May 20, 2009
MEASURE TO KILL LANDFILL PASSES SENATE
Hard fight seen in the House
By Mike Savino, Chronicle Staff Writer
HARTFORD — A bill that would halt the ash landfill proposed in Franklin moved one step closer toward approval Tuesday after receiving strong endorsement from the state Senate.
Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, proposed the bill, which was approved 27-4, to stop the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority from pursuing its plan to put an ash landfill on land adjacent to the old Franklin Mushroom Farm.
The facility would hold ash created from CRRA's trash-to-energy plants and would replace a similar facility CRRA closed in Hartford at the end of last year.
The bill is now slated for discussion in the state House of Representatives. Rep. Kevin Ryan, D-Montville, co-sponsor of the bill, could not be reached for comment, but Prague said she expects the House to take up the matter early next week.
Even though the bill passed by such a large margin, Prague said she is worried CRRA's lobbying efforts could gain enough support in the House to defeat the bill.
“We're doing our best to lobby everybody,” but CRRA will do the same, Prague said.
CRRA spokesman Paul Nonnenmacher said the quasi- state agency has a legislative liaison working with legislators to garner support. He also said opponents of the bill have not presented any facts to prove their argument and CRRA is working to encourage legislators to “look at the facts.”
“This is too important to the state not to,” he added. Nonnenmacher also said he is not surprised the bill passed easily because, he said, Prague is “very powerful in the Senate.”
In an effort to win support in the House, Prague has added an amendment to her bill that would also block a proposed plant in Waterbury that would burn food waste for energy.
Waterbury has five representatives in the House.
Nonnenmacher said he was “disappointed” the legislators are not using the “strict regulatory process they put in place.” He believes the state should allow CRRA to conduct its year-long evaluation and submit an application to the state Department of Environmental Protection before challenging the proposal.
CRRA is currently conducting numerous studies on the proposed site, including a highly anticipated water test, and hopes to submit an application to the DEP by this summer.
But Nonnenmacher said CRRA could decide not to apply, and the DEP could reject the proposal even if it does.
“The DEP is a very careful agency,” he said. “They don't grant permits like this lightly.”
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told Windham's selectmen he is taking a more patient approach after the town sent him a letter asking him to review the project thus far.
He said his office will continue to monitor the project, but also said the project is in the “preliminary stages” and CRRA and the DEP still have to conduct their reviews.
Franklin First Selectman Richard Matters said he and the other selectmen are taking the same approach.
“We're going to continue to do what we've been doing, monitoring the progress of the wells and reviewing data,” he said.
CRRA recently said the landfill's footprint will be between 90 or 95 acres contained entirely in Franklin, but the quasi- state agency will need to purchase as many as 500 acres in Franklin and South Windham.
The project could generate at least $1.5 million in revenue for Franklin each year based on CRRA's projection of 300,000 tons of ash brought to the site annually.
CRRA plans call for 60 dump trucks making the round trip each day along Route 2 and using Route 32 to access the site, but Franklin's town engineering consultant said as many as a dozen additional trucks daily would need to take away water to a treatment facility.