Trailer Park Sewer Project Slated To Start Soon

By Andrew Gorosko

Construction work to provide sanitary sewer service to the Meadowbrook Terrace Mobile Home Park on Route 302 (Sugar Street) is expected to start by the end of this month, in a project designed to provide reliable waste disposal for the trailer park.

The 12-acre trailer park at 55-61 Sugar Street has had longstanding serious waste disposal problems caused by failing septic systems. The three septic systems used by the approximately 60 trailers there have had to be frequently pumped to prevent health hazards from occurring. Without such routine septic pumping, the town’s health department would have shut down the trailer park.

Town Public Works Director Fred Hurley said July 15 that workmen plan to start digging trenches for the sewering project by the end of July. It is yet unclear whether that trenching would start at the trailer park and head eastward to the terminus of the central municipal sewer system at the intersection of Route 302 and West Street, or trenching would start at that intersection and head westward to the trailer park, Mr Hurley said.

The town has awarded the sewer construction bid to Trumbull Construction Company, Inc, of Trumbull for approximately $270,000. Town officials have had a preconstruction meeting with the firm for project planning, Mr Hurley said.

The 2,100-foot-long, two-inch-diameter low-pressure sewer would be used exclusively by the trailer park. Properties along the sewer line would not be allowed to connect to the sewer. Multiple sewage grinder pumps would be used to eliminate the need for a costly conventional sewage pumping station.

Town Health Director Donna McCarthy said providing sanitary sewer service to the trailer park will permanently resolve the longstanding problems there with septic waste disposal.

“We cannot be happier that it’s [sewer installation] finally coming to fruition,” she said.

Federal grant money is being used to subsidize the sewering costs. In February 2002, the state earmarked a $391,000 federal grant to cover the design and installation of sanitary sewer service for Meadowbrook Terrace, plus related expenses. The town sought the federal grant under the provisions of the Connecticut Small Cities Community Development Block Grant Program.

Mr Hurley said the trailer park may be discharging wastewater into the municipal sewer system by the end of August. Restoration work, which is done to improve the appearance of areas disturbed by sewer construction, is slated for September, he said.

The low-pressure sewer line will generally be installed beneath turfed areas alongside Route 302, Mr Hurley said. The sewer pipe will be buried about five to six feet below ground level. Because a pressurized sewer line is being installed, the deep trenches, which are sometimes required by gravity-powered sewers, are unnecessary.

During the construction process, traffic will be controlled in the area. Trenching work alongside Route 302 is expected to take about three to four weeks, Mr Hurley said.

Besides work done alongside the road, workmen also will construct a network of sewer lines within the trailer park.

Town officials view extending a sewer line to the trailer park as a way to maintain the local stock of affordable housing. Although Meadowbrook Terrace may not meet the state’s technical definition of “affordable housing,” the complex, in practical terms, provides affordable housing for local residents.

The town has two other trailer parks, Bay Colony on South Main Street in Botsford, and Midway on Mt Pleasant Road Hawleyville. Neither facility has sewer service.

The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been working with the town in seeking to solve Meadowbrook Terrace’s sewage disposal problems. The DEP has maintained that the long-term solution is connecting the trailers to the municipal sewer system.

According to DEP documents, the septic failure problems at Meadowbrook date back to at least 1984. DEP issued orders to Meadowbrook in 1984 and in 1990 to correct pollution problems. But despite steps that were taken to solve the problems, septic failures continued to occur. The trailer park has been in business since about 1950.

In 1999, the trailer park’s owners hired Fuss and O’Neill, Inc, the town’s consulting engineer, to design a sewer line to connect the trailer park to the sewer system.