On December 23, 2024, the Western Connecticut Council of Governments (WestCOG) released a report titled, “Safeguarding Public Water Supply Watersheds.” This report details ways in which local zoning commissions and municipalities can protect public water supply watersheds (PWSW).

First, it is important to understand what a watershed is. A watershed is an area of land where rainwater or snow melt drains into one area, such as a lake, stream, or reservoir. A PWSW is a watershed that drains into public water supply.

Obviously, protecting drinking water is very important, but most of this land is privately owned — about 80% throughout the entire state of Connecticut. In Western Connecticut, that number climbs to 92.3%. Due to this factor, a lot of the land is unregulated and could have pollutants leaking or spilling into drinking water supplies. This issue begs the question: How can municipalities protect these areas?

Newtown’s Role

Newtown has a very small percentage of PWSW area, less than 10%, according to Land Use Director Rob Sibley.

“We have regulations that are probably more stringent than some of our neighbors associated with aquifer protection,” Sibley said. He pulled up a map of Newtown and showed the areas on the south side of town that fall within the Saugatuck watershed area.

The Saugatuck watershed is a large area of land that stretches from the south of Newtown all the way to Long Island Sound. It is classified as 55.2% GAA water, or, in layman’s terms, over half of this water is suitable for drinking without any treatment.

In Newtown, the small areas of this watershed that fall in town limits are designated as open space.

“With our watershed protection,” Sibley said, “we have been a part of two watershed compacts with towns which guide and which elevate the process of public watershed protections.”

Sibley added that Newtown is working on another watershed document for the Pootatuck watershed area. He explained that this new document will be a “culmination of reports and studies by Housatonic Valley Association.” He added that this new document will be similar to the Saugatuck and Still River protections that Newtown has already been a part of.

“We have all of these tools that we’re using already — better tools … that towns could use. [What] Newtown doesn’t have yet are things like adopting actual buffers within our zoning regs, like a riparian buffer,” Sibley said.

He continued to explain that in Newtown, the Inland Wetlands Commission looks at most developments and “captures 90%” of what developers need to do to prioritize both aquifer and watershed areas.

Watersheds At Large

In the state of Connecticut, 70% of the population relies on reservoirs fed by public water supply watersheds. However, with most of this land being privately owned, there are not a lot of regulations regarding septic systems, agricultural use, and other land uses that might contaminate a PWSW area.

Francis Pickering, executive director of WestCOG, said, “One of the most striking findings of the report was just the epidemic of releases we’re having into the state’s watersheds. 120,000 reported spills over a 25-year period. And those are only the spills that are reported.”

Charles Vidich, a senior project manager at WestCOG and a lead author on this report, said, “The range of contaminants that were released into the watersheds of Connecticut over the last 25 years were incredible, ranging from just petroleum to PFAS.”

PFAS are known as “forever chemicals.” They have this reputation because they do not break down quickly. PFAS take a long time to break down, and can cause serious health issues in humans and animals.

Vidich added, “Our focus of our study was on the public water supply watershed … 80% of all the public water supply watersheds are privately owned. The other 20% are owned by utility companies. So if you’re drinking a glass of water, and 20% of it is clean … you’d be thinking twice about drinking that glass of water!”

Vidich explained a time when two trucks crashed and fell into Morey Pond in Willimantic last year. Vidich said that no one really discussed what was in those trucks that then went into the water, which serves as drinking water for people in Willimantic.

“The accidents have consequences,” Vidich said.

Protecting Watersheds Going Forward

Pickering added that there is a “looming public health crisis” with pollutants entering watersheds.

Some of these issues are because of antiquated septic systems and infrastructure. Most septic systems are in failure, and a lot of people do not realize it because they are underground, an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality, until something goes seriously wrong.

Pickering suggested having septic systems pumped or serviced regularly to avoid running into a bigger, more expensive issue as a homeowner, but also as a servant to the ecosystem around the home. Failing septic systems can leak E.coli and other pollutants into watersheds, contaminating the water for hundreds of people.

Vidich suggested pushing for low-impact developments and avoiding “industrial, commercial developments that ignore green ideas.”

Pickering added that there is a lot of growth in Connecticut, and with this additional growth comes a need for additional water.

For Newtown, Vidich said, “Not all of Newtown is in a public water supply watershed … though an enormous amount of it is in a watershed area which has the potential for drinking water at some point in the future. And I think that is something that the town should consider; it’s not just the existing public water supply watershed, but anticipating the future drinking water supplies that might be needed later on.”

Pickering added, “If we are only content to protect the supplies we have right now, we are potentially putting an upper limit on our growth … If we don’t have backup water supplies, then we are really in dire straits.”

Protecting public water supply watershed areas goes beyond what residents have now in the present, as Vidich pointed out, “We need to be thinking about what this means [for our] waters in the future … It’s protecting what we think we might need in the future.”

Water is a necessary resource for human and animal life, just like air. Pickering said that air quality is held to a high standard and that water should be, too. “We expect [the water] to be clean,” not just now, but for future generations and their future generations.

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Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at sam@thebee.com.