Waterways Restored: Case Study 7 – Stormwater Runoff Management in Connecticut

When the Clean Water Act is applied to American waterways, good things can happen. Our recent report, Waterways Restored: The Clean Water Act's Impact on 15 American Rivers, Lakes and Bays, highlights waterways where the Clean Water Act's protections and improvement provisions have had positive effects. Polluted waterways have been cleaned up, pristine waterways have been preserved, and threatened waterways have been protected. All waterways deserve these opportunities. In this blog series, we'll showcase individual case studies from the report. The next installment looks at stormwater runoff management in Connecticut.

Jeff Inglis

Policy Analyst

When the Clean Water Act is applied to American waterways, good things can happen. Our recent report, Waterways Restored: The Clean Water Act’s Impact on 15 American Rivers, Lakes and Bays, highlights waterways where the Clean Water Act’s protections and improvement provisions have had positive effects. Polluted waterways have been cleaned up, pristine waterways have been preserved, and threatened waterways have been protected. All waterways deserve these opportunities.

In this blog series, we’ll showcase individual case studies from the report. The next installment looks at stormwater runoff management in Connecticut.

CONNECTICUT: Construction Sites Must Manage Stormwater Runoff to Protect Vital Waterways

Lake Lillinonah is a fishing destination in Connecticut that is protected thanks to provisions of the Clean Water Act allowing public input into decisions about discharge permits. | Photo by H. Morrow Long

Lake Lillinonah is formed by the Housatonic River in western Connecticut, and ultimately flows out to Long Island Sound. The lake provides wintering and breeding habitat for as many as 40 bald eagles, and hosts bass and pike fishing, boating and recreation for residents of the six surrounding communities.[i]

It suffers from pollution from the discharge of phosphorus from the Danbury Wastewater Treatment Plant to one of its tributaries and is in an area of the state that has seen rapid growth in housing and commercial developments in recent decades.[ii]

At least as far back as the 1990s, construction sites in Connecticut were polluting nearby waterways with stormwater runoff. Lots of different projects caused problems: In 1996, the state sued a builder of two Wal-Mart retail stores (in East Windsor and Torrington) for causing erosion and silt buildup in the Connecticut River and some of its tributaries, as well as a nearby pond.[iii] A company building a golf driving range was fined for letting silt run into the Eight-Mile River in Southington in 1997.[iv] In 2002, New Britain residents near Schultz’s Pond complained that runoff from the construction site of a city water filtration plant was clogging the pond, formerly so clear it had been used for ice harvesting in the early 20th century.[v]

Today, these waterways, Lake Lillinonah, and other Connecticut waters used for fishing and drinking water are better protected from construction site runoff, thanks to a permitting process required by the Clean Water Act.

Under the Act, all discharges of pollution to water, including dredged or fill material, require a permit. Most of the time, an individual permit is issued to a specific company to limit its discharges into a specific waterway. But the Clean Water Act also allows for what are called “general permits,” setting conditions for projects that are expected to “have only minimal adverse effects,” according to the law.[vi] (The EPA offers such examples as “minor road activities” and “utility line backfill.”)[vii] The presence of several or many such projects can have a cumulative, negative effect on waterways, hence the need for limits on pollution. Those projects do not require individual permit applications or review, but they must still follow the rules in the general permit.

The Clean Water Act requires all permits – including general permits – to go through a process of public review and comment before they are issued or renewed.[viii] This ensures the public’s voice is heard – either to endorse a proposal or to offer ways to improve it.

In the public comment period on a Connecticut proposal for a renewed general permit governing stormwater discharge from construction sites, citizens and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment pointed out that the state’s proposal did not sufficiently protect pristine waterways – such as those used for drinking water and trout habitat; in fact, they noted that, in some cases, these waters would have less protection than waterways that were already polluted.[ix]

The group also asked the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to improve the permit’s water quality protections in other ways, such as by boosting prevention of stormwater pollution, limiting discharges into waters that were already polluted, and requiring monitoring of stormwater runoff to ensure it is within the permit’s limits.[x]

As a result of those comments, the state revised its permit language to increase protection of water resources – including specifically extending maximum protection to drinking water supplies and trout streams, requiring regular monitoring of stormwater runoff during construction, and requiring inspection after the project is complete to ensure proper stormwater management.[xi]

In other words, because of the public comment opportunity required by the Clean Water Act, construction projects are now releasing far less pollution into Connecticut’s waters, helping to protect the state’s drinking water and precious trout habitat.

 

[i] Lake Lillinonah Authority, About the LLA, accessed at www.lakelillinonahauthority.org/About-LLA.html, 7 October 2014.

[ii] Danbury plant discharge: Greg Pettricione, Chairman, Lake Lillinonah Authority, and Jeffrey Silverman, Chairman, Friends of the Lake, Request for Phosphorus Discharge Compliance (letter to Mark D. Boughton, Mayor, City of Danbury; Betsey Wingfield, Chief, Bureau of Water Protection and Land Use, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection H. Curtis Spalding, Regional Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), 12 March 2013, available at www.friendsofthelake.org/downloads/FOL-20130318-Request_for_Phosphorus_Discharge_Compliance_at_Danbury_-_LLA_and_FOTL_March_2013.pdf; rapid growth: Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials, History of Land Use in New Milford, CT, accessed at www.hvceo.org/luchange_newmilford.php, 7 October 2014.

[iii] Sherman Tarr, “State Files Pollution Suits in Wal-Mart Projects,” Hartford Courant, 21 December 1996.

[iv] Carolyn Moreau, “State Fines Contractor for Runoff in Southington,” Hartford Courant, 9 June 1997.

[v] Bill Leukhardt, “Cloudy Water in Pond a Worry,” Hartford Courant, 25 March 2002.

[vi] U.S. Government Printing Office, “Title 33, Chapter 26, Subchapter IV, Sec. 1344 – Permits for Dredged or Fill Material,” United States Code (2011 edition), 2011.

[vii] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Section 404 Permitting, accessed at water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/cwa/dredgdis/, 24 September 2014.

[viii] See note vi.

[ix] Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Comments on the Draft General Permit for the Discharge of Stormwater from Construction and Dewatering Wastewater Activities, 23 June 2011.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Connecticut Fund for the Environment, Water Docket, accessed at www.ctenvironment.org/#!water-docket/c13pj, 24 September 2014; Murtha Cullina LLP, DEEP Issues New General Permit for the Discharge of Stormwater and Dewatering Wastewaters from Construction Activities (law firm news alert) , September 2013; Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, General Permit for the Discharge of Stormwater and Dewatering Wastewaters from Construction Activities, 21 August 2013.

Authors

Jeff Inglis

Policy Analyst