant decline
from 2019, when $11 billion in rail and transit contracts were awarded,
according to data provided by Black.
The majority of rail and transit contracts go to mass
transit, Black explained. “The work has continued to be ongoing, but that
pipeline has really dropped dramatically over the last few years.” She
attributed the decline to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s not
surprising that the capital investment has been scaled back while agencies have
been so concerned about operations.”
In a separate ARTBA analysis of how
infrastructure law highway and bridge funds had been used through Sep.
30, 2022, 46% went to roadway repair or reconstruction work while just 1% went
to bike and pedestrian facilities.
Many states are looking to ramp up their spending on
transportation infrastructure. According to ARTBA’s Transportation
Investment Advocacy Center, state legislatures have already introduced more
than 150 bills to increase
transportation revenue so far in 2023. The governors of Alaska,
Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin have proposed increased
transportation funding for their upcoming fiscal year budgets.
On Wednesday, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey proposed new
spending on transportation projects including the proposed intercity passenger
rail service from Boston to Springfield and Pittsfield.
Infrastructure, engineering and construction firms are
beginning to see the effects of the 2021 infrastructure law. “We have already
started to see some infrastructure bill funding,” said Carey Smith, chairwoman,
president and CEO of Parsons Corp., speaking on the engineering company’s Feb.
15 earnings conference call. “We’ve assumed that we’re going to see a ramp-up
as we approach the end of ’23 and going into ‘24, with a likely peak around the
’26 time frame.”
Bob Pragada, CEO of Jacobs, said the company has helped its
clients secure more than $1 billion in competitive grants from the
infrastructure law since it was enacted. “With another four years locked in and
robust funding, the U.S. infrastructure climate is strong,” he said on the
company’s Feb. 7 earnings call.
Black also sees a strong future for infrastructure projects.
“I’m looking forward to more projects getting out the door and to see some of
these projects actually start to be completed,” she said.
Eversource, Ørsted eye new 884MW offshore wind farm in New England
Utility giant Eversource and Danish power company Ørsted
announced they have submitted a joint proposal to build a second large-scale
wind farm in Rhode Island.
The proposed 884-megawatt Revolution Wind 2 project would
provide power for more than 500,000 Rhode Island homes and represents more than
$2 billion in direct economic impact to the Ocean State, the companies
said.
The project is in response to Rhode Island’s offshore wind
solicitation and will lead to creation of hundreds of local jobs and significant
investments in port improvements and shipbuilding, the companies said.
The carbon emissions achieved by Revolution Wind 2 would be
the equivalent of taking more than 265,000 cars off New England roads, the
companies said.
The bid comes even as Eversource continues to weigh its
options to sell its 50% stake in its original Revolution Wind farm project that
aims provide Connecticut 304 MW of clean energy and 704M overall. That project
-- to be located more than 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast and 32
miles southeast of the Connecticut coast -- also involves
the redevelopment of the New London State Pier into a heavy-lift cargo and
deep-water port with easy access to offshore wind lease areas.
Revolution Wind has faced criticisms because of cost
overruns on the State Pier redevelopment.
CT could see major boost from nuclear submarine deal
Lisa Hagen
As President Joe Biden unveiled the initial details of an
international deal to provide nuclear-powered submarines in San Diego on
Monday, he pointed to the U.S.S. Missouri behind him in the Pacific Ocean. The
construction of that Virginia-class attack sub was awarded two decades ago to
Electric Boat’s facility in Groton.
Biden called it a “vanguard of U.S. naval power” as the U.S.
agreed to send up to five Virginia-class submarines to Australia over the
coming years to help build its first conventionally armed, nuclear-powered
fleet.
Electric Boat and Connecticut’s vast submarine industrial
base could stand to greatly benefit from Australia’s acquisition as one of the
primary manufacturers of the Virginia-class model.
A security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and
the United States (AUKUS) could have wide-ranging international and domestic
implications on security as well as shipbuilding in eastern Connecticut. The
agreement involves all three countries, but the acquisition would begin in the
U.S., which has the largest capability when it comes to production and the
technology behind nuclear-powered subs.
Pending congressional approval, Australia would initially
buy three Virginia-class submarines and could buy two additional attack
vessels. The first delivery of subs to the country could happen in the early
2030s.
The deal could be significant for companies like General
Dynamics’ Electric Boat and the suppliers that make up the multibillion-dollar
industry. Electric Boat locations in Connecticut and Rhode Island handle much
of the Virginia-class shipbuilding along with Huntington Ingalls Industries’
Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. But additional details about the production
and delivery of the subs and the involvement of these companies were not a part
of Monday’s announcement.
Even before the release of the framework, Electric Boat has
been seeking to greatly expand its operations by aiming to hire another 5,000
workers and thousands more for the foreseeable future to bolster its workforce
and keep up with the demand of both the Virginia-class and Columbia-class
programs. On top of that, the Biden administration wants to again increase
spending that would help support the submarine industrial base.
But there are some lingering concerns related to workforce
development and funding to meet production needs for the U.S. Navy’s fleet and
now the vessels requested in the AUKUS deal.
