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WHAT'S NEW?
DEP RELEASES PROPOSED FINAL DECISION
TO ISSUE PERMIT FOR ZENON WASTEWATER SYSTEM
After DEP issued a tentative approval of Leyland's permit for their Zenon wastewater system
in December 2006, SGOD petitioned
DEP to hold public hearings, so that we could present the facts regarding
this unreliable system. Extensive preparation by
our attorney and expert witnesses ensued, followed by
eight days of hearings from April 11 to June 1, 2007.
Experts for SGOD included one of the most
highly-credentialed groundwater modelers in New England,
Robert Schreiber, and two authorities on coastal
ecosystems, Chris Elphick, PhD of UConn and Brian Howes,
PhD of UMass Dartmouth. They demonstrated that the
Zenon system as permitted for the Madison Landing
development would have multiple negative impacts on the
salt marshes at Hammonasset, including the likely
destruction of the habitat of the salt marsh
sharp-tailed sparrow, an endangered species.
SGOD's attorney, Keith Ainsworth, summarized his
findings from the hearings in
this document, which he
presented to the DEP at the conclusion of the hearings.
Please take the time to read it - it provides an
outstanding overview of the issues at stake. See
more about the Zenon system at
The Issues Today.
After seven months of deliberation, the DEP Hearing
Officer finally issued her proposed final decision on
January 16, 2008. Given her apparent bias in favor
of the developer, including her decision to bar a key
SGOD witness, it came as no surprise that her
recommendation was to approve the permit. As
allowed by DEP regulations, SGOD filed exceptions to
the proposed decision.
Then SGOD's attorney, Keith Ainsworth, presented our
findings to the DEP Commissioner during a March 13
hearing. Commissioner McCarthy now has to render a final
decision on the status of the permit.
Subsequently, parties to the action, including SGOD,
have up to 45 days to appeal the final decision in
Superior Court. SGOD intends to so so, if necessary, and has the support
of major environmental organizations in
Connecticut and nationally on this issue.
To
see the SGOD Press Release which summarizes our initial
response to the decision, click
here. For the DEP
announcement of their decision, click
here. For the
full text of the proposed final decision, click
here. For other
recent commentary and newspaper articles on the DEP
permit issue, click
here.
ATTORNEY GENERAL INVESTIGATES ILLEGAL LAND SWAP
In 2000, the DEP violated its own land exchange
policy by trading state land adjacent to US Route 1 for
worthless marshland at the back of the Griswold Airport
parcel, thus opening the airport land to extensive
development. Just months later, Leyland negotiated
their option to purchase the property. This
outrageous violation of the public trust was uncovered
by SGOD, and brought to the the attention of the
Attorney General, and the Connecticut Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ), a state agency which
monitors environmental issues in Connecticut
independently from the Connecticut DEP.
The Attorney General is now investigating this land
exchange. The letter in which SGOD's attorney
brought this issue to the Attorney General's attention
can be seen
here. A highly informative memo from
the CEQ providing details regarding this land exchange,
and the history of land exchange regulations in
Connecticut, can be found
here. More information
on the CEQ is available at their
website.
Well-researched articles regarding this land exchange
issue have been published in
The Hartford Courant
and
The New Haven Register.
ZENON WASTEWATER SYSTEM OUT OF COMPLIANCE WITH
ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS 48% OF THE TIME
The main obstacle at the present to breaking ground for
Madison Landing is that the Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP) has not approved the developer's
proposal for a wastewater treatment system.
Needless to say, this is a major obstacle. At
issue is whether this "Zenon" system can adequately
process the waste from the proposed 127 homes
without polluting the adjacent tidal wetlands.
Data from the Zenon systems already operating in Connecticut,
provided to us by the DEP and analyzed by SGOD engineers, show them to be out
of compliance with DEP standards for nitrogen,
phosphorus, and fecal coliform bacteria 48% of the time!!
For full details on
these data, see
here and
here (or
here if your computer
won't open Excel files).
SGOD CONTINUES TO PLAN FOR EVENTUAL PURCHASE OF THE
GRISWOLD AIRPORT PROPERTY
A broad coalition of public entities and private organizations are interested in
protecting this precious site. We are certain that
if the land again becomes available for sale, that we
will able to broker its purchase and preservation for
the long term. Recent passage of the Long Island Sound Stewardship Act
in Congress (see
details
here) was another
positive step towards this goal.
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