Environmentalists Seek Utility Land Preservation

By Kaaren Valenta

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal this week declared the 18,000 acres of open space owned by the former Bridgeport Hydraulic Company (BHC) in southwestern Connecticut a “precious natural resource” that if not preserved will mean “more houses, more roads, more people, and more burdens on the local taxpayers.”

“We have to be aware of the pitfalls development can bring,” Mr Blumenthal said at a public information meeting held Tuesday evening at Newtown High School to discuss the recent purchase of Bridgeport Hydraulic by a British-based multinational company, the Kelda Group. Sponsored by the Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE), the meeting brought together state legislators, selectmen from area towns, BHC officials, environmentalists and residents from several area towns.

Mr Blumenthal said Bridgeport Hydraulic and its former parent company, Aquarian, have been good environmental citizens over the years, but the future of the land is at risk now that Kelda has bought BHC for $444 million, nearly three times the book value, in a highly leveraged buyout.

“We all know how expensive land has become,” Mr Blumenthal said. “BHC sold 2,000 acres in the past few years for $22,000 an acre. Once this [open space] is lost, it can never be re-created.”

BHC is the largest landholder in western Connecticut, with undeveloped land worth an estimated $150 million to $250 million on the open market. In Newtown, BHC owns 660 acres adjacent to Huntington State Park in the Poverty Hollow Road area. Before its purchase by Kelda, BHC had planned to sell 1,390 acres of open space in Fairfield County, including 46 acres in Newtown, a sale that was postponed when Gov John Rowland negotiated a two-to-three-year moratorium on BHC land sales.

Don Strait, CFE executive director, offered a two-pronged approach to save the land: Either convince Kelda to make a voluntary gift of permanent conservation easements on the land, or create a regional water authority to control the utility and its open space.

“Expert analysis by the Nature Conservancy shows that Kelda’s bottom line can benefit as much from a gift of permanent conservation easements as from development sales of land,” Mr Strait said.

This week Rep John Stripp, R-135th District, and several other legislators introduced a bill that would authorize a feasibility study for creation of a regional water authority similar to the New Haven-based South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority (SCRWA).

“We can get the land through eminent domain but we need to determine the cost,” Rep Stripp said. “If the bill is approved it will take two to three years before we get to the condemnation process, so we have to get it going as an alternative plan – secondary, and hopefully it won’t be needed.”

The 18,000 acres are made up of three classes of land: Class I, protected watershed; Class II, land within 150 feet of a water source; and Class III, land which is not used for watershed purposes and could be sold.

Environmentalists say there are as many as 12,000 acres in Class II and III, BHC says there are 6,500. In Newtown, the CFE says that 460 of the 660 acres are at risk; BHC contends only 140 acres could be sold. The disagreement looms ever larger in towns like Easton, which has 6,500 acres of BHC-owned land. The environmentalists say 4,000 acres are at risk for eventual sale in Easton; BHC contends there are only 1,800 acres of Class II and III land in Easton.

Atty Gen Blumental said a third possible course of action is creation of a trust fund through which land could be purchased from Kelda, provided the funds could be found to pay the company “fair compensation.”

State Rep John McKinney, who represents Easton, Fairfield, and part of Newtown, said the State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will look at all 18,000 acres and come up with a determination by the end of February or March on what land the state believes is imperative to preserve. Local officials must do the same, he said.

“We have the right of first refusal when Class III land is available for sale, but we must pay fair market value. I think that as a matter of public policy we should be buying Class III land to preserve it,” Sen McKinney said. “At issue is how much is in Class II. This land could be sold but the procedure that must be met is fairly rigorous.”

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal said the purchase of BHU by a British company and the recent purchase of the United Water Company, which serves Newtown, by a French company means that local water resources no longer are controlled by American companies.  He also took issue with what he saw as a loophole in the negotiated moratorium that would allow Kelda to reclassify and sell land.

BHC President James McInerney said Kelda agreed to a two-year moratorium on the sale of Class III land and a three-year moratorium on Class III, but has no plans to sell any land. “Of the 2,045 acres that were sold [by BHC] in the past 10 years, 88 percent were sold for open space,” he pointed out.

Calling the proposed water authority a threat to his company, Mr McInerney said comparisons made by environmentalists of the water rates charged by BHC and the South Central Regional Water Authority are deceptive. The rates charged to consumers are higher when filtration plants have to be built, he said. “[SCRWA’s] rates were higher in the 1980s, ours are higher in the 1990s. It is cyclical.”

State Rep Julia Wasserman said other options for preserving the land need to be explored.

“I am very interested in bringing together those state agencies – the DEP, the Department of Public Health and the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) – which deal statutorily with these issues,” she said. “I have asked for a meeting with the DPUC that will be held on February 18 at the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials office in Brookfield.”

Also among the state and local officials who spoke at Tuesday evening’s meeting were State Rep Pat Shea, who represents parts of Newtown and Monroe; State Sen. Angelina Scarpetti of Monroe, and Monroe Selectman Karen Burnaska.