Proposed CT gas line project roils new debate. It’s amid politics over role of natural gas in energy
The town of Brookfield is
leading another challenge to a tentative state decision approving a natural gas
expansion project that would increase the volume of gas flowing through
Connecticut to the New York metropolitan area.
The town’s opposition — along with that of its backers in
the environmental movement — is directed at an application by pipeline operator
Iroquois Gas Transmission System to install two additional compressors at an existing
station in Brookfield in order to increase gas flow by something less than 10
percent without having to expand the size of the pipeline.
Brookfield’s concern — there has been local opposition of some sort since the
compressor station was built two decades ago — is whether the operation of the
new, gas-fired compressors will produce emissions with unhealthy levels of
airborne pollutants such as greenhouse gases and contributors to higher ozone
levels.
The local fight is taking place amid a wider and increasingly political debate over what role — if any — natural gas has in the New England scheme of energy generation, where demand is forecast to increase and electric rates continue to rise. Gas advocates argue it is a relatively clean, plentiful and inexpensive fuel and pipeline access to New England should be expanded. Critics have written it off as an unhealthy, climate-damaging fossil fuel.
Iroquois touched off the latest local debate when it
proposed expanding the compressor station, which is located in a crowded part
of town and about 1,900 feet from a middle school.
Brookfield, with support from local and national
environmental groups, lined up in opposition and demanded several months ago
that the state Department
of Energy and Environmental Protection convene a hearing that could
have killed the proposal.
DEEP denied the request for an adjudicatory hearing, but
collected hundreds of comments from opponents at a public hearing. Last last
month, after weighing the comments and hearing from Iroquois, the department
revised the emissions restrictions it is proposing for permits that would allow
the new compressors to operate.
Under the revisions, the state will more closely monitor emission of gases that contribute to higher ozone levels. At the same time, DEEP proposes to ease restrictions on emission of the greenhouse gas carbon monoxide.
DEEP said Iroquois expressed concern it could not deliver
gas in sufficient quantities without easing of the carbon monoxide, or CO
limit. Even with the upgrade, DEEP said in a memo that “the proposed upgrade is
expected to reduce overall CO emissions from the facility compared with its
current operations.”
Since its proposed easing of the carbon monoxide emission
standard took place after the initial round of public comments, DEEP
published notice
of its more permissive limit and initiated a new, month-long public
comment period that expired last week.
The environmental groups Save the Sound and
the Sierra Club dispute the DEEP conclusions. In addition, Save the Sound has
petitioned DEEP for an adjudicatory hearing. DEEP is expected to decide on such
a hearing by October.
“These draft permits do not comply with the applicable
regulations in several respects,” said Save the Sound lawyer Gabriel Slaughter.
“In addition, they would allow not only for a massive increase in greenhouse
gas emissions, but also increased emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which
will lead to higher ozone levels in nearby neighborhoods, harming the health of
Brookfield residents and across Fairfield County.”
The state chapter of the Sierra Club said the project, if
allowed to go forward by DEEP, would make the Brookfield compressor station
“the largest in New England.”
“None of the methane gas from this expansion is intended for
Connecticut, yet our Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has
tentatively approved revised permits, asking us for a second time to breathe
all the pollution and assume all the risk” said Samantha Dynowski, director the
the Sierra Club Connecticut chapter.
Officials in Brookfield are taking a less antagonistic
approach. First Selectman Stephen C. Dunn said he has spoken with Gov. Ned
Lamont, about reaching some sort compromise with Iroquois. Lamont has been
supportive of efforts to increase the availability of natural gas in New
England, a subject on which political observers said he disagreed with former
DEEP commissioner Katie Dykes, who recently resigned.
“The governor agreed with me when we met that our requests
are not outrageous,” Dunn said. “We are not saying, ‘Don’t do it.’ We
don’t want people freezing on Long Island. What we are asking for is
reasonable, in my opinion and in the opinions of our residents.”
Dunn said Brookfield wants is more rigorous emissions
testing.
“Iroquois is testing for pollutants at times of peak
(compressor) efficiency.,” Dunn said. “But these motors don’t operate at peak
efficiency 100 percent of the time. Sometimes the gas compressors will run at
20 percent of capacity. Sometimes at 80. It depends on demand down stream.”
And as importantly, Dunn said the town wants Iroquois to
consider the replacement of natural gas-fired compressors with emission free
electric compressors, something that he admits would increase the cost of the
$275 million project by tens of millions of dollars. If spread access Iroquois
customer base, Dunn said the increase is negligible.
The technology used to power electric gas compressors
involves gas-powered fuel cells similar to one operated by the town of
Colchester. The cells use an electrochemical process to produce electricity
from natural gas without combustion.
