Lamont meets with Brookfield first selectman about Iroquois project
Gov. Ned Lamont met with the first selectman of Brookfield
on Monday to discuss a controversial natural gas expansion project that
has stirred
deep opposition in the town at the edge of Fairfield County.
First Selectman Steve Dunn, a Democrat, is part of a group
of local officials leading the campaign against the “Enhancement
by Compression” project, which would add a pair of gas-fired compressors to
an existing station in Brookfield capable of pumping an additional 125 million
cubic feet of gas through the Iroquois pipeline each day.
Critics of the project say the new compressors would spew
air-polluting emissions in a region that has notoriously struggled
to meet federal air quality standards. And environmental groups say it
represents a doubling down on fossil fuels that many leaders, including Lamont,
have pledged to wean the state off of.
Iroquois’ owners are currently awaiting a final decision
from the state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protect on the
project’s air quality permits. Last July, the agency issued a pair of draft decisions signaling its intention to
approve the permits.
DEEP had been expected to announce a final decision on April
13, but that deadline was pushed back to allow the agency more time to review
and respond to public comments.
Dunn met with Lamont on Monday afternoon in the governor’s
office at the state Capitol. As he left the meeting, he told the Connecticut
Mirror that he’d been encouraged by the conversation, in which he said the
governor expressed support for an alternative Dunn favors — using electric
compressors rather than gas-powered turbines to pump the additional gas.
Dunn clarified that the governor hadn’t pledged to take any
specific actions, for or against the project.
“He said he was going to help us, and I believe him,” Dunn
said.
Emerging from his office a short while later, Lamont offered
praise for the “constructive alternative” presented by Dunn. However, he said
he didn’t plan on discussing the project with DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes.
“He’s come up with an alternative and I hope, you know, DEEP
considers it,” Lamont said. “But I’m not supposed to weigh in, so I won’t.”
Cathryn Vaulman, a spokesperson in Lamont’s office, later
provided a statement about the meeting to CT Mirror.
“Governor Lamont had a productive meeting with First
Selectman Steve Dunn today regarding the Iroquois Natural Gas Compressor
station,” Vaulman said. “The Governor listened to the concerns Brookfield
residents have about the project, and he encourages the Iroquois Gas
Transmission System to use the best available technology at this station and
commission an air quality test as an olive branch to the town.”
A spokesperson for Iroquois declined to comment on the
meeting.
Iroquois officials have opposed calls to use electric
turbines, which they argue would add between $45 million and $50 million to the
project’s $272 million cost.
The Iroquois pipeline runs from upstate New York, across
Connecticut and underneath Long Island Sound before terminating in New York
City. The pipeline’s owners have said they plan to use the additional capacity
to sell gas to utilities in New York, leading to charges from local residents
that the project will not benefit Connecticut.
In a statement provided to CT Mirror earlier this year,
however, Iroquois spokeswoman Ruth Parkins said the project “will enhance the
reliability and availability of natural gas supplies for Connecticut’s natural
gas consumers and power generation fleet since additional quantities of natural
gas will be flowing into and through the state, and available for consumption
within the state on a majority of the days throughout the year.”
Lamont has also pushed for the development of new natural
gas supplies into New England, which faces occasional shortages during the
winter heating season that can cause energy prices to spike.
Lamont met
with Trump administration officials in Washington, D.C., last year to
discuss the region’s energy issues including federal permitting for nuclear and
natural gas infrastructure.
Vaulman said Monday that Lamont had yet to meet with
Iroquois to discuss the project.
When asked if the governor would be open to a meeting with
the project’s developers, Vaulman said, “Certainly if they were willing to come
to the table and make upgrades that would benefit the people of Brookfield,
that is something we’d be be willing to work with them on.”
In November, nine
activists were arrested after staging a sit-in at Lamont’s office,
urging him to reject the project’s permits. The protesters did not meet with
Lamont at that time.
Killingly residents protest warehouses as Amazon announces plans for new fulfillment center
Allison Cross
Killingly — The developers behind a controversial
1.3-million-square-foot distribution center project off Interstate 395 this
week announced Amazon as the prospective facility's tenant.
Amazon Economic Development Director Brad Griggs said the
fulfillment center at 228 Westcott Road — better known as "Project
Husky" — would operate 24/7, employ roughly 500 people and serve as the
company’s “most advanced robotics facility” in Connecticut.
The announcement before a packed house at Monday’s Planning
and Zoning Commission meeting followed a “Water Not Warehouses” protest led by
more than three dozen residents outside Town Hall.
Carrying signs like “Keep Killingly rural,” “Save the Last
Green Valley” and “Keep our Quiet Corner quiet,” the group of protesters called
on town leaders to protect local aquifers and reject Project Husky and a
separate pending proposal for a pair of 178,750-square-foot and
297,500-square-foot warehouses at 90 Putnam Pike.
