COPY OF NEWTOWN, CT 2004
PLAN OF DEVELOPMENT TEXT
CONCERNING SEWERS
The following text is drawn from the 2/2004 Newtown, CT Plan of Conservation and Development:

Public sewer service plans and policies are the responsibility of the Town's Water Pollution Control Authority, which amended the Water Pollution Control Plan in 1999. Public sanitary sewer service is new to Newtown, having been completed since the preparation of the 1993 Plan of Development.

Newtown’s public sewer system was developed in conjunction with a municipal sewer avoidance program. The municipal sewer system was designed to address sewage disposal problems and the Town’s sewer avoidance program is designed to eliminate the need to extend the municipal sewer system to serve additional residential areas in the future.

Newtown’s municipal sewer system serves the central area of the Town, including most of the Borough and Sandy Hook Center, as described on the attached map. The system’s treatment plant was developed jointly with the State of Connecticut and was designed to serve Town needs, the State’s Garner Correctional facility and the future use of the abandoned Fairfield Hills hospital complex. The Town will most likely receive additional access to the plant’s treatment capacity once the acquisition of Fairfield Hills has been completed.

The sewer system contains approximately twenty miles of piping, four pump stations and a treatment facility located at the end of Commerce Road with the capacity to treat 932,000 gallons of sewage daily. Current sewage treatment at the plant averages 500,000 – 600,000 gallons per day. The system was completed in 1997.

The intent of the Town’s sewer avoidance policies are to foster the maintenance of existing onsite septic systems outside of the sewer service areas and avoid the need to extend sewer service beyond the current limits of service to serve failed systems.

Public sanitary sewer service is also provided within the Route 6 corridor in the Hawleyville area of Town, extending toward the Bethel town line. Sewer service within this area is pumped into the City of Danbury’s municipal sewer system and treated at the City’s Plumtrees Road treatment facility, as per an inter-municipal agreement that provides Newtown with the treatment capacity of up to 150,000 gallons of sewage per day.

The sewer service provided within the Hawleyville area pursuant to this agreement is intended to primarily serve economic development activities. To date, approximately 30,000 gallons of this capacity has been allocated for two area uses.

NEWTOWN, CT SEWER SERVICE
HISTORY (UPDATED ONLY TO 1992)
In 1963 and 1969, Pollution Abatement Reports were prepared for Newtown by the firm of Henderson & Casey. In 1967, the Town received an order from the Connecticut Water Resources Commission to construct a sewage collection system in order to provide sewer service to the central area of Newtown. Collected sewage was proposed to be treated by a sewage treatment plant to be located at the confluence of the Pootatuck and Housatonic Rivers.

In 1977-1978, the engineering firm Center for Environment and Man prepared a sewerage report for the U.S. EPA and CT DEP entitled Tri-Town 201 Wastewater Facilities Plan for Newtown, Southbury and Woodburv. Areas of Taunton Pond and the Newtown Borough were found to have the greatest need for municipal sewer service. Field surveys conducted in 1976 of on-site septic systems within the Newtown Borough found approximately 10% of the systems to be failing.

In 1979, a Citizens Advisory Committee was appointed as liaison between the consultant Center for Environment & Man and the Town. In 1981 a Water Pollution Control Authority was appointed by the Board of Selectmen to finalize the Town’s sewer pollution abatement plan. In 1984, the final report by the consultant was issued and addressed sewer issues in Newtown, Southbury and Woodbury. The resulting sewer pollution abatement plan for Newtown was adopted by the WPCA and had an estimated cost of $13 million.

The mapping of soils and septic failures within Newtown had shown chief areas for concern to be the Borough, Sandy Hook and a south central area along Main St. These were proposed to be the first areas to be served by municipal sewers. A sewage treatment plant with a capacity of 1.2 MGD was to be constructed on land donated by Fairfield Hills State Hospital, discharging treated sewage effluent into Deep Brook, which runs northward to the Pootatuck River.

Community waste disposal systems using leaching fields were recommended for parts of Shady Rest, Riverside, Pootatuck Park and Cedarhurst/Lakeview Terrace. The most cost-effective systems were seen as individual small grinder pumps to push effluent through small diameter force main sewer lines to large leaching fields. In addition, the report urged the Town to adopt a comprehensive sewer avoidance program that would:

- prohibit conversion of seasonal properties to year-round use.
- require septic tanks to be pumped and inspected annually.
- require the installation of low-flow water fixtures.
- require the inspection of systems which have been repaired
or replaced, one year after completion of improvements.
- test all water supply wells on a regular basis.

A 1989 sewer report was prepared by Consulting Environmental Engineers, Inc. and focused on Newtown only. All areas within the proposed sanitary district boundary were to be closely monitored for sewer pollution problems. It was assumed that all areas within the sanitary district would eventually be connected to the sewer system. This sewer plan was rejected by voters in October of 1989 and sent back to the WPCA for revision.