A DEEP memo shows that it asked Iroquois to evaluate the use
of electric compressors as part of the permit application process. The
department said Iroquois estimated it would cost from $45 to $50 million in
on-site and off-site infrastructure to install electric compressors and the
process could take “up to 3 years.”
Save the Sound claims the added compressor capacity will
generate an $500 million in new revenue a year for Iroquois by allowing it to
deliver an additional 125 million cubic feet of gas daily from Canada to to its
New York customers.
Iroquois did not respond to questions about its Brookfield
generator plans.
Slaughter said Save the Sound believes electric compressors
could be part of a compromise in the Brookfield debate.
State Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, a Brookfield
Republican who attended the middle school located near the compressor station,
said an agreement by Iroquois on electric compressors could reduce opposition.
“I think it is a workable solution,” he said. “It would
reduce the emissions significantly and I think you would see objections
significantly reduced. And it would be viewed as a sign of flexibility on the
part of flexibility on part of Iroquois.
“That’s the problem. There hasn’t been any movement, there
hasn’t been any compromise. Basically they put their application in as is.
Concerns have been raised and nothing has been negotiated or even discussed.”
Harding said he supports adding more natural gas to the
state and regional energy mix, but complained that, other than diverting a
relatively small amount of gas to the southern part of the state, Iroquois
provides little benefit to Connecticut.
'There was an oversight': Why a $2.5M CT bridge needs a $3.4M fix a few years after it was built
OLD SAYBROOK — Eight and a half inches may not sound
like much. But raising a roadway by that amount and completing other work to
jack up a bridge over a creek here is expected to cost the state about $3.4
million.
A team of Connecticut Department of
Transportation engineers came to Old Saybrook Town
Hall on Thursday to explain why the agency plans to raise
the bridge that carries Route 154 over Plum Bank Creek. The project,
expected to take place in 2028, will force drivers to take a 4-mile detour for
multiple weeks.
Residents are familiar with the detour route. It’s the same
one they used when the bridge was built five years ago at a cost of
about $2.5 million.
DOT engineers told a group of about 15 people who attended
the public meeting in person at Town Hall and others online that the problem is
the underside of the new bridge is lower than the old one — a difference that
wasn't flagged until after construction.
Now, DOT needs to raise the structure to “restore
navigational and recreational access” to the creek, or else it will be running
afoul of state statute, according to the team’s presentation.
“There was an oversight as far as this being navigable
water,” said project manager Jonathan Kempf. “That was just missed… After it
was constructed, it was brought up to us that this one was lower than existing.
Then we went back, we looked at it and we saw, yes, this is lower than it
should be.”
Principal engineer Andrew Cardinali said no one person was
to blame.
“The plans themselves and every level of the work that goes
into it is handled by multiple offices,” Cardinali said. “The original
elevation was not shown on the plan. So when you did not have that there, the
checks and balances were not there to actually catch that… We've instituted new
checks and balances to make sure that this doesn't happen again.”
Asked why it will cost more to raise the structure than it
cost to build it, project engineer Raymond Basar said the bridge needs to be
cut away from its supports, which requires “significant expertise.”
Derick Lessard, the chief of DOT’s bridges division, added
that inflation is also a factor.
“I'm not just saying that for an excuse,” Lessard said.
“We've seen the price of our projects triple in the state.”
The current 43-foot-long, 36-foot-wide bridge replaced a
decades-old structure that was in “horrible shape,” Basar said.
Basar and the other engineers said DOT faced several
challenges when designing the new bridge. For one, concrete struts were
previously built within the channel between the old bridge’s supports. To
lessen the impact of construction on the waterway, the old supports and struts
were kept in place, and the supports of the new bridge were built to the left
and right of the old ones.
As a result, the new bridge is about three times as long as
the old bridge, the engineers said. To support the longer span, the new bridge
needed to be about a foot thicker than the one it was replacing.
The plans to raise the bridge made no sense to Old Saybrook
resident Mike Cameron.
“Why would we spend that kind of money, and make so many
people have to change their routes and their lives to raise that bridge 8.5
inches, so maybe a couple of kayakers can go under there at high tide?” Cameron
asked.
“We understand your frustration,” said Lessard, the bridges
division chief. “We’re not happy to be here.”
But, Lessard said, the agency must follow state statutes,
which say that coastal highway improvements may “in no case decrease coastal
access and recreational opportunities.”
It was unclear what kinds of watercraft pass, or used to
pass, under the bridge and how often.
Several attendees had the same question for the engineering
team: If DOT is going to raise the bridge, why not raise it even higher than
the old bridge to account for rising sea levels?
“I grew up here. I’ve been on this beach for 73 years, and
when I was a kid, we used to be able to get boats with windshields under that
bridge,” said Scott Loveland. “You can barely get a kayak under those bridges
now, so the problem is just going to be duplicated. I mean, you're not going to
be able to have navigation up that marshland in the future.”