“I hope they listen to us, and they make the right
decision,” protest organizer Jennifer St. Vincent, whose home directly abuts
the proposed Putnam Pike construction site, said. “The community is saying no,
… but we’re not even sure they’ve been listening to us.”
At the protest and zoning meeting, residents shared concerns
that dynamite blasts during construction would crack foundations and damage
homes. They also said the warehouses would destroy green space, including
woodlands, wetlands and other natural habitats, and lead to increased truck
traffic, pollution, noise and fire risks. Their greatest concern was that the
developments — and the private wastewater treatment systems proposed for the
sites — could pollute the groundwater that feed local wells.
After state officials recently identified 78
private wells contaminated with toxic PFAS chemicals in the Rogers section
of town, Wayland Leonard said he and other residents are “very concerned about
clean water.”
Leonard, who came to the protest with his 4-year-old son,
Ruairi, said the town needs to “take a long, hard think about” these projects
that slated for construction on sites with clean water.
“We only have so much (clean water). And for my son’s
future, I’d like to preserve as much of those resources as possible,” Leonard
said.
Other residents argued that projects of this size do not
belong in town.
“This is not progress,” Diana Webber said. “This is
destruction, and this is really, really bad for Killingly.
Moratorium proposal moves along
The zoning commissioners voted unanimously Monday to
continue discussing a request by leaders of the Keep Killingly Rural coalition
to impose a one-year moratorium
on certain warehouses and distribution centers.
The proposed moratorium, submitted by former Town
Councilwoman Michelle Murphy and resident Lisa Danberg, would pause new
applications for distribution centers and warehouses that exceed 100,000 square
feet to allow the zoning commission to review and revise its regulations.
Town Attorney Kenneth Slater said the town will work with
Murphy and Danberg to tighten the language in their proposal. The commission is
scheduled to receive the updated language at its May 18 meeting, as well as
discuss the moratorium and set a public hearing for June 15.
During the discussion, Commissioner John Sarantopoulos said,
“There’s a lot of people in town that probably think we should leave it (the
regulations) as is.”
“Everybody should have a chance to come in here … state what
they feel and we could go forward,” Sarantopoulos said.
Commissioners noted that the town previously imposed a
moratorium on subdivisions in order to rewrite the town's regulations regarding
those developments. Any future rewrites of the warehouse regulations would
require additional public hearings as part of a separate amendment process.
While the moratorium would stall new warehouse proposals, it
would not impact the existing proposals for the Amazon fulfillment center and
the warehouses on Putnam Pike.
Town attorney offers legal guidance
Given that the project site for the proposed Amazon
warehouse sits on 360 acres within the town’s business park, the development
only needs to pass a site plan review to receive approval from the commission.
Slater explained that site plan reviews leave commissioners
with little to no discretion when deciding whether to approve a permit.
“Generally speaking, a site plan review is not
discretionary," Slater said. “It’s just making sure all the boxes are
checked, I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed. And if they are, your commission’s
obligated to issue an approval."
“It’s not a popularity contest,” Slater later added. “If
it’s completely compliant with the regulations, it doesn’t matter if you have a
thousand people against it. If it’s not in compliance with the regulation, it
doesn’t matter if you have a thousand people for it. … You have to apply the
regulations the way that they’re drafted.”
During the meeting, Alternate Commissioner Lorraine LaGarde
argued that the commission has the power to deny applications that impact the
health and safety of the town.
“I think we have to look at the whole picture because we are
here to make the town better and that’s our obligation,” LaGarde said.
Slater said that while that principle should guide
commission members when drafting regulations and rule changes, when it comes to
approving or denying proposed developments, “there’s no principle that you can
override what your regulations say because you don’t believe it’s good for the
town” because it is assumed that “health and safety is built into” the existing
regulations.
To illustrate his point, Slater said that if an application
for a fast food restaurant fits all the zoning criteria, commissioners could
not reject the project because they believed more access to fast food would
increase obesity in town.
LaGarde and other residents criticized Slater for the
statement, which they described as a “sad comparison” to the situation at hand.
Councilwoman Ulla Tiik-Barclay argued that Slater’s legal
judgment should be treated as an opinion, not as fact.
“The people are at the top of the chain of command in
Killingly," she added. “Commissioners are appointed by the town council.
They are here to do the will of the people. The people are at the top."
Slater’s comments suggested that residents' opinions could
have greater sway with the 90 Putnam Pike application, which requires a special
permit to move forward.
Slater said that the commission has more administrative
discretion over those types of applications.
He said that state law recognizes that certain classes of
land use can be considered on a case-by-case basis within a zone. In those
cases, Slater said the commission can apply a “more discretionary set of
standards” that considers surrounding land uses, property values, traffic
patterns and other neighborhood impacts before approving or denying an
application.
