The issue of sewers in the Town of Old Lyme is becoming an increasingly complex – and thorny – one. At a Public Information Meeting hosted last Tuesday by the Town’s Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA), the project engineers, Woodard and Curran, and First Selectwoman Bonnie Reemsnyder, a packed house of over 70 residents fired question after question – including some heated exchanges — until the meeting finally ended close to 10:15 p.m. Then, on Wednesday, in a related development, the Old Lyme Planning Commission took a vote at a Special Meeting not to endorse the proposed sewer project.
The engineers had opened the information meeting with a Powerpoint presentation based on these slides. In summary, a Special Town Meeting is planned on Monday, Oct. 27, at which approval will be sought from residents to authorize the Town to bond the costs (between $42 and $47 million) for the proposed sewer project, which provides for installation of sewers in the project area (which include all the Town’s beach associations, except Point o’ Woods) and their extension to East Lyme and Waterford with treatment at the New London Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Although there were questions raised on a wide variety of issues during the evening, the main points of controversy appeared to revolve around three matters – who would be paying for the project, why the vote was being held at a time when most seasonal residents were out of town or state, and why White Sand and Hawks Nest Beaches had been included in the project when there was no record of pollution from their locations.
The first speaker in the question and answer session asked, “Why are you spending our money when we’re not here?” continuing, “Why wasn’t a referendum chosen so you could have absentee votes?” Reemsnyder responded that they had tried, “Very hard,” to have the upcoming town meeting in the summer, but it had simply not proved possible to finish the research.
Several speakers were concerned that the town would end up funding a significant portion of the project, although the intention is that sewered property owners will repay the Town in full for the bond, which the Town will be obliged to take out to initiate the project. Jeff Flower asked, “How can the Town not be paying? Who picks up the slack?” Another resident from West End Drive had a different take on the expense questioning why the costs were not being shared with the Town, noting, “The beach people had to pay for the high school.”
Sandy Garvin of Hawk’s Nest Beach asked pointedly, “What evidence is there that we’re polluting?” adding, “I’d like to see proof of your accusations that we’re polluting.” Barry Harrison of White Sand Beach asked in the same vein, “Why did the Town offer up Hawk’s Nest Beach and White Sand Beach when there was no scientific evidence of pollution?” Garvin noted that the inclusion of these two beaches,”… is adding much cost to the project,” suggesting to applause, “Let Miami and Old Colony [Beaches] do their own thing” Those two beach associations along with Old Lyme Shores are already exploring sewer options separately, and Point o’ Woods has already installed them.
Meanwhile, the Old Lyme Planning Commission held a Special Meeting last Wednesday during which they made a motion to send a letter to the board of selectmen and the WPCA stating that the Commission cannot endorse the proposed sewer project for the following reasons:
- Lack of charter, regulations and documentation.
- Not consistent with the Town Plan of Conservation and Development.
- Lack of documented pollution on town controlled areas.
- Lack of information for outstanding questions.
The vote supporting the motion was unanimous with five votes in favor and none against.
There will be one more Public Information Session on Wednesday, Oct. 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Hall prior to the vote at the Special Town Meeting on Oct. 27.
Thank you so much for this informative article.
How convenient for the Town WPCA and the First Selectwoman to now be unavailable when the of the beach owners will still in Old Lyme.
This sewer issue was kept under the radar since it’s inception. According to the First Selectwoman, that was 2013. We were told that we should all know about this since there were articles in the newspaper. I checked, the two articles ran in March 2014. And the word sewer was not mentioned.
We were initially told by Mr. Zumba, the head of the Town WPCA, that the town will not be providing any financial assistance. When grants were mentioned the Town WPCA they suddenly, a week or so later, announced that they had applied for a grant .
What is going on?
Thank you for shedding needed light on one of the best kept secrets in town! The $46 million plus sewer project that was unveiled at the First public informational presentation to Old Lyme Last Tuesday is barely off the drawing board and is being put to a vote to request the funding process in a Town Meeting Forum in November. This is when a majority of the taxpayers who this impacts will have gone back to their primary homes for the winter..some out of state. Absentee ballots will not be allowed. Only registered voters and those who own a minimum of $1000 property and are present at that meeting can vote on a not ready for prime time sewer plan. I hear this morning that the previously announced date for the next public information presentation has been rescheduled to Oct. 30 and Nov. 18 at 7:30 pm.
Old Lyme has a long history of sewer avoidance in order to keep development down and retain it’s small town charm and its groundwater in place. Point O Woods got around this about 8 years ago when this chartered beach chose to form its own WPCA to solve it’s stated pollution difficulties, hired an engineering firm and got its own bonding to correct their issues. They paid for it themselves and are happy with the result being a clean water environment and the ability to winterize their community.
Two other chartered beaches decided to follow suit seeing the success their neighbors had with solving septic issues and the benefit of having year round use of their cottages. Old Lyme Shores and Old Colony Beach approached DEEP to ask for a consent order to sewer .They followed the same path as their predecessor and are well on their way with or without the OL WPCA. Miami Beach is following suit.
The OL WPCA, headed by Curt Zemba , asserts in general terms that we have a pollution problem. Without specifying which beaches are showing pollution problems and of what nature, all of Old Lyme’s beaches were included in this assumption. It was also assumed that all beaches have the same sub standard soils. There were no requests made to assess these conditions in Hawk’s Nest or White Sands Beach, yet there were soil test samples done along the two Hawk’s Nest roads a few years ago, showing sand and gravel, excellent conditions for optimal leaching.
