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THE ISSUES TODAY
ZONING
LeylandAlliance received approval in early 2004 from the Madison
Planning & Zoning Commission to build 127 housing units at the
airport site. They cannot build, however, until the
Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approves their wastewater treatment
plan. Furthermore, since Leyland altered their
proposal to Madison Planning & Zoning by substituting
the Zenon wastewater system for the Amphidrome Plus
system, they will need to return to Planning & Zoning to
receive approval for a modification to their permit
before any building could begin.
ECONOMICS
Supporters of Madison Landing have made many claims
about its potential economic benefits to the Town of
Madison, but these claims have been widely refuted.
It's not at
all clear that there will be any economic benefits to
anyone but LeylandAlliance. The economic disaster
for all Madison taxpayers if the wastewater system
fails, however, is undeniable.
Wastewater standards are mandated by state and federal
law, and a failure to comply with them would require
that an alternate wastewater treatment system be
implemented - at a cost of millions of dollars
to the taxpayers of Madison.
If the wastewater system fails after Leyland skips
town, Madison taxpayers will be left
with the bill.
A
Letter to the Editor in The Source
dated 3-16-2006 mused: "If Leyland is so confident of
their experts' findings, then all they have to do is
guarantee that if they're wrong, they will fix it.
I'm sure there is a type of insurance that could provide
this type of protection. Will they do it? I
doubt it. Once the last unit is sold, they're
gone, and Madison taxpayers will be left to clean up the
mess."
This is a critical point.
Leyland was asked to provide such assurance during the
public hearings, and refused to do so! If they believed their
own claims about the wastewater treatment system, they'd
have no good reason to refuse such a reasonable request.
ENVIRONMENT
The major issue remaining today is the environment. More specifically, it is the wastewater runoff from
Madison Landing, and the impact of that pollution on the
precious ecosystems and recreational areas of the
Hammonasset State Park, the Hammonasset River, Clinton
Harbor, and Long Island Sound.
In
June 2004, Leyland submitted its first wastewater
treatment plan to the DEP, proposing to install a
product called the Amphidrome Plus system to treat the
human waste outflow from Madison Landing. Experts
from the DEP, and also those consulted by SGOD, exposed
critical flaws in this system from the start.
The Amphidrome Plus
system was never approved for use at Madison Landing.
In
May 2006, Leyland petitioned the DEP to
substitute a different wastewater treatment system, called the Zenon system.
Shortly thereafter, SGOD engineers analyzed DEP's own
monitoring data on the Zenon systems already installed
in Connecticut, and confirmed that our fears were
well-founded.
Zenon systems operating in Connecticut today fail to
meet standards for nitrogen, phosphorus, and fecal
coliform bacteria 48% of
the time!! Simply stated, the Zenon system is a
dismal failure.
For details on this data analysis, see
here
and
here (or
here
if your computer won't open Excel files).
We were disappointed,
but not surprised, when on December 14,
2006 the DEP issued a "tentative determination" to
approve the Zenon permit, contingent upon a series of conditions
being met by the developer. Practically
speaking, such tentative approval is the norm for applications such as this one, and
represents the beginning of a process of hearings and potential
legal challenges if needed. The text
of the
tentative determination,
draft of the permit,
and
performance appraisal of the Zenon
system by the DEP can be found by following
the above links, or on the
Connecticut DEP website.
SGOD petitioned the DEP to hold hearings regarding the
wastewater permit for this project.
The first phase was a public hearing
held in April 2007 in Madison. The turnout by
opponents of the project was excellent,
and their comments were well-reasoned.
At the subsequent hearings, which were held in Hartford during
several
days in May, SGOD presented testimony from our
consulting experts in the fields of coastal ecology and
wastewater management. These experts clearly demonstrated that the Zenon
system will not "protect the waters of the state from
pollution" as DEP regulations require. Permits
which initially receive tentative approvals can later be denied
by the DEP, such as with the recent Cross Sound Cable
proposal. That, of course, is our goal. On
January 16, 2008 the Hearing Officer issued a proposed
final decision to approve the permit, but the
application still has a long road to travel before any
shovel could be put in the ground. For more about the hearings and their aftermath, click
here.
We are confident that, in the end, long-term
environmental protection will prevail over short-term
profits for a New York developer, but
there may be a long battle ahead. We are ready to
fight it.
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