Slater said special permits also require a public hearing
where “members of the public should be heard about whether that particular
location is appropriate.”
“You’re not making up the rules, … you’re applying the
rules, but by their nature, the special permit rules have more discretion built
into them,” he said.
Earlier this month, the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses
Commission voted
3-2 to approve the wetlands proposal for the 90 Putnam Pike development.
On Monday, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted
unanimously to hire a third-party to review the application. A public hearing
is tentatively scheduled for May 18.
Middletown pivots stalled Riverside project to focus on downtown parking
MIDDLETOWN — The city is not letting the uncertainty about
a complicated project stop them from trying to solve an immediate
need. Namely: public parking.
At the urging of the downtown business community, the city
is moving ahead with the municipal parking component of the Village
at Riverside site even thought the larger --"more ambitious
development” — is in limbo.
The initial, mixed-use project proposed
by Spectra Construction & Development Corp. in 2022 called for a
block-sized, multilevel housing and retail complex that would include a public
square and pedestrian walkways in full view of the Connecticut River.
The
site is located between deKoven Drive and Main Street, behind police
headquarters.
The Village at Riverside was initially billed as
a public-private partnership.
“The city’s vision has evolved in light of the delays we
have experienced in trying to bring the arcade project to life,” General
Counsel Brig Smith said Monday.
The priority now, Smith added, is to realize a “more limited
vision that could still allow for future private development on, or adjacent
to, the site, but that would require the developer to provide its own
parking.”
The former, multilevel arcade lot was demolished
in late 2018 after crumbling concrete and other hazards necessitated
its closure.
In late 2024, the city
paid $3 million for the Attention to Detail property at 195 Dekoven
Drive, which abuts the city-owned property at 60 Dingwall Drive and 222 Main
St.
The deal included ATD leasing the property for $1 a month
for 18 months, which will be up in June, according to Director of Economic and
Community Development Christine Marques.
The city now owns the property from the back of the police
station on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way all the way to deKoven Drive,
she said.
Demolition of the ATD building, slated for later this
summer, Smith said, would provide more public parking in the short term “while
our other, longer-term parking initiatives take hold.”
The full project has “slowed down” due to multiple factors,
according to Mayor Gene Nocera, including the economy at the local, state and
national levels.
Instead of proceeding with the larger vision, he said,
“we’re looking to reverse the plan and start with option C, to just
develop the arcade with the full potential to further expand upon it, which to
us, makes perfect sense now.”
It may or may not include Spectra, Nocera added: “It
depends on the CEO of that company.”
Local business owners are eager to move ahead with the
arcade, Smith said.
“We have listened to feedback from the downtown business
community, and the prevailing sentiment is that addressing downtown parking
needs in the near future is a higher priority than continuing to piece together
a more ambitious development,” Smith said.
“The feedback we have received is that the perfect should
not be the enemy of the good,” he continued.
Eventually, the city would also like to have a
housing/retail component, Marques said.
The cost for the parking garage would be “substantially
reduced,” Smith said, because it would no longer need to be built to support
the load of a development atop it.
The city is still working on concepts and costs for a
garage, he added.
“I’ve supported this for some time, but if we’re stymied by
the comprehensive plan, let’s reverse it and move it in phases. That is
achievable,” Nocera said.
Also in response to community feedback, officials are
looking into adding a second-floor deck to the Melilli Plaza lot to increase
its capacity, Smith said.
It would be located at the north side of the lot, which
faces Washington Street, Marques said, and create an additional 87 or so
spots. Right now, the lot has 250 spaces.
The city is not looking for a new developer at this point
for the rest of the project, Smith said.
“We are currently focused on the public infrastructure
components — (parking and demolition) — before determining the next
steps,” he said.
Developer proposes solar facility over Bradley Airport employee parking lot
WINDSOR LOCKS — A solar developer has proposed a new
"carport" facility on top of an existing parking lot at Bradley
International Airport.
West
Hartford-based solar developer Verogy, through its subsidiary Windsor Locks
Solar One LLC, has filed a petition with the
Connecticut Siting Council seeking a declaratory ruling to allow
construction of a 3-megawatt solar photovoltaic electric generating
facility at Bradley
International Airport. Plans filed with the Siting Council on
Friday show 8,064 solar panels to
be installed on canopy structures over Parking Lot 5C, a 0.32-acre
employee parking lot owned by the Connecticut Airport Authority that
is accessed from Light Lane and borders Ella Grasso Turnpike/Route 75.
The petition, filed on Friday, comes not long after Bradley
finished a
$250 million overhaul of the airport that began
three years ago.
Verogy representatives said in a narrative included with the
petition that, if approved, the project would begin construction in spring 2027
and take approximately six months to complete, with construction activities
occurring between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and between 9 a.m.
and 5 p.m. on Sunday. Construction would be phased, allowing employees to use
the parking lot throughout the process.
