Prepare to Borrow; Town Planning a $30 Million Upgrade to Treatment Plant

Flushing a toilet, emptying the sink, washing clothes. All those activities send wastewater to the town's treatment plant from about 5,000 customers a day.

While the plant has a capacity to treat 4 million gallons of wastewater a day - a threshold that will serve the town for another two decades at least - experts say the age of the facility is a concern.

The equipment at the plant is undersized, outdated and inefficient. "Many of the components at the plant have long outlived their planned service life," according to the Public Works Department.

"Waiting would be playing Russian Roulette," said Timothy Pelton, chairman of the Water Pollution Control Authority. He told the Town Council on Tuesday that the authority and consulting engineers AECOM have spend four years designing the upgrade plan.

"The concern is the age of the plant," Pelton said. He noted that the plant's outdated storm water pumps must be used during big storms to make sure the treated wastewater is directed into the nearby Quinnipiac River. "If they don't work, we lose the plant," he said.

The $30 million upgrade request by the authority is part of the town's annual capital budget plan that's being reviewed by the council. A public hearing on the entire $38 million capital plan request will be held on Aug. 16 at 7:30 p.m. at

The budget is scheduled to be adopted by the council on Aug. 23 at 7:30 p.m. also at Town Hall.

A schedule of the budget meetings and the entire fiscal year 2011-12 capital budget plan can be seen in the attached pdf documents.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the treatment plant's daily capacity.