“We look forward to working with the Navy and our industry
partners to use our knowledge and expertise to support Australia’s acquisition
of nuclear submarines and the development of that country’s shipbuilding
infrastructure,” Kevin Graney, president of General Dynamics Electric Boat,
said in a statement. “The AUKUS agreement underscores the critical role
submarines play in the defense of our nation and our allies and calls attention
to the importance of continuing to grow our submarine industrial base here in
the United States.”
Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.K.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the submarine acquisition portion of the
deal from a San Diego naval base after 18 months of discussions that will in
part help Australia replace its diesel-electric submarines with a nuclear
fleet. Supporters of AUKUS view the agreement as a way to protect the
Indo-Pacific region from any threats from China as it builds up its own Navy.
At Monday’s event, Biden gave a shout out to Rep. Joe
Courtney, D-2nd District, who also attended the event and has been a strong
supporter of the pact. Courtney, whose eastern Connecticut district includes
Electric Boat’s Groton facility, founded the AUKUS Working Group in Congress
and has been an advocate through his role as the top Democrat on the House
Armed Services’ Seapower Subcommittee.
Courtney has touted the deal as critical “to deter potential
conflict in the Indo-Pacific” as well as promising news for shipbuilding in
Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia.
“Australia’s purchase of up to five Virginia-class
submarines more than justifies Electric Boat’s plans to hire almost 30,000
high-skilled jobs in the next five years,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in
a statement. “This is a once-in-a-generation undertaking that will fuel tens of
thousands of good-paying jobs and bring economic stability to Groton for years
to come. I’m proud to see our state play a major role in this historic
announcement.”
When asked whether Australia would get new or used subs
prior to Monday’s announcement, Courtney said he expects the country to receive
ones that are currently in the construction phase, though it is possible the
country would also acquire new ones. He said the Virginia class has a
shelf-life of at least 33 years and any used subs going to Australia would get
“deep maintenance and repair.”
While the purchase is not expected to happen for another
decade, the Connecticut-manufactured submarines will make their mark in
Australia much sooner.
Australia will have their current Collins-class diesel
electric fleet restored for another decade before the deliveries of the
nuclear-powered ships. And in the meantime, four Virginia-class subs from the
U.S. and one from Britain’s Astute class will have a “rotational presence” in
Perth, Australia. This effort could begin as early as 2027 while Australia
builds a new naval facility in Adelaide.
Aside from the acquisition piece of the deal, Australia is
investing in workforce development as it gears up to operate its own nuclear
fleet. Congress has already authorized Australian naval officers to train at
the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command in South Carolina with the goal of
having them eventually on U.S. submarines. Australia also plans to have
hundreds of workers train at U.S. and British shipyards to gain specialized
skills.
Courtney said he also expects them to have a presence in
Connecticut since Groton has a school where people go after completing the one
in Charleston.
“There will no doubt be a lot of foot traffic from
Australian personnel in Connecticut,” Courtney said in an interview prior to
Monday’s announcement.
AUKUS relies heavily on the U.S. as well as on Britain since
Australia is essentially starting from scratch, but the pact is structured in a
way that will help the country operate independently with nuclear-powered
capabilities and protect allied interests in the region when it comes to China.
In addition to the planned purchase from the U.S. in the
2030s, Australia will eventually transition to subs designed by the U.K. that
use the technology from America’s naval nuclear propulsion program about a
decade later.
While the news could be a huge boon for the submarine
industry, some members of Congress have voiced concerns about U.S. capacity to
build submarines for its own fleet as well as supplying them to Australia. In a
letter to the White House, leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee
warned about the U.S. having enough capacity to do both.
“We believe current conditions require a sober assessment of
the facts to avoid stressing the U.S. submarine industrial base to the breaking
point,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and retired Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., wrote
in a December letter. Reed’s home state also includes an Electric Boat
facility.
Courtney said they shared “legitimate concerns” but believes
the U.S. can keep up with the pace of the demand, arguing that the deal is
important for national security interests in the region with China’s own
missile technology.
There have also been concerns over the tech sharing aspect
of the agreement as well as export controls. Under an agreement brokered
decades ago, the U.S. has shared such technology only once before with Britain.
But Courtney argued that the growing investments from the
Navy in the submarine industry are “not a one-year blip in the budget.”
As part of last year’s legislation to fund the government
for the rest of fiscal year 2023, Congress approved $751 million in workforce
development, supply chain support and facility expansion for the submarine
industrial base. For specific submarine programs, $6.5 billion was allocated to
keep up with the construction of two Virginia-class subs a year at Electric
Boat for the next few years.
In the White House’s recent budget request for fiscal year
2024, the administration is seeking $255.8 billion for the Department of the
Navy, which is an $11 billion increase since the last fiscal year. That
proposal includes $10.3 billion to fund the Virginia-class program and the
two-sub procurement, a substantial increase from what it secured in the
government funding package known as the omnibus.
Courtney projected confidence that those investments will
allow the U.S. to meet the new capacity.
“That’s definitely a generational surge of work that the
U.S. submarine base is taking on,” Courtney said, adding that the omnibus made
an “unprecedented investment in things the Navy hasn’t done much in the past
like workforce development, supply chain development, funding for more
facilities.”
“I don’t buy this notion that we’re in a zero sum place
taking on more work with AUKUS,” he added. “Given the importance of subs right
now, with China’s missile technology, subs are still the most effective
platform to create deterrence.”