Why Norwalk River is threatened (Part 1)

The Norwalk River provides no only recreation but carries everything from sewer plant discharges to runoff from parking lots to failing septic systems to water draining off lawns or other landscaping.—Norwalk River Watershed Association photo

Despite increasing evidence that pollution in the Norwalk River is reaching a near unrecoverable threshhold, there are no comprehensive regulations governing discharges into the river as whole.

Neither the state Department of Environmental Protection nor the federal Environmental Protection Agency has enacted regulations forcing communities, developers or private land owners to consider the maximum capacity of the waterway to carry pollutants.

Instead, the DEP has the authority to look at the river only in segments, basing its assessment of any project on the water quality of that one area, not on the cumulative effect along the 20-mile long waterway.

“In theory the cleanest water is farthest upstream,” said Stephen Soler, president of Georgetown Land Development. “We cannot do anything to impair the water quality. In, theory, the water is cleaner than it was when it came to us. Of course, I have to say that water, like problems, flows down stream.”

Mr. Soler built a state-of-the-art water treatment plant for his Gilbert and Bennett wire mill redevelopment that far exceeds DEP standards for wastewater. However, even the “green” developer admits he did not have to look at water quality at the mouth of the Norwalk River, where it flows into Long Island Sound.

“That’s unfortunately the focus of the last guy in line, in this case Norwalk,” Mr. Soler said. “When looking at all the criteria to get a permit, there are certain assumptions that are made, among them that the water flowing downstream is theoretically the cleanest.”

And that, said Dick Harris of Harbor Watch/River Watch, is part of the problem with the Norwalk River.

“We’ve asked over and over for a study of the river’s carrying capacity and its ability to maintain biologic integrity,” said Mr. Harris, whose group conducts water quality testing for the DEP.

Mr. Harris said the river’s problems go beyond wastewater. It encompasses land use, fertilizers, stormwater, impervious surfaces, and wildlife. While each factor plays into water quality, no one assesses the river by looking at the cumulative effect of every factor.

“That fact is, we just don’t know,” he said. “That’s been one of our big concerns. It needs to get done before you can legitimately add any more wastewater to that river. You have to know the river’s ability to handle it.”

Non-point source pollution

Sewage plant discharge, however, is only part of the problem. Experts, public and private, agree “non-point source” pollution is an every increasing worry. Non-point source pollution covers everything from untreated stormwater runoff to water coming off parking lots to failing septic systems to water draining off lawns or other landscaping.

“There is simply no authority governing that,” said DEP Water Pollution Control Engineer William Hogan. “We tried to get some statutory authority last year, but the legislature shot it down.”

A bill to allow the DEP to regulate the types of pesticides and fertilizers private owners use died in committee during the 2007 session.

Since there is no oversight on what types of chemicals people use, there is no way to determine where the threshold for discharge might be for municipalities. Mr. Hogan called non-point source pollution, “a whole big can of worms no one wants to open.”

“Since we can control point-source pollution, discharge from water treatment plants and the like, that’s what everyone wants to talk about,” he said. “There is no push to control non-point source pollution. There’s a general sense that water quality people should deal with it, but we’re water quality people.”

The river’s ability to carry and dilute pollutants has a direct effect on Long Island Sound. A massive die-off of lobsters in western parts of the Sound, lasting from 1999 to 2002, all but wiped out a $26 million commercial fishery. A second die-off in 2005 affected millions of bottom-feeding fish. According to Harbor Watch, Norwalk Harbor has yet to recover from the 2005 fish kill.

“We go out and trawl the harbor and find nothing — no life at all,” said Mr. Harris. “The 2005 massive fish kill smelled so bad you could barely keep your lunch down. Everybody complained how bad it was. The thing that is astounding is when something like this happens, it doesn’t seem to be converted into action. There is tremendous complacency.”

According to a 2006 report on the lobster die-off, non-point source pollutants such as pesticides towns used to control West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes combined to cause to kill lobsters, although the report could not identify a main culprit.

The fish kill remains a mystery. However, a University of Connecticut study pointed to river pollution as major contributor to depleted oxygen levels, algae blooms and other problems in Long Island Sound

Segmented outlook

Even the DEP is among the groups that want to examine not just the Norwalk River but every river in the state as a whole rather than as individual parcels. The problem, said DEP’s Hogan, is agency does not “have the statutory authority to look at the river as whole.”

“Our authority is over point-source pollution. That’s all we can govern,” Mr. Hogan said. “Many of the problems on the Norwalk River, especially, have nothing to with the total maximum daily load (TMDL) of wastewater. All we can do is take action over those areas where we have authority.”

Questions about the Norwalk River’s ability to handle still more effluent arose during the public hearings on Eureka V’s latest proposal to build and affordable housing complex on 153 acres of land along Bennett’s Farm Road. The Ridgefield Planning and Zoning Commission approved a scaled-down version of the development, mandating its wastewater goes to the town’s Route 7 sewage plant. Several members of the commission, the most vocal being Michael Autuori, voiced concern over whether the river could handle more effluent.

The net effect of more wastewater going into the river, however, remains unanswered.

“To be honest, the DEP doesn’t look at it from that standpoint,” Mr. Hogan said. “We’ve never stepped back and looked at the river as a whole. We simply react to each individual permit request as it comes in.”

Mr. Hogan also said he doesn’t know at what point the Norwalk River reaches “critical mass,” or the point at which it simply can no longer handle more waste water.

“It