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MDC Issues Water Restrictions

12/23/2016

 

"For the first time in Connecticut's long running drought, the Metropolitan District has issued a drought advisory to its 400,000 water customers......"
just as the Niagara bottling plant is set to open.

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See the Hartford Courant on Dec 23, 2016:
www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-mdc-water-down-20161222-story.html

After months of below normal precipitation, MDC reservoirs have now fallen to 75% of their capacity, triggering the first drought advisory for MDC's 8 member towns.  Municipal governments in its  service area are being asked to cut down on non-essential water use such as street cleaning, municipal watering, and the washing of  town vehicles. Residents are not yet under water restrictions, but 5-10 Million gallons of extra water/day will be leaving the MDC reservoirs to aid New Britain.  A long-standing agreement for the MDC to aid New Britain in case of a water supply emergency is now being activated for the first time in decades. That additional water draw may trigger residential restrictions next spring if significant rainfall does not arrive. That could happen as early as May, when the MDC's reservoirs could be down to 53% capacity.

The MDC- with the largest state reservoir (Barkhamsted)- has begun publically recognizing its value as an essential water reserve for less water-rich parts of our state.  Though the state has often been viewed as one with a plentiful water supply, that concept has been drastically challenged this year.   83% of the state is now listed as being in severe or extreme drought.

How ironic that Niagara Bottling will being drawing water from the system for what has to be the most non-essential use of all:  sending single-serve water bottles out of the MDC watershed! Unfortunately for state residents, Niagara's bottling operation will be  immune from mandatory water restrictions until MDC reservoir's are at 10% of capacity!  That's all the protection our current DPH drought policy provides us. There's no permit required for Niagara's water draw nor any time limitation, so their corporate profits will essentially be prioritized over municipal and residential uses.  Time for a change in state water policy!

D.E.E.P. Hearing Tuesday Dec 20th at 9:30AM on Diversion Permit Regulations

12/17/2016

 

An important public hearing
will be held on Tuesday Dec 20th at 9:30 AM at DEEP's 79 Elm St. offices.  Up for public comment will be a proposed regulation concerning Water Diversion Exemptions, identified by Tracking Number: PR2016-053.
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Currently a Water Utility Co-ordinating Committee (W.U.C.C.) process is underway on a state level, in which water utilities are laying claim to "Exclusive Service Areas" (ESAs).  In any given ESA, only the single water utility of record will be able to provide public drinking water service.  Previously unclaimed areas of the state are up for grabs as are areas where current water suppliers are relinquishing their current claims.  Water utilitites wish to be able to move water into or out of these newly expanded "ESA's" without the need for the diversion permits, which necessitate environmental reviews. Without the need for environmental review, streams can be sucked dry or new water pipelines can be extended to areas far beyond where they were originally intended.

SaveOurWaterCT is in support of the proposed amendment to  section 22a-377(b)-1 of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies to eliminate the exemption for use of registered water throughout an Exclusive Service Area.  Essentially, water utilitites that expand their ESAs "will no longer be exempt from environmental permitting when they move water into newly ballooning and merged exclusive service areas" (see Rivers Alliance:  www.riversalliance.org/Topics/Streamflow.cfm#registrations ). 

Public comments will be accepted at the hearing or online until 4:30 pm on Dec 20th.  They can be made on line either via email (Corrine.Fitting@ct.gov) or through the eRegulations site at  eregulations.ct.gov/eRegsPortal/Search/RMRView/PR2016-053.  Click the "COMMENT NOW" button.  Please reference "Proposed Regulation Concerning Water Diversion Exemptions; Tracking Number PR2016-053 in your subject line on any emails. SUPPORT THE PROPOSED REGULATION.

Additional information on the new regulation is available at DEEP's website: www.ct.gov/deep/cwp/view.asp?a=4808&Q=588490&deepNav_GID=1511

Diversions are essentially withdrawals of water from streams, rivers, reservoirs, or well fields.  In 1982-3 over 1800 were "grandfathered" in, representing over 75% of all water taken in the state. Newer "takings" require a DEEP permit in order to ensure there is a proper balance of water use for humans, agriculture, aquatic environment, recreation, and industry. Currently these grandfathered diversions contain more water than actually exists in certain watersheds.  A way to review and wisely permit them is urgently needed as part of the state's water plan.  This proposed regulation covers a tiny slice of the problem, but is an important way to begin to re-gain control of the process.

MDC UNANIMOUSLY RESCINDS NIAGARA DISCOUNTS

12/8/2016

 

WE CALLED AND YOU ANSWERED!

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A standing room only crowd gave testimony on Monday evening Dec 5, 2016 during a public hearing prior to a vote of the commissioners on whether to rescind the "industrial water rate" and "special sewer service charge discount" set up last December to benefit        Niagara Bottling of CA.

