TOP STORY: Old Lyme Selectmen Vote to Postpone Setting Referendum on Sound View Sewers Until Key Questions Answered

OLD LYME–The Old Lyme Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, citing a lack of answers to questions they have been asking for months, again decided to hold off on setting a referendum affecting Sound View Beach that could get a stalled sewer project moving again. 

Selectmen at a roughly one hour special meeting voted unanimously to move discussion on the referendum to a future meeting, after their questions have been answered and a cost-sharing agreement has been finalized among the four participating beach communities. 

Selectmen also voted to hire an independent firm to look at annual operating and maintenance costs that would give Sound View residents a better idea how much they can be expected to pay going forward. Numbers provided by the Old Lyme Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) have been criticized by some residents as artificially low. 

First Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker during the meeting said selectmen have heard cost concerns from Sound View residents “loud and clear.”

She said she will not vote to move forward until she can give residents a clearer idea what those costs will be. 

Meanwhile, the CT DEEP is pressuring the town to act fast on a project years in the making.

“I’m not trying to kick this project down the road, because it’s been kicked down the road for some time,” Shoemaker said. “But I can pretty much assure you that our governor, [or] any other town executive, would not go forward with a project if they didn’t have all the numbers. Solid numbers.” 

Estimates of the long-term cost for a typical resident during a question-and-answer session last week ranged from $40,000 to more than $60,000 over 20 years, depending on who was doing the calculations. 

Construction costs amount to $70 million for the project, which would require residents of Sound View to foot the bill along with homeowners in three private beach associations: Miami Beach, Old Lyme Shores and Old Colony. 

Members of each private beach associations authorized their share of the project in separate referendums. In the case of Sound View, which is a public beach community, it is up to all Old Lyme voters to decide whether residents there should pay for sewers. 

The cost for Sound View comes to approximately $17.1 million. State and federal funding brings the cost down to $8.5 million. 

The CT DEEP last month warned Shoemaker that state and federal funding amounting to roughly half of the project cost is in jeopardy if the town doesn’t act fast to hold a public vote and award construction contracts. 

Failing to complete “one or more of those milestones” by mid-October “will significantly impact” the town’s ability to pursue a Clean Water Fund grant for 25% of the total project cost and a forgivable loan for another 25%, according to CT DEEP Deputy Commissioner of Environmental Quality Emma Cimino. 

Shoemaker in a phone interview after Tuesday’s meeting said selectmen are focused on making sure voters have access to accurate and thorough information when they vote on the sewer question at referendum. 

She was hopeful that a meeting among project officials from the four beach communities on Sunday will yield the  final cost-sharing agreement selectmen have been seeking. She also expressed optimism she could find a third party accountant to evaluate the annual operation and maintenance costs for a more definitive estimate next week. 

She acknowledged the state funding could be in question if the town doesn’t act. 

“If they take away the money, it’s totally unaffordable,” she said. “So we will work with them and explain to them we have been asking for these things to happen over the last year and a half, and we certainly are not dragging our feet.” 

Lampos: ‘Project Stinks’

Selectman Jim Lampos, a resident of the Sound View Beach area, said he vowed when he became a selectman that he would demand fair treatment for the beach residents who would bear the cost of the town project. That means fully understanding how much Sound View residents will owe for operating and maintenance costs every year, while also ensuring all costs are allocated equitably. 

He laid out a timeline going back more than a year to show selectmen have actively been seeking answers and compromises rather than trying to obstruct the process. 

“I think the project stinks, and I always have, for 15 years,” he said. “But I also am a realist.”

He acknowledged about $4 million was spent on project planning across the four beach communities; a referendum was held in 2019; and an agreement was signed with the municipalities through which the sewer lines would run and be treated – all before the current selectmen’s administration. 

“I know the state is banging us over the head to get this done,” he said. “It’s very difficult to stop this moving train. It’s at full speed.” 

But he said cost estimates from the Old Lyme WPCA remain too low to be believed and language that would codify the fair distribution of costs has not been finalized. 

He railed against the state for pressuring the town to install sewers without giving consideration to modern septic alternatives that he said towns west of the Connecticut River have successfully implemented. 

He also pointed to the CT DEEP’s “rule of thumb,” as articulated last year at a public meeting by agency project engineer Carlos Esguerra, that says the cost is affordable to residents if it does not exceed 2% of the town’s median household income (MHI). Esguerra at the time identified Old Ltme’s MHI as $122,000, which equated to $2,440 a year.

The cost to construct the system is slated at $1,939 annually over 20 years for a typical user, not including fees that would likely exceed $500 per year based on state estimates. 

“So, I’m here to say tonight that as we see these numbers, this project is unaffordable,” Lampos said. “And [if] DEEP wants it, instead of threatening us and saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to take your money away’ – as if they’re doing us a favor, as if it’s charity and we should be grateful – DEEP needs to pony up and make up that difference.” 

CT DEEP Spokesman James Fowler last month said that if a project’s costs were estimated to exceed 2% MHI, it would be up to the town or sewer authority to explore additional options, like splitting a project into phases, deferring work not associated with pollution, pursuing additional funding, and requesting a longer project schedule. 

Fowler emphasized that exceeding the 2% threshold “does not mean that communities don’t have to address identified pollution.”

Working Together

Selectwoman Jude Read, the lone Republican on the Democrat-led board, agreed with putting off a vote. She emphasized the sewer project originated with a past town administration and the state, not with current board and commission volunteers. 

She said frustration should be directed at the state rather than local people, who have tried to help. 

“This project’s been going on for well over 10 years. Technology has changed. Population has changed. Science has changed. Climate has changed. What (the state) asked for 10, 12 years ago is not necessarily applicable now,” she said. “But we have to work together to come up with a solution to move forward because I think eventually we are going to have to deal with sewers. We are going to have to deal with groundwater levels rising.”

She said the solution requires channeling local frustrations into a productive conversation with state officials.

“We are willing to work,” she said. “And I think we have a track record of showing that we have been dealing in good faith for 10, 11, 12 years. And we will continue to do so.” 

The CT DEEP going back to the early 1980s has pushed for an end to pollution emanating from local beach communities, leading to a 2018 consent order with the three private beach associations. Sound View was added to the project in 2019 after voters in the first townwide referendum agreed to spend $9.5 million. 

The town, which is participating voluntarily in the sewer plan at this point, is doing so under the threat of a consent order from the state like the one forcing the private beach associations to act. 

The referendum now under consideration would authorize an additional $7.6 million for Sound View’s portion of the project after rampant inflation drove up the cost, though the promise of reimbursement from the state and federal government means Sound View ratepayers will actually be paying less than the amount authorized in the first townwide vote. 

Selectmen also postponed a vote on a draft sewer ordinance that will go to voters along with the spending authorization. The document had been revised with Lampos’ encouragement to ensure residents of the beach communities are not responsible for the cost of installing sewers in any other areas of town going forward. 

The document specifies any future sewer projects must be covered by users in that area. 

Read cautioned selectmen to make sure the provision doesn’t end up exempting residents within the current project boundaries from paying for public improvements like road paving that could end up being covered by the town.

Old Lyme Board of Finance (BOF) Chairman BJ Bernblum confirmed to LymeLine Wednesday morning that the BOF meeting scheduled for Wednesday evening has now been canceled. This meeting would have discussed details of the referendum if the board of selectmen had voted to move the proposal in that direction.

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with information about Wednesday evening’s Old Lyme Board if Finance meeting.