But the engineers said raising the bridge higher would
increase the impact on the tidal wetlands.
“We're looking for the most cost efficient, least impact,
and that's how we came to this proposal,” Kempf said.
An average of about 3,600 vehicles travel over the bridge
each day, according to the engineering team’s presentation. The bridge and
roadway work will require the road to be closed for about eight to 10 weeks.
The current plan is for that closure to occur in fall 2028, after Labor Day.
The road may also need to be closed for two to three weeks
while overhead utility lines and a water main are temporarily relocated. That
closure would happen in spring 2028, before Memorial Day, so no work takes
place during beach season.
When the discussion turned to whether the statute on coastal
access could be changed, eyes turned to one person sitting in the room, state
Rep. Devin Carney, whose district includes Old Saybrook
Carney, who decided not to run for reelection this year,
encouraged attendees to ask state lawmakers to review the statute after they
are sworn in for new terms in early 2027.
“When the legislative session begins in January, you will
have a new state representative,” he said. “I don't know who your state senator
is going to be. I don't know who the governor is going to be. But that would be
the time to think about policy changes regarding this statute.”
Stamford Hospital Advances $275 Million Plan for New Cancer Center, Behavioral Health Expansion
Eric Obernaurer
STAMFORD — Stamford Hospital’s plans for a new
cancer center, expanded behavioral health facility, and a new multilevel
parking garage have taken a major step forward following the Planning Board’s
approval of a zoning change and special permit tied to the hospital’s proposed
redevelopment.
The $275 million project will substantially reshape the
hospital’s Bennett Medical Center campus to include construction of a new
73,000-square-foot cancer center — more than double the size of the hospital’s
existing cancer center — and an accompanying 355-space parking structure. Both
will be built on the southwest corner of the hospital grounds near West Broad
Street and Stillwater Avenue.
The hospital’s behavioral health services, in turn, will be
relocated to the existing cancer center adjacent to the primary hospital
structure once the new cancer center is complete.
The additional parking will be offset slightly by the
elimination of some other existing spaces that will give way to the new
construction. Still, the combined work will result in a net increase of
available spaces from the current 1,400 spaces to approximately 1,700 once the
project is complete.
The Van Munching Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit, currently
located in the oldest building on the Bennett Medical Center campus, will also
be moved to a new location in existing space on the fourth floor of Stamford
Hospital nearer to the hospital’s other neuroscience programs. The new unit is
planned to have 20 private rooms with advanced specialized treatment and
recreational areas for brain injury, neurosurgical and spinal patients.
Stamford Health, the nonprofit corporation that owns the
305-bed hospital, has not yet said if it intends to demolish or repurpose the
rehabilitation center’s existing building once it is vacated.
The full project still requires additional approvals by the
Zoning Board, which will hear the remainder of the application once a proposed
site plan is submitted over the next few months.
In the meantime, to enable the work to proceed, the Planning
Board approved a zoning change for portions of the hospital’s Stillwater Avenue
frontage from a “village commercial” to a “hospital complex design district”
designation. The change will allow the hospital to use portions of that area
for temporary parking — which will be shielded by a landscaped 20-foot buffer —
once the other work gets underway.
“We want to make sure that everyone who needs a parking
space at the hospital has a parking space because while construction of the
cancer center and other pieces of this project are underway, there will be
fewer parking spaces. So, having these parking spaces on Stillwater Avenue
during that construction period will be important,” said Jay Klein, one of two
attorneys representing the hospital.
The Planning Board also imposed conditions on its approval
including removal of the temporary parking along Stillwater Avenue once the new
parking structure is complete. Doing so, Klein said, could eventually enable
that space to be repurposed for another use such as a neighborhood retail
facility or housing for some of the hospital’s staff.
Lisa Feinberg, Klein’s law partner, emphasized that the
parking along Stillwater Avenue — while potentially annoying to nearby
residents — is not intended for the long term. “It’s just part of the process,”
she said. “A hospital is different from any other type of business and has to
operate 24/7 every single day of the year. It can’t say ‘sorry, we’re closed
today.’ It has to stay open, and we need this flexibility in order to ensure
that can happen.”
To ameliorate the already crowded parking situation for
those who work in that part of the city, the board — at the urging of Planning
Board Chair Jennifer Godzeno — also agreed to require the hospital to submit an
updated transportation demand management plan. The plan would seek to reduce
the number of hospital employees who drive to work by incentivizing them to get
to work by carpooling, mass transit, or other means.
“We will never be able to pave our way out of our parking
issues, but given Stamford Hospital’s position as a major employer, I believe
there is an opportunity here for us to address the existing parking constraints
by encouraging its employees to travel by means other than single-occupancy
vehicle,” Godzeno said.
