The Blog that Works

This morning, the Stamford Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) announced that they will hold an Open House and Special Meeting on Tuesday, September 29 to discuss the Waste-to-Energy Project.  The Open House will run from 3:00 p.m. until 5:00, followed by a special meeting of the WPCA Board of Directors at 6:00 p.m.  It will be held in the Administration building of the WPCA on Harborview Avenue in Stamford.  Please enter the WPCA plant from the southern end of Harborview Avenue and follow signs for parking.

The Open House will include materials and staff from Nexterra Systems Corp., the firm that is under contract with the WPCA to design the proposed alternative energy project, as well as staff from the WPCA.  The Project entails construction of a gasification system that will use wood waste to generate heat to dry sewage sludge.  The sludge drying system currently relies on natural gas for heat.  With the offset of natural gas, the Project will reduce costs for the WPCA and ratepayers, while switching from a fossil fuel to a carbon-neutral source of energy.  The completion of the project will also create opportunities for future phases with additional financial and environmental benefits to Stamford.

Interested citizens will be given the opportunity to tour the site of the proposed project and the existing state-of-the-art sludge drying facility. WPCA Director Jeanette Brown, senior representatives of Nexterra and others will be on hand to answer questions about this progressive environmental project.

The special meeting will include formal presentations on the financial and technical aspects of the project.  There will be an opportunity for public comment as well.  I strongly encourage all citizens who are interested in this leading-edge alternative energy technology and its application in Stamford to attend this event.

This morning, I announced that construction of the Replacement of the Farms Road Bridge over the East Branch of the Mianus River is completed.  This project is the culmination of many years of design and environmental permitting and 16 months of construction.  Input from the meetings held both formally with the public and informally with the area residents have contributed greatly to the success of this project.

 The new bridge maintains essentially the same alignment as the existing bridge but has been widened to improve driving safety.  The new structure features solid arched parapet walls and four pilasters that define the bridge.  The entire structure is surfaced to replicate the stone of the many WPA era bridges that were constructed throughout Stamford.  The cost of the project was eligible for 80% reimbursement from federal aid with the remaining 20% coming from municipal funds.

The federal aid for the project was authorized under the Transportation Equity Act for the Twenty-First Century (TEA-21) administered by the Federal Highway Administration through the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s Federal Local Bridge Program.  To commemorate this auspicious completion, I will be conducting a ribbon cutting ceremony on the bridge, on Friday, September 18th at 11:00AM.  I hope to see you there.

Few of us will ever forget where we were eight years ago today.  I was at home when the first tower was hit, and I remember the shock and confusion we all shared at that moment. When the second tower was hit, I was in my office, and all speculation was erased.

The day then became a whirlwind of events. I remember meeting the first trains as they came in from Grand Central. There I joined volunteers who offered to assist victims and witnesses that day with crisis counseling and information. News came pouring in about the events, and like many other citizens of Stamford and Connecticut, we couldn’t help but think of the many people we knew working in Manhattan that day, and shared in the grief of learning about our own friends and neighbors who weren’t coming home.

The City of Stamford lost nine citizens to the World Trade Center attacks, and saw countless others deeply affected by what happened. The impact and memories I share are not unique and make up such a small piece of our larger collective conscience surrounding that very dark day. I hope you will join with me in remembering the events, and honoring those who lost their lives on that tragic event – and share with me in the hope that we still stand united and progress forward out of the darkness.

Today I announced that the Mill Pond restoration has begun in earnest and the dam will be completely demolished over the next few weeks. The flowing river has now been isolated in a 25-foot wide bypass channel allowing demolition and reconstruction of the new river channel to occur. With the Pulaski Street dam removed and a section of the Mill Pond dam removed, there is an unobstructed flow in Mill River for the first time in our lifetimes.

