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A
BRIEF HISTORY
Griswold Airport opened for business in 1931 in its
current location, between Route 1 and the Hammonasset
River in Madison.
The property is situated directly adjacent to Hammonasset State Park, on the edge of the tidal
wetlands.
In fact, the southern end of the runway (to your left,
above) is frequently under water at high tide (see
picture).
The Griswold
family offered to sell the land to the town of Madison
in 1985, and many were in favor of the purchase,
but it never came to pass. In November 2000,
Leyland Development Corporation of New York obtained an
option to purchase the land, and submitted plans for a
260-unit housing development on the 22 buildable acres
of the 42 acre site. Many citizens from Madison
and other Connecticut towns were opposed to Leyland's
proposal, and consequently SGOD was formed to fight it.
Among our earliest
activities was bringing in experts to educate the
Planning & Zoning Commission (PZC) regarding the
environmental and economic problems that would result
from the building of this massive housing project.
Despite our efforts, and the vigorous opposition from a
majority of Madison's citizens, the PZC stunned many in
the town by voting 5-4 to approve this ill-conceived
zoning change, which allowed for the "Madison Landing"
development to be built on the Griswold
Airport site.
After the initial
zoning was approved, a group of local citizens entered a lawsuit
against the Town of Madison, charging it with an illegal zoning
change. SGOD supported this admirable effort.
Unfortunately, the lawsuit ultimately failed not on the
merits of the case, but because the courts ruled that
the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the suit.
This contention was challenged all the way to the
Connecticut Supreme Court.
At the same time,
grassroots opposition to the development rapidly
mounted, led by SGOD. The opposition, from SGOD, the DEP, Attorney General
Richard Blumenthal, and numerous environmental groups,
including the Audubon Society, Connecticut Fund for the
Environment, the Madison Land Conservation Trust,
and Save the Sound, Inc., was so strenuous that Leyland withdrew its original
proposal.
The developer,
newly renamed LeylandAlliance, returned in the fall of
2003 with a revised proposal, to build 131 units on the
Griswold Airport site. They had responded to some
of the objections to the initial site plan, but still
intended to cram an average of six housing units onto
each acre of land, and use a massive wastewater disposal
system that had never been tested on a similar flood
plain, adjacent to sensitive tidal wetlands.
Public hearings on
the new site plan began in January 2004, and were well
attended by citizens and their representative experts.
On May 25, in a preliminary vote, the PZC voted 5-4
against the proposal. Three days later, at a
meeting announced with only 24 hours notice, scheduled
at 4:30pm on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day
weekend, the PZC took their final vote and approved the
plan by a 8-1 margin. Many citizens were taken
aback by the way the meeting was scheduled, and by the
sudden change of heart of four members of
the PZC. The reversal was never adequately
explained.
In June 2004,
Leyland submitted its first application for its
wastewater treatment plan to the DEP. The report
was prepared by Leyland's engineering firm, BL Companies
of Meriden, CT. The DEP subsequently raised many questions
about the accuracy of this application, as did
MIT-trained hydrogeologist
Robert Schreiber, who had testified on behalf of SGOD
during the zoning hearings.
For the next two
years, while experts at the DEP and those hired by SGOD
continued to expose flaws in Leyland's proposed
Amphidrome Plus wastewater treatment system, Leyland
continued to sing the praises of the system, repeatedly emphasizing
that it was the state-of-the-art, and that it was only a
matter of time before the DEP would see the light and
approve the application. But the DEP never did.
In
two years, despite its considerable financial resources,
Leyland was not able to generate a credible proposal to
support the safety of its wastewater plan.
Such a long delay at the DEP is unusual.
On May 31, 2006,
Leyland Alliance announced that it had changed its
application with the DEP, substituting a different
wastewater system called the Zenon system in
place of the Amphidrome Plus system. In its announcement, Leyland insulted the DEP and the intelligence
of all who have followed this issue, by stating:
"The Amphidrome Plus system is a very good system,
providing more than adequate protection and capability
for a residential application like Madison Landing.
The Zenon system is even better."
If Amphidrome Plus was such a good
system, why did the DEP withhold its approval for two
entire years?
Needless to say, SGOD immediately had grave doubts
about Leyland's claim that it had found a new "state-of-the-art" system to
replace the woefully inadequate Amphidrome Plus system that it
swore was
state-of-the art for the prior two years. Now we
have data to prove that the Zenon system is no better.
Despite our advocacy, on December 14, 2006 the DEP
issued a "tentative determination" to
approve the Zenon wastewater permit. This is not
the final word, however. SGOD immediately filed an appeal of
the DEP's tentative approval of this permit.
The next step in the process was hearings conducted by
the DEP to address SGOD's appeal. These began April 11,
2007 with a
public hearing in Madison, and continued with eight
additional days of technical and legal testimony in May
presented by SGOD, the developer, and the DEP.
See
The Issues Today for a
detailed discussion of the Zenon system, and
the status of Leyland's wastewater permit application.
On February 9,
2007, LeylandAlliance exercised their option to purchase
the Griswold Airport property. We hope, of course,
that this ownership will be temporary, and that
eventually LeylandAlliance will sell the land for
environmental conservation. See
the
Is This Fight Over?
page on the website for further details.
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