FOR THE WATER PLANNING COUNCIL
PUBLIC HEARING TESTIMONY OF RIVERS ALLIANCE OF CONNECTICUT
ON ITEMS IN THE PLAN NEEDING PROMPT ACTION
October 30, 2017
Rivers Alliance of Connecticut is a statewide, non-profit coalition of river organizations, individuals, and businesses formed to protect Connecticut's waters by promoting sound water policies, by uniting and strengthening the state's many river groups, and by educating the public about the importance of water stewardship.
The development of a state water plan (the Plan) presents a unique opportunity for the people of Connecticut, to protect our valuable natural waters for our own andfor future generations.
It is our responsibility not only to move this Plan forward but to be sure that it is consequential. The Plan does a good job of identifying problems. But that is not enough. These problems are already familiar; after all, it was these very problems that led the General Assembly to mandate creation of the plan. The Plan must propose precise means to solve these problems in a timely manner.
Last week, at an agency presentation of the plan in Westport, a resident asked: if this plan is adopted, what will change? The answer was: Nothing will change. He asked: How can we advocate for it then?
Rivers Alliance is advocating for the plan as a platform on which change can be based. Not change in the undefined future, but change in the close future, including the 2018 legislative session. There is no good reason to keep postponing better protection of state waters.
Here are several of the issues that could and should be addressed with urgency.
Drought: Since before 2000, the state and all stakeholders have recognized that Connecticut does not have an effective or comprehensive program for responding to drought. Draft drought plans have been in the works nonstop. None are comprehensive. None have been adopted. Efforts by legislators to reform aspects of drought response inevitably fail because we do not even have consistent definitions of levels of drought or consensus on who should do what. Get this fixed. Please.
Water Governance. Responsibility for water stewardship is extremely fragmented at both the state and local levels of government. In 2001, the Connecticut General Assembly created the Water Planning Council in the hope that it would bring some order to the situation. But the Council (which consists of DEEP, PURA, DPH, and OPM) was only given authority to submit an annual report; in 2014, this authority was extended to development of the Plan, which is to be submitted to the legislature; thus, the Plan is a kind of super report. There is no governing structure for the Council, no rules for decision-making. On this issue, the Plan and the Council itself express quite clearly that prompt action is needed.
Dried Up Streams. Since 2014, it has been the stated goal of Rivers Alliance that, under the Plan, it shall no longer be legal to dry up streams. Many of our streams suffer artificial drought every year. Some are reduced to a trickle; a few show bare stream beds. Our state gets on average approximately 50 inches of rain each year. This is a water fortune. So why are people asked to choose between water in the faucet and water in their streams?
Groundwater Pumping.A major source of water supply is groundwater, and, going forward, groundwater will be used in greater and great volumes; it is easier and cheaper to access. Nevertheless, there is nothing in our streamflow-protection regulations that limits groundwater pumping. That portion of the regulation was stripped out in response to political pressure. At the time (2012), leading legislators promised to take up the problem in the next session. The science is clear: excessive groundwater pumping draws down surface water and kills aquatic wildlife. There is no need to tolerate this kind of harm in this state.
Registrations. Since 1982, utilities and others taking water were exempted from environmental regulation of those diversions if they registered with the state the amount they were using or were likely to use. Under this compromise law (Water Diversion Policy Act), there was and is no requirement that the sources registered as used actually could yield the amounts registered. There is nothing to stop a registered user from egregious abuse of sources. Legislators first became aware of this problem around 2000, when multi-town litigation over the Shepaug River was in progress and DEEP (then DEP) submitted a report documenting that the great majority of diversions and of the water volumes diverted were exempt from oversight or limits.Among the numerous other problematic cases have been the increased impoundment of the Mill River in New Haven, the desiccation and fish kill in the Fenton River at UConn, and the similar desiccation of the Copper Mine Brook trout stream in Bristol.As long as most of our water is allocated for use with no environmental limits, we will not be able to protect natural waters in Connecticut.
Water Bottling and Other Large-Volume Water Sales. The controversy that flared up in Bloomfield over sales of public water to a private bottling company is one of the many critical spin-offs of the registration system. To have credibility, the Plan cannot be silent or evasive on this issue.
The Benefits of Healthy Natural Waters. The Plan should include a clear statement of why so many people in Connecticut value their natural waters and want them protected. Detail the benefits to the world around us and to our individual health and wellbeing.
Balance. The Plan prominently calls for balance in water policy and practices. However, if the balance in question is between environmental protection and societal claims on water, then we are starting in a situation of stark imbalance. Balance should not mean that we start with the status quo and that, thereafter, each step to protect natural waters must be balanced with a step to get those waters out of the natural environment and into a pipe.We define “balance” as an ongoing condition of sustainability, such that preservation of waters in the public trust coexists with human health and societal wellbeing. The Plan verges on this principle in its positive references to the “triple bottom line.” The term refers to a balance in public and private policies between three sectors usually identified as People, Planet, Profits (the human race, the natural world, private businesses).
Public Access to Water Data. In 2003, water utilities successfully supported sweeping exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act for their data. Together with the Department of Public Health (DPH), water companies redacted, deleted, or otherwise withheld from the public all information on the location, safe yield, and margins of safety of their sources. In a series of challenges by Rivers Alliance, the water companies’ rights to data secrecy were upheld by the Freedom of Information Commission. Prior to the start of work on the comprehensive state Water Plan and on the parallel plans being developed by Water Utility Coordinating Committees (WUCCs), Rivers Alliance and other organizations maintained that no policy decisions relating to allocation and management of the public’s water should be approved unless the public had the chance to see the underlying data. In 2016, compromise legislation was passed that seemed to give the public access to this basic utility data. However this month (October 2017), DPH stated at a meeting of the Water Planning Council that its attorney and the attorney for the Department of Administrative Services maintained that the adverse rulings in the Freedom of Information Commission (mostly in 2010) still were legally binding. The case that precipitated this conclusion was a request by Save Our Water to see the supply plan of the Metropolitan District Commission. Redacted material included the all-important calculations of safe yield, which are essential to calculating margins of safety. THERE IS NO POINT IN ASKING THE PUBLIC TO PARTICIPATE IN OR ACCEPT WATER PLANS IF THE DATA ON WHICH THE PLAN IS BASED CANNOT BE SEEN BY THE PUBLIC.
Margaret Miner, Executive Director
Rivers Alliance of CT