Following the town attorney’s review of proposed revisions to the Water Pollution Control Plan, Water & Sewer Authority (WSA) members have decided to submit the document for comments at an upcoming public hearing.

The WSA has scheduled that hearing for 7 pm on Thursday, February 7, at the sewage treatment plant office building at 24 Commerce Road. The proposed revisions would modify the plan, which was last updated in January 2015.

Fred Hurley, public works director, said January 16 that the basic proposed changes to the pollution control plan involve the document being general, rather than specific, about the amount of sewage treatment capacity the town is using and the amount of treatment capacity remaining.

The town runs two sewage collection systems — one in the town center that began operations in 1997, which discharges wastewater at a Commerce Road treatment plant, and one that started operations in 2001, which collects wastewater along sections of Mount Pleasant Road and Hawleyville Road in Hawleyville and then discharges sewage at the regional treatment plant on Plumtrees Road in Danbury.

A basic difference between the two systems is that the central system was installed to resolve environmental problems, such as groundwater pollution caused by many failing septic systems, and the Hawleyville system was installed to attract economic development to that area. The town expanded the Hawleyville sanitary sewer system in 2016.

In November, in response to criticism that was leveled at the WSA over the proposed plan revisions, Mr Hurley explained why the WSA’s reasoning is sound and its revised plan makes sense.

In October, attorney Timothy Hollister, the lawyer representing land development firm 79 Church Hill Road LLC, had raised issues over the proposed revisions to the plan. That developer has a lawsuit pending against the WSA concerning its controversial proposed Hunters Ridge rental apartment complex.

In August, the developer, which most recently had proposed a 141-unit version of the project near Exit 10 of Interstate 84, filed the lawsuit, through which the firm seeks court approval to either substantially or to greatly expand the land area at which the firm could construct the apartment complex with the provision of municipal sanitary sewer service. The developer had earlier proposed a 224-unit version of the project.

Through the lawsuit, the Trumbull-based developer also is seeking to have the court nullify certain conditions that the WSA has placed on the firm obtaining sewage treatment capacity for the proposed dwellings.

The project would include an affordable housing component, in which income-eligible tenants would be charged lower rents than the tenants occupying market-rate units. The town, like some other municipalities, is under a state mandate to increase its stock of affordable housing.

In his objections, Mr Hollister challenges the basis for town’s having listed a large section of the area where the developer wants to build the multifamily project as a “sewer avoidance area,” where sewer service is not allowed by WSA.

Mr Hurley has responded, “The applicant’s attorney clearly ignores the science and engineering that went into the final delineation of the WSA’s ‘sewer service area,’ which was mandated by environmental orders of the State of Connecticut.”

The next scheduled event in the lawsuit’s adjudication is a February 14 conference call during which the involved parties would discuss the status of the case.

The WSA’s proposed revisions to the Water Pollution Control Plan would make it more concise than the plan it would replace. If the revised plan is approved by the WSA, there would be less need for the WSA to repeatedly update the document, according to Mr Hurley. The original plan was approved in 1995, with revisions made in 1999, 2009, and 2015.

According to the proposed revised plan, the document, through its related mapping, delineates the boundaries of areas to be served by town sewers, as well as the areas where sewers are to be avoided. The plan also describes the policies and programs the town employs to control both surface water pollution and groundwater pollution.