CFE Hails Settlement That Will Restore Stream Flow to Shepaug River
Connecticut Fund for the Environment, the lead environmental organization involved in years of litigation over river flows in the Shepaug River, hailed a settlement reached by all parties as an environmental and economic win.
New Haven, CT (PRWEB) March 10, 2005
Connecticut Fund for the Environment, the lead environmental organization involved in years of litigation over river flows in the Shepaug River, hailed a settlement reached by all parties as an environmental and economic win.
“More than seven years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenses have yielded great benefits for the ecological health of the Shepaug River while meeting the needs of tens of thousands of Waterbury Water Company’s customers,” said CFE Senior Attorney Curt Johnson, who represented CFE as an intervening party in the case. “Prior to this decision there was so little water released into the Shepaug River that you could literally walk across it at certain times of the year without getting your ankles wet,” Johnson said.
As a result of the agreed on settlement, which depends on the General Assembly funding improvements to the Shepaug Dam to allow the releases to occur, Waterbury will be required to return ten times more water to the Shepaug River during most summers, under a system that will guarantee that the Waterbury water supply system has plenty of water to meet its customer’s needs. “This is truly an environmental and economic win-win for the entire Waterbury and Litchfield Hills region of our state,” Johnson said. “While this problem is solved, there remains another 50 streams and rivers preliminarily identified by the DEP as suffering from low stream flows as a result of over-diversion in our State. Litigation is a blunt tool for resolving these conflicts – it is expensive and time consuming. A better alternative is a balanced regulatory approach to assure that rivers have adequate water while protecting Connecticut’s water supplies,” he said.
CFE is calling on the state legislature, the water planning council and other agencies to come together and develop simple, balanced and meaningful minimum stream flow regulations that protect the health of the rivers and streams that are so critical to this stateÂ’s drinking water supply.
Other parties involved in reaching this settlement included the towns of Wolcott, Middlebury, and Watertown, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, Steep Rock Association Inc., Roxbury Land Trust Inc., and the Connecticut Departments of Environmental Protection and Public Health.
Background:
In 1997, the Shepaug River Association was joined by the towns of Washington and Roxbury and others in a lawsuit claiming the City of Waterbury was unreasonably starving the river of water in violation of the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act, violating the TownsÂ’ traditional riparian rights and in violation of a 1921 contract. The case went up to the Connecticut Supreme Court, which directed the trial court to make further factual determinations. CFE and two state agencies became intervening parties to all of these proceedings.
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