In 1990, Consulting Environmental Engineers, Inc. prepared an Addendum to their 1989 report. The Addendum reduced the cost of the sewer plan to $65 million by excluding some outer areas. Under this plan, approximately 1,200 of Newtown’s 7,000 homes would be sewered, concentrated primarily within the Borough area.

According to this plan, users would pay 62% of the cost, and the remaining 38% would be paid by the Town at large. Four million dollars for design of the sewerage system was then approved by the Newtown Legislative Council and subsequently rejected at a Town Meeting. As a result, the CT DEP then asked the Connecticut Attorney General’s Office to take legal action against Newtown for failing to correct groundwater pollution.

Also in 1990, Newtown voted $2 million for the enlargement of the Bethel portion of a sewer line which Bethel was designing to serve the Route 6-Stony Hill area. Newtown desired to expand the capacity of the Bethel portion of this sewer line in order to have the option to extend the sewer line into the Hawleyville area and serve the land zoned for commercial/office/industrial use along Route 6 and at the intersection of Route 25 and 1-84 at Exit 9. The Bethel portion of this sewer line has been enlarged to permit a Newtown flow capacity of 0.4 MGD.

In 1991, the Newtown WPCA proposed a $33.2 million sewerage plan. Under this plan much of the Borough and Taunton Lake North neighborhoods would be sewered and served by a $5.3 million treatment plant. The Sandy Hook area would also be sewered and would be served by a separate neighborhood septic system to be constructed near Treadwell Park. See the figure entitled Town of Newtown Proposed Sewer Service Areas.

The Town reached an agreement with the State in 1991, establishing a timetable for the adoption of a program to resolve its identified sewer problems. The agreement called for the adoption of such a program by the Spring of 1992. If a program was not adopted by that time, the State would seek implementation of a fine against the Town. The Town adopted a $34.3 million sewer plan on April 7, 1992 in a town-wide referendum.

NEWTOWN CT’S CONSIDERATION
OF SEWAGE TREATMENT OPTIONS
(UPDATED ONLY TO 1992)
In 1967, the Town received an order from the Connecticut Water Resources Commission to construct a sewage treatment plant to be located at the confluence of the Pootatuck and Housatonic Rivers. This plant would have treated sewage from a proposed sewage collection system serving the central area of Newtown. Newtown did not implement this early sewer plan and the Housatonic River site for a plant is no longer under consideration.

The WPCA’s 1991 scaled down $33.2 million sewerage plan recommended the construction of a $5.3 million municipal sewage treatment plant, with a 0.271 MGD capacity, to serve the Borough and Taunton Lake North areas. This plan was adopted at a town meeting in March of 1992. A subsequent town-wide referendum in April of 1992 adopted a $34.3 million sewer plan.

The Town is investigating the possibility of using the State owned sewage treatment plant located on the grounds of Fairfield Hills State Hospital to treat collected municipal sewage from these two areas. The engineering firm of Metcalf & Eddy prepared a report on this facility for CT DEP in March of 1992.

The report examined the possible upgrading and expansion of this facility from its current 0.481 MGD capacity to 0.75 MGD capacity, which would be of sufficient size to accommodate the Fairfield Hills Hospital, the State Jail and the 0.271 MGD of effluent projected to be generated by the Town’s proposed sewer system serving the Borough and Taunton Lake areas.

The Town is also investigating the concept of taking over the operation of this State treatment facility and providing treatment services to the State hospital, the jail, and to the Town. Under such an arrangement, it may be possible for Newtown to realize significant savings, as the cost to upgrade and expand the existing State treatment plant to accommodate the Town’s sewage treatment needs may be as much as $3 million less than the cost of the Town building a new sewage treatment plant of its own to serve the Borough and Taunton Lake sewer service areas.

The WPCA’s adopted 1992 sewer plan proposed to construct a neighborhood septic system near Treadwell Park to treat sewage collected from the proposed sewer system serving the Sandy Hook area. Septage from this facility would be trucked to the Danbury sewer plant for treatment.

The ultimate destination for the sewage collected by the sewer line serving the Hawleyville Stony Hill areas of Newtown and Bethel is the sewage treatment plant in Danbury. Discussions with Danbury, to purchase a share of Danbury’s sewer plant capacity, are continuing.

A portion of the expanded Danbury treatment plant’s total capacity has been set-aside by CT DEP to meet regional sewage needs. This regional capacity has already been allocated by CT DEP to Brookfield and New Fairfield in shares of 0.3 MGD and 0.7 MGD respectively. If these allocations stand, Newtown will need to purchase a portion of the plant’s treatment capacity which has been allocated by DEP to treat Danbury sewage.

Danbury would like to be able to allocate a portion of this additional regional capacity to Newtown for its proposed sewer line serving the Hawleyville area. This would maintain the integrity of Danbury’s share of the treatment plant’s capacity and would provide fiscal relief to the City, with Newtown paying for a portion of the construction and maintenance costs of the CT DEP mandated additional regional capacity.

In addition to the existing treatment plant serving the Fairfield Hills State Hospital, Newtown businesses, housing developments, and government facilities may have CT DEP regulated permits to discharge wastewater directly into Newtown watercourses.