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Politics & Government

Public Forum Focuses on Regional Water Use Issues

The University of Connecticut outlines its new, five-year water supply plan that includes the options of adding a new well along the Willimantic River or seeking water piped in from an outside supplier.

The need for broad-based planning to satisfy competing interests in a shared but limited natural resource became evident quickly Wednesday night at a public forum on water supply issues affecting the area.

The Tolland Water Commission is seeking to double the amount of water it pulls from town wells along the Willimantic River. Mansfield, which needs a public water supply and sanitary sewer in the Four Corners area where septic systems are failing because of the high water table, is also considering a well along the same river. The , which already operates wells on the Fenton and Willimantic rivers, is also considering a new well along the Willimantic as part of its five-year water supply plan.

With the various straws all drawing water from well fields along the same river, members of the Willimantic River Alliance, and organization formed in 1996 to protect and preserve the river and which sponsored the forum at Storrs Community Church, are questioning how much water can be taken from the river without harming it or its watershed.

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Connecticut has more than enough water to meet its needs, Meg Reich, the vice president of alliance told the gathering. The problem, however, is that it is not always “in the right place at the right time,” Reich said.

There was not enough of it in Mansfield in late summer in 2005 when UConn, to meet the water demands of students returning to Storrs, pumped enough water from its wells on the Fenton River to dry it up.

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Reich said her organization wants citizens, government officials and local agencies to be aware of water use issues so that steps can be taken to prevent a similar event from occurring.

For its part, UConn has developed a series of water conservation measures and better monitoring of its wells on the Fenton and Willimantic rivers to prevent another overdraw. As part of its five-year plan, the university is also proposing to recycle wastewater to cool its Central Utility Plant.

Also for the first time, UConn is acknowledging that wells, conservation, and reclamation will likely not satisfy its future water needs and thus it is also considering the possibility of connecting to the Connecticut Water Co.’s system that draws water from Shenipsit Lake Reservoir or the Windham Water Works that gets its water from Willimantic Reservoir.

The prospect of having more water taken from underground aquifers worried some in the crowd who asked what effect it would have on existing pollution caused by UConn's dumping of laboratory solvents that leaked from an unlined waste pit into the surrounding groundwater.

David Morse of Storrs, a member of Citizens for Responsible Growth in Mansfield, a grassroots organization that focuses on watershed protection, asked if any of the officials present at the forum knew what effect the increased draw from the aquifers would have on the underground pollution plume.

No one wanted to speculate on the future, but Richard Miller, director of office of environmental policy at UConn, said that the university continues to monitor the pollution plume or spread in the groundwater and has not detected high levels of contaminants.

David Radka, director of water resources for Connecticut Water Co., said the company has 18 million gallons of water available on a daily basis from Shenipsit to meet the needs of Tolland and UConn if need be and could help town Mansfield develop policies to control growth that typically follows the installation of public water and sewer systems.

Jana Butts, a certified planner with the Windham Regional Council of Governments, questioned the proposal to divert water from Shenipsit Lake to Mansfield because the two areas are in different aquifers. The Shenipsit, which is bordered by Ellington, Vernon and Tolland, is in the Connecticut River watershed while waterways in Mansfield drain toward the Thames River in southeastern Connecticut.

The “inter-basin” transfers of water are part of the discussion that needs to take place, Reich said.

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