The discounts would have kicked in once the private water bottling corporation used over 500,000 gallons of water per day, essentially incentivizing the large-volume super-user to use even more of the district's water.  Last year's rate structure would have given the bottling giant a nearly $2M/yr discount if all 4 bottling lines were open:  a 19% discount on water once the low rate was triggered and a nearly 80% discount on the special sewer service charge (aka the clean water project charge).  Meanwhile, resident's water rates and clean water project charges went up.  The discount would have applied only to Niagara this year, and was developed after email pleas by the corporation that doing business here  would require special incentives.

Water bottlers have come under fire recently for aggressively marketing single-serve bottles of water (often filled partly with re-packaged municipal water); for the environmental harm caused by billiions of long-lasting PET bottles littering the landfills, rivers, and oceans; and for the oil, water, and energy used in creating and transporting the heavy water bottles. Once one major water bottler was essentially invited into the state, and rewarded with attractive rates for Grade A CT water, fears mounted that more could follow in its steps.  Markets outside CT-such as the metro Boston area- have been one of the targets.  The shipment of water outside the state's watershed, especially during the most signficiant drought since the 1960's, is particularly problematic.

As water utilities struggle with debt service and the need to replace infrastructure, they have turned to selling more water as their primary tool for revenue enhancement, even while preaching conservation to their  residential consumers. Pricing structures utilizing "conservation pricing" and including infrastructure replacement reserves need to be developed and adopted for municipal water utilities in the state.

www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-mdc-discount-water-vote-1206-20161205-story.html

Overview of Current CT Water Issues

12/6/2016

 

 "Bottling Plant a Wake-Up Call on State Water": by Tom Condon (see Bio below)
   Reprinted from the CT Mirror  published on Dec 5, 2016

A year ago the Metropolitan District Commission, the Capitol region’s water and sewer agency, approved the sale of up to 1.8 million gallons of water a day, with a volume discount, to a water bottling plant to be built in Bloomfield by the California-based Niagara Bottling Co.

A lot of area residents didn’t see this coming, and when they learned of it, they were profoundly unhappy. 
Angry citizens and some legislators denounced the agency (and the Bloomfield Town Council) for a lack of transparency and poor judgment in giving a large amount of “our water” to an out-of-state corporation, an operation they say will induce considerable truck traffic and spew millions of plastic bottles a day into the waste stream. 

MDC officials said they have plenty of water, with industrial water consumption in a long decline, and so were doing the responsible thing by selling some of it to help keep costs down and help a member town add jobs. Critics countered by saying a vital natural resource shouldn’t be handed over in large quantity to an out-of-state corporation when local residents and businesses might need it someday, what with an uncertain climatic future.

As if to bolster the point, 2016 saw the state go into its worst drought since the 1960s. Opponents of the Niagara project were, and are, piqued at the thought of big trucks hauling away MDC water while they are being asked to conserve it.

And, the MDC’s challenging year has been further complicated by the possibility that its largest member town, Hartford, could go broke in 2017, putting a major financial burden on other towns to pay some or all of the capital city’s sewer bill.

The controversy raises two related issues:
  • Is the state’s water supply adequate and adequately protected and coordinated, especially in time of drought? Officials think so but aren’t sure. Two water planning processes are under way to answer those questions.
  • Is the MDC responsive to its member towns, and if not, can it be made more open and accountable? The MDC is poised to suspend the volume discount at its meeting today and to appoint a consumer advocate to improve transparency and communication with member towns.
No Water Plan For decades, Connecticut residents took water for granted. There hadn’t been a major drought since the 1960s, though there were smaller ones in the 1970s and early 1980s. The state was water-rich, or so went conventional wisdom, so no one thought much about it. People turned on the tap, nice clean water came out, life went on.

But several events in this century, here and across the country, have draw attention to the state’s water situation. The Bloomfield controversy was one, as was the Flint, Mich., water crisis which came to light in 2014. Two other state incidents involved the University of Connecticut.
In 2005, UConn pumped too much groundwater from its well fields, causing part of the nearby Fenton River to go dry.

This embarrassment — fish died — was a wake-up call; university officials embarked on an ambitious and successful water conservation program. But by late 2012, with expansions including a new industrial park, the school needed more water than its well fields could provide. Three providers expressed interest, including the MDC.

The MDC proposed piping water from East Hartford to Mansfield, a distance of almost 20 miles. This provoked opposition from residents of the Farmington Valley, who questioned whether piping water out of the Farmington River watershed, where the major MDC reservoirs are located, might have a negative effect on the river.

MDC officials said it wouldn’t, and that its reservoirs had plenty of excess water, but that didn’t resolve the dispute (though the MDC didn’t get the UConn contract). Critics decided to consult the state water plan to see if piping water halfway across the state was acceptable. They learned that there was no state water plan.

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