The multiyear project will proceed in phases.
Liz Longmore, Stamford Health’s executive vice president and
chief operating officer, told CT Examiner that work on the new
rehabilitation unit is expected to begin in early spring 2027 and take about a
year.
Construction of the new cancer center and parking garage
will begin later next spring or in the early summer of 2027 and take
approximately two years, Longmore said.
The final phase — which will consist of converting the
existing cancer center to a behavioral health facility — will commence after
all the other work is complete and take about 18 months, with a projected
completion date around the beginning of 2031.
Cancer center
The hospital has described the overall project as a
multiyear effort to modernize its facilities and expand services.
The new cancer center alone will be more than twice the size
of the existing 35,000-square-foot center, which Longmore said will enable
Stamford Health to increase capacity and provide a more patient-centered
experience.
With the expanded facility, the hospital will also be
positioned to continue pioneering new therapies and treatments through its
partnership with Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center in Boston, she said.
Examples cited by Longmore include the use of a newly
approved new drug to treat pancreatic cancer, a new high-intensity ultrasound
tool to treat prostate cancer, and a specialized form of immunotherapy capable
of modifying a patient’s own immune cells in a laboratory to find and destroy
cancer cells.
“Our existing cancer center has been renovated many times,
and we have outgrown it. Our new, larger center will give our clinicians a
facility that is better equipped to care for more patients and introduce the
most advanced treatments,” Longmore said.
Behavioral health
Stamford Health has characterized behavioral health as the
community’s most pressing unmet health need, based on its most recent Community
Health Needs Assessment.
By repurposing its existing cancer center to meet this need,
the hospital is looking to more than triple the space available for behavioral
health services — from the current 11,000 square feet to approximately 35,000
square feet across two floors.
With the expanded space, Stamford Health plans to add a
partial hospitalization program and outpatient interventional psychiatric
services, Longmore said.
The project will also enable the hospital to continue
building on other recent initiatives including the opening of its first
outpatient behavioral health clinic in 2024 and newly dedicated crisis services
for children and teens, she said.
Financing
At a time when hospitals and healthcare institutions have
undergone significant consolidation, Stamford Health — as one of Connecticut’s
remaining independent health systems — remains something of an outlier in its
ability not just to maintain that status but to finance a project of this
scale.
To do so, Stamford Health has received approval for $200
million in tax-exempt bonds through the Connecticut Health and Educational
Facilities Authority, which facilitates tax-exempt borrowing for eligible
healthcare and educational institutions.
Michael Veillette, Stamford Health’s senior vice president
and chief financial officer, told CT Examiner the remaining $75
million will come from philanthropy and from reinvesting some of Stamford
Health’s ongoing operating funds.
To support the project, Stamford Health said its foundation
is also planning a major fundraising campaign.
Route 161 reconstruction begins for I-95 project in East Lyme
Gianni Salisbury
East Lyme — Route 161 reconstruction has begun as the I-95
construction project completes its last phase.
The reconstruction began Tuesday, Aug. 25, with the town
warning drivers that both northbound and southbound lanes of Route 161 will be
covered with gravel between Old Frontage Road and the Starbucks area for about
10 days. The town advised drivers to slow down while traveling through the
construction zone.
The work, which is a "full-depth roadway
reconstruction," comes as the $148 million I-95 reconstruction project
works to complete its final stage after more than three years of construction.
The project, which began in 2023, is expected to be
completed by November, according to Connecticut Department of Transportation
engineers. The project is designed to improve safety and traffic flow along
I-95 between Exits 74 and 75.
The final stage has included a traffic shift that moves I-95
traffic into the new permanent southbound lanes and a reconfiguration of the
Exit 75 southbound ramp.
The changes
give drivers more time to slow down before exiting the highway, according
to project engineers. The DOT entered into the final stage of the project in
July. Previously the project also included the replacement of the I-95 bridge.
The Route 161 reconstruction is one of the last remaining
jobs before the project is completed. Large portions of Route 161 are scheduled
to be milled and paved in October.
The DOT said on its website
that drivers should also expect continued nighttime lane closures on I-95 in
both directions. According to the project's traffic detour information,
closures are scheduled Sunday through Thursday from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. within the
project limits between Exits 74 and 75.
The project remains on budget and on schedule for completion
in November, as of April. The budget had increased by about $10 million since
construction began.
The project also includes speed cameras on both sides of
I-95. The cameras issue warnings and citations to vehicles traveling at least
15 mph over the speed limit. The speed limit in the construction zone in 50
mph.
The I-95 project is expected to wrap up after the final
construction activities this fall, ending the three year project.
Project information and current traffic updates are
available on the Connecticut Department of Transportation's I-95 East Lyme
project website.