The Siting Council will accept comments on the plan
from state agencies, municipal governments, and the general public until May
17. The council's current deadline to approve a final decision is Oct. 14.
A fact sheet for the project from Verogy's website states
that the "zero pollution" solar facility would generate some 4.6
million kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power 461 homes annually, in
addition to offsetting the equivalent of 3,099 metric tons of carbon dioxide
every year.
The narrative states that the project was selected for a
tariff agreement as part of the state's Shared Clean Energy Facility program,
and completion of the facility would result in credits for participating
customers including low- and moderate-income households, municipal governments
and small businesses.
Verogy said other benefits of the project include
increasing Connecticut's solar capacity without disrupting prime
farmland, reducing costs for customers across the state by reducing energy
demand during peak usage, providing covered parking, and increasing municipal
tax revenue with no burden on services.
Verogy said in its narrative that the planned facility's
solar panels and inverters have an anticipated service life of 35 years, after
which it would be decomissioned.
State Demands, Snarled Traffic in Old Lyme Debated, as Private Beaches Move Ahead with Sewers
OLD LYME — As sewer construction moves ahead
in three of the town’s private beach communities, likely snarling summer
traffic along Shore Road, local officials reached for alternatives to satisfy a
roughly decade-old state demand to replace about 200 septic systems in Sound
View and neighboring properties.
At a meeting Tuesday, the town’s Water Pollution Control
Authority again debated possible ways to unwind agreements with
the Old Colony, Miami Beach and Old Lyme Shores Beach Associations — and with
the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection which has warned Old
Lyme officials that the agency would not back away from demands for sewers.
The effort comes after turnover, unfilled vacancies and a
wave of resignations in February from
the town authority as local officials abandoned the town’s portion of the
project in the face of soaring costs and broad opposition to
the state’s demands for installing sewers.
Tuesday’s meeting opened with two officials from Ledge Light
Health District outlining the regional health department’s role in
enforcing health codes for the neighborhood’s septic systems — speaking as if
the sewer project would proceed as planned.
“We have to enforce the Connecticut public health code and
the applicable technical standards,” said Jen Maggio, Ledge Light’s director of
health. “And those provide us with some kind of guardrails around where we can
make limited exceptions when sewer projects are coming online and when we
can’t.”
But members of the town’s Water Pollution Control Authority
reiterated that they were opposed to installing sewers and would make efforts
to convince state environmental officials to allow the town to pursue
alternatives to sewering Sound View.
Vice Chair Dennis Melluzzo pushed back that neighboring
states had approved alternative and advanced septic systems with success and,
he said, “have seen a lot less pollution.”
The Ledge Light officials acknowledged positives and
negatives with those systems, but said that current legislation did not allow
for “alternative technologies.”
After those health officials departed, members of the town’s
Water Pollution Control Authority discussed a Monday meeting of the private
beach association WPCAs, which for the first time was open to the public.
“It’s a very important step because that’s huge for us that
those meetings are now open to the public,” Authority Chair Mary Daley said.
“It really is.”
With the meetings now open to the public, town authority
members said they were able to attend and get a clearer picture of the
associations’ work and the progress of the sewer project.
Laura Parent, the authority’s treasurer, told members that
during the meeting Old Colony Beach Association Chairman Doug Whalen expressed
his wish for Old Lyme to be part of the project.
Daley reiterated that the results of the December referendum
— when over 70 percent of voters rejected plans to increase borrowing to pay
for higher-than-anticipated costs — sent a clear message that residents did not
want to move ahead with the town’s portion of the project.
“The town said no. They said no,” Daley said. “So now it’s
between the town and DEEP to say, ‘listen, will you talk with us and what else
could we possibly do at this point.’”
Parent said the cost-sharing agreement for shared sewer
infrastructure — which the town signed in 2020 — was also raised at the
meeting.
Daley said the town was currently evaluating the agreement
to see whether it was legally binding.
Construction slated to take place this summer along Shore
Road (Route 156) was also a hot-button topic as seasonal residents and renters
have begun to return.
“That is going to be chaos for the town,” WPCA member Bill
Reynolds warned. “I am just baffled by that.”
Discussion turned toward the town’s selectmen having a voice
in the matter.
“I think the selectmen should try to get involved in this
because as soon as Memorial Day, the traffic is going to be increased,”
Melluzzo said. “And also, they don’t have enough policemen now to handle what
they have, never mind hiring flaggers and stuff like that.”
But First Selectman Martha Shoemaker, who attended the
meeting, told the group that there was nothing she could do.
“It’ll be a little tight,” she said. “And you won’t want to
take that scenic route home, but you’ll find some cut-throughs.”