In 1998, The Jacobson and Associates engineering firm of Chester was hired to put test well monitors in several areas around Old Lyme to watch ground water quality. Hawk’s Nest Beach has seven sites, which have been tested up until a year ago when testing was stopped. If these sites were installed to monitor and safeguard our community, why was testing discontinued?
Last Friday, I contacted Brian Curtis of Jacobson who stated that the sites in Hawk’s Nest were tested for nitrogen and bacteria and consistently showed results well within the safe standard drinking water range..below 10 for the last several years.
Now, there is an additional basis for assumed pollution and that is density. The assumption being that so many cottages in close proximity MUST be polluting because there is not enough filtering capability. There are no failed septic systems in HNB or WSB according to the Town Sanitarian. The argument for sewers on a NEED basis falls apart here.
I challenge the basis for a collective solution to a problem that has not been proven to exist in two of Old Lyme’s beach communities. I challenge the assertion that Old Lyme is under threat by DEEP to sewer all beaches in this town..an assertion that a DEEP engineer claims is untrue. I challenge the report by W and C as incomplete and lacking financial clarity.
I challenge the Town’s plan to rush a request for financing within 60 days from it’s first public notice in a forum where few people are even aware of what is on the table. If this is of such great benefit to the taxpayers, why don’t they know about it and why the rush to push this through without full disclosure to the people who are told they have to pick up the tab?
Answers, please!
Sandy Garvin
Interesting–At the last info meeting meeting First Selectwoman Bonnie openly said she did not want to delay the vote beyond October as less of the affected residence would be able to vote. Most of the affected property owners South of 156 will have closed up there homes for the winter and the towns population will be reduced by 50%. Absentee ballots will not be allowed. Now the vote is put off till Nov18th!!! Those with the most at stake will have no voice–so much for the taxpayers having a voice.
Thank you for reporting on the Town of Old Lyme’s (“Town”) proposed shoreline wastewater management project. Since learning about the proposal (from reading a very brief article in The Hartford Courant July 5, 2014), my husband and I have been reviewing the documents posted on the Town’s website, including, but not limited to: the Water Pollution Control Authority (“WPCA”) minutes, the Woodard and Currant report, the Frequently Asked Questions, and the project map. In an effort to educate ourselves, we have also looked into how the water pollution control authorities of other Connecticut towns function, particularly with respect to the funding of sewer systems that serve only a portion of a community. We have been attending WPCA meetings and have submitted questions in advance of meetings, as well as asking questions at meetings. The WPCA board and the First Selectwoman have spent considerable time on this issue, but so have citizens in attending meetings, conducting research, asking questions, and striving to understand the project.
My husband and I were stunned to learn that the original local treatment option plan proposed by the Town placed a wastewater treatment facility in close proximity to drinking water wells owned by Connecticut Water Company, which wells serve the Hawk’s Nest Beach community. We are grateful to the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) for questioning this plan and demanding more studies. The Town opted not to perform these additional studies, seemingly because of cost concerns and an uncertain outcome with DEEP (WPCA minutes May 2014). Therefore, the Town abandoned this original plan and is now pursuing a broader regional treatment option that hooks into the New London treatment facility and encompasses the chartered beaches (some of which are already well under way to building sewers systems pursuant to a consent decree with DEEP), as well as non-chartered beaches that are under the Town’s jurisdiction.
But, this original proposal of situating a waste water treatment facility over drinking water wells (it just seems so obviously misguided!) has caused us to lose confidence in the Town’s handling of this matter, including the current proposal to connect all beach communities to the regional sewer system. We are sad to say that we are suspect of all information that has been presented by the Town.
While we understand that town government operates twelve months a year and cannot come to a grinding halt because of a seasonal population, it is nonetheless troubling that a vote that primarily affects the seasonal residents is scheduled for a town meeting at the end of October, where an in person vote is required, and many folks have left for the season. And, now, because of the mishandling of the project by the Town, it appears that the next information session will not be until the end of October, when even fewer seasonal owners can attend. Presumably, a vote at some time after that, whether a town meeting or referendum, which makes it even more difficult for seasonal property owners.
With respect to funding of the proposed sewer project, we believe that the shoreline communities have been the economic driver for the Town of Old Lyme for many years, which allows the Town to maintain its small town character and not have to seek out further economic growth. Expenses, such as the education budget, roads, senior citizen centers, boat houses, bike paths, youth services are funded through the general tax base, because they are seen as general improvements to the Town, even though they don’t necessarily serve every person in Town (particularly seasonal residents). We believe in funding all of those expenses, because we all have a community responsibility. But similarly, the Town of Old Lyme’s broader tax base has a community responsibility to help defray SOME of the costs of a shoreline sewer system, particularly since the shoreline community is THE economic driver of the Town, ultimately allowing the Town to maintain its small town characteristics. The general tax base of a town sharing in the cost of a limited septic system in a community is not without precedent. A list of such communities includes: Beacon Falls, East Hartford, East Lyme, Hebron, Naugatuck, New Milford, Plainville, and Ridgefield (See DEP – Methods of Capital Cost Recovery on Water Pollution Control Projects- Jan. 1997)
Thank you.