Paper: Republican-American (Waterbury, CT)
Title: Advocates want Connecticut to plan ahead -
to assure that water supply doesn't run dry
Author: BY DANIEL D'AMBROSIO
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
Date: December 30, 2006
Page: 1,A

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop unspoken for. Water quality has long been a concern in the state. But now, thanks to increasing development and the guaranteed rights water companies and other big users have to 80 to 90 percent of the state's water, quantity is becoming a concern as well.

Unlike in drier parts of the country, water quantity is a relatively new issue for a state with a perceived abundance of water, a perception fed by 47 inches of annual precipitation.

"Unfortunately water is not an infinite resource, and as we become more developed there are more and more competing uses for it," said James Belden of the Danbury chapter of Trout Unlimited.

Sen. Bill Finch, D-Bridgeport, chairman of the Senate Environment Committee, said water companies are nervous about what a 2005 stream flow bill will eventually mean to them.

The bill mandates minimum flows to avoid disasters such as one that occurred in the fall of 2005, when returning University of Connecticut students turned on their faucets and dried up a stretch of the Fenton River, resulting in one of the biggest fish kills in state history. Some 8,000 fish died, including wild brook trout.

The school draws most of its water from the Willimantic River, but also has wells on the Fenton. University officials signed a memorandum of agreement in November with state officials that commits them to develop a comprehensive water supply strategy through 2009. They will submit the plan to the Water Planning Council for review by Feb. 28.

Finch said that while the university responded admirably to the Fenton River disaster, running a new water line to the Willimantic to avoid a repeat performance, there's nothing currently in state law that requires them to address the issue.

"DEP has got to be given some latitude over the diversion permit process," Finch said. "I don't have a clue how we'll do it."

Robert LaFrance, legislative liaison for the DEP, said he believes the agency already has the latitude it needs to enforce the 2005 bill, which mandates the department to come up with new stream flow standards that protect cold water species of fish and aquatic life.

"In terms of whether or not those regulations would apply to registered diversions, my answer would be the law is pretty clear we have the authority to do that," LaFrance said.

LaFrance said the DEP has pulled together an advisory group representing a "wide variety of stakeholders," from industry to conservationists, which has been meeting for the past year to come up with stream flow regulations that will work for everybody.

But he said the agency is not going to meet the bill's Dec. 31 deadline for creating the standards, which involve a complicated balancing act.

"The thing we want to do to the greatest extent possible is to mimic the (natural flow) of rivers," LaFrance said. "In some instances we're not going to be able to do that. There may be a drinking water supply reservoir pulling water out of a river and people need to drink water. We're not turning off the spigot."

Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, co-chairman of the Environment Committee, said it will be a simple matter to definitively establish the DEP's authority over grandfathered water users.

"During the hearing process we can ask that question of DEP personnel and get it on record that it does apply the way Mr. LaFrance said," Roy said.

Roy said legislators will work with DEP on establishing a new deadline for stream flow standards.

"I would love to get it done this session," Roy said.

The legislators convene Jan. 3.