"For the first time in Connecticut's long running drought, the Metropolitan District has issued a drought advisory to its 400,000 water customers......" |
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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
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
"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:
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.
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.
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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