Water Company ‘Guardedly Optimistic’ About Riverside Test Wells

By John Voket

Ron Black, a second generation well and water expert, said this week he has two prospective sites that could deliver the necessary capacity of water to sustain the 150-plus homes his company serves in the Riverside/Alpine neighborhood of Sandy Hook. But the principal of the Olmstead Water Supply Company, Inc of Thomaston, may have to depend on either his small public utility’s right, or Newtown’s willingness, to take the drilling site by eminent domain in order to connect any viable wells to his customers’ supply line.

Last week Mr Black said he sank three experimental or test wells on the last remaining viable parcel in the neighborhood, a roughly one-acre lot known as “the ball field,” which sits on the northwestern corner of Alpine Drive and Bancroft Road. He told The Newtown Bee this week that he was granted permission to access the site by Margaret Piazza, the last remaining identifiable representative of the Riverside on Lake Zoar Association.

He also contends his family has longstanding membership in that now-defunct lake community association.

“Olmstead Water Company is a member of the Riverside Association,” Mr Black said. “And we entered into an agreement to use [the parcel] for water company purposes.”

His said two of the three experimental wells he sank showed preliminary signs of providing water.

“I don’t have three dry holes there,” Mr Black said, adding that he was awaiting test results on samples from two of the test wells to determine the water’s potability.

The ongoing water issues to the approximately 160 Olmstead Water customers in the area came to light before local selectmen April 21 when health and land use officials pitched the idea of the town taking over the parcel in question. The appeal of that “ball field” lot was its size and location, according to Newtown Health District Director Donna Culbert.

She told selectmen it was the last location within the association’s jurisdiction that has the necessary setbacks from neighboring properties to allow for the type of deep well drilling required to provide sustaining public supply.

Mr Black agreed.

“The ball field is the spot,” he said. Mr Black said he hopes to gain legal rights to site a permanent well at the location, and to take “off line,” other longstanding wells in the area that are no longer producing. Because of low well production last summer, Mr Black said he trucked in “hundreds of thousands of gallons,” of water to keep the community’s two 40,000 water supply tanks at capacity.

The Olmstead company, which also operates small water systems in Brookfield and New Fairfield, is currently on a time clock with the state Department of Health (DPH) that requires his utility to “comply” with a consent order to address the ongoing supply shortfalls. According to Ms Culbert and Town Attorney David Grogins, the company’s only options are to gain access and rights to drill and pump from a site within the community, move to an adjacent, off-site location and pump water into the community, or walk away.

The third option is most worrisome to local officials because it could possibly leave the town in the unenviable position of being ordered to take over the water company responsibilities. The last and most unlikely option is that another water company might take over.

Mr Black said he already spent $12,000 to drill an unsuccessful 850-foot-deep well on another Riverside parcel, and that he would gladly walk away from the system and give it to another local utility like United Water.

“It’s the nature of small water systems — and there are thousands in the state — when you lose your well you lose your water,” Mr Black said. “I own 14 others, you can take them for nothing…put an ad in your paper, you’re welcome to them.”

While he may have a new source of water supply if the test wells can indeed provide sustained potable water flow, the town attorney questions Olmstead’s ability to prove to the state DPH evidence of a legal right or easement without Mr Black’s public utility either taking the property, obtaining an easement to drill, or the town acquiring the parcel and striking an arrangement with the water company to continue operating the wells there.

Mr Grogins shares the opinion of land use and health officials that the latter is the best option. But he doubts an alleged verbal agreement struck between Mr Black and Margaret Piazza would be acceptable to the state to permit the hook up between the proposed new wells and the existing water system.

Ms Piazza confirmed to The Bee that she was approached by Mr Black about possibly drilling on the site, but said she doesn’t understand why he “had to.”

“I can’t imagine anyone being against him drilling there, we need the water,” she said.

Based on a title search performed by the town it was determined that although the Riverside association is a defunct, nonprofit legal entity, it still lists Ms Piazza as the “statutory agent for service” to the corporation. The town attorney explained that in Connecticut, every corporation must appoint a person to receive suits or civil process on behalf of the corporation they represent.

“These are very limited responsibilities to receive legal civil process,” Mr Grogins said. “They cannot grant legal permission on behalf of the members.”

The town is moving forward under the assumption that the association is defunct, Mr Grogins said, because it owes back taxes and has not filed required corporation paperwork with the Secretary of the State’s office in some time.

Officials also agree that a collateral benefit of the town moving to take the ball field parcel would be for the town to concurrently acquire a number of “paper roads” that crisscross the area.

“I like the idea of acquiring the land [by eminent domain], since the town is responsible for those roads anyway,” Mr Grogins said Wednesday. “The Public Works Department thinks it is important for the town to own those roads because they currently don’t come close to meeting town road standards.”

While the town could also initiate foreclosure proceedings against the association for about $2,500 in back taxes owed, the properties in question would then have to go on the auction block. Town Assessor Tom DeNoto said the current valuation on the ball field parcel at 49 Alpine Drive is $22,710, which generally represents 70 percent of the market value.

Mr Grogins favors the option of Newtown securing the properties in question by eminent domain, and then negotiating a long-term agreement under which Olmstead pays all related expenses.

Mr Black said he is loathe to initiate eminent domain proceedings himself.

“A public water utility could file eminent domain but it would be legally cumbersome — it’s not how I like to do things,” he said. “I would like to get [legal] access to the property to use for the good of the community.”