Date: Fri 02-Jul-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

wetlands-fiber-optic-cable

Full Text:

Fiber Optic Cable Gets Wetlands Clearance

BY ANDREW GOROSKO

Conservation Commission members have approved an application from a

communications firm to install underground fiber optic cable through the

western section of town.

The cable run will be part of a new nationwide communications network

optimized for Internet technology.

Conservation Commission members unanimously approved the application June 23.

Level 3 Communications, LLC, plans to install five miles of fiber optic cable

along a course which will pass through the buffer zones of 18 wetland areas

along Route 25, Route 6, Route 302, and Taunton Hill Road. Installation will

be done in the roads' rights-of-way, generally beneath road pavement. Two

sections of the project will be installed beneath road shoulders.

The run of cable to be installed in Newtown is part of a cable section to be

installed between Stamford and Hartford.

The cable will enter Newtown from Brookfield on Hawleyville Road, follow Mt

Pleasant Road to Taunton Lane, follow Taunton Lane to Taunton Hill Road,

follow Taunton Hill Road to Route 302, and then follow Route 302 to Bethel.

Along its route in Newtown, the cable will pass through areas protected under

the provisions of the town's wetlands regulations.

According to Earth Tech, a firm which represents Level 3 Communications, the

cable's route is designed to avoid entering wetland areas as much as possible.

Soil scientists for the company delineated the cable route with that

consideration in mind. Although some of the proposed cable installation will

occur in wetland buffer zones, none of the proposed work will have significant

adverse effects on wetlands, according to Earth Tech.

All cable installation work will be done either beneath the pavement of state

and local roads or alongside the roads within those roads' rights-of-way. Such

a cable placement prevents the need to obtain private easements for cable

installation and maintenance. The cable is × of an inch thick. It is enclosed

in a 1¬-inch diameter plastic conduit. Spare conduits will be installed for

possible future cabling.

Subsurface cable access chambers will be installed along the cable's route for

maintenance work. Work crews will restore the land disturbed for cable

installation.

Fiber optic cables transmit large volumes of information with rapid pulses of

light.