The benefits of the Mill Pond restoration include the avoidance of future dredging costs estimated by the Army Corps of Engineers at $1.5 million; flood reduction downtown as the 100-year flood in the future will be contained in Mill River Park; and habitat restoration as over 4 miles of freshwater spawning habit will become available to threatened species of river herring. The economic development stimulus is substantial as well as the blight of the deteriorated Mill Pond is removed from surrounding properties.  A section of the dam at the mouth of the bypass channel was removed in August. The balance of the dam will be breached to allow the pond area and sediment to dry. Completion of demolition will follow.

Over two hundred panels of steel sheet piling have been driven into the river bottom between Broad Street and Main Street to create the bypass channel. Individual sheets are driven 15 feet or more into the ground. Where bedrock prevented driven sheets to be installed, another means of cutoff was provided. With the river now fully diverted into the bypass channel, dredging of the larger, now dry, Mill Pond area will occur along with grading of the new flood plain.

You can follow the progress of the river restoration with monthly videos made from time-lapse photography at www.millriverpark.com. Periodically they will be updated to show the progress of construction. The current video shows the installation of the sheet piling. The pilings will be removed after the river is finally diverted into the newly constructed permanent channel. The video of the dam demolition will be posted later in September.

This morning, I announced several new steps that are being taken to address the contaminated well water found in the Scofieldtown area in North Stamford.

First, the City is making bottled water supplies available to families residing on Hannah’s Road, Larkspur Drive, Very Merry Road, 3-18 Cousins Road and Skymeadow Drive between Scofieldtown Road and Larkspur Drive.  This bottled water supply will be made available while the City awaits results from tests underway, or being scheduled now.  These areas are also the highest priority for well testing based on the results thus far.  So far, of the 59 households within this area, 36 remain to be sampled and tested; 11 tests are pending at the State Department of Public Health lab; 5 have tested negative for pesticides (including 1 City test and 4 EPA tests in 2008); and 7 have tested positive for pesticides (including 4 City tests and 3 EPA tests from 2008).

All of the households that have tested positive have already been provided with bottled water by the State Department of Environmental Protection and have either received or will shortly receive activated charcoal filtration systems for their homes.  These systems are effective in eliminating pesticides like those found in the positive samples. The City is working to contact each of the households to apprise them of the situation and arrange for water supplies to be delivered, and have been able to reach the vast majority.  However, households within this area who have yet not been contacted should call the City of Stamford’s Office of Operations at 977-4141 to arrange for this service.

Second, the City has scheduled a Public Information Meeting relating to the contaminated wells for Tuesday, September 15 at 7:00 p.m.   The meeting will be held in the gymnasium at the Scofield Magnet Middle School.  Please note that the school itself is served by public drinking water supplies, and is not impacted by well contamination. 

The meeting will provide an opportunity for concerned residents to hear from City health and operations officials as well as representatives from the State Departments of Environmental Protection and Public Health.  Further information and an agenda for that meeting will be posted on the City’s website at www.cityofstamford.org in advance of the meeting.

We are working very hard to meet the challenge presented by these troubling findings.  I hope that the residents affected by this problem will take advantage of these interim precautions.  Through the upcoming public meeting, communication between the community and the many City employees involved in the response and our website, I commit the City to providing as much information as we have available to the public as we work diligently to address this most serious problem.

Yesterday, I released the preliminary crime statistics for the first half of 2009.  The overall change in crime was small, a .7% decrease, but the most striking statistic is that serious crime, which includes homicides, assaults and robberies, is down 17.7% compared to the same time period in 2008.  More specifically, the crime stats showed a decrease in robberies by 25.8% and aggravated assaults by 17%. 

While these crime stats are preliminary and may be subject to change, we should be proud of this accomplishment.  Historically, during times of economic hardships, communities tend to see a spike in crime, and not only did we avoid that spike, but we once again lowered crime.  Hats off to the men and women of the Stamford Police Department and everyone in our community who works so hard to maintain and enhance our public safety.  Because of our combined efforts, Stamford continues to be safe and vibrant community to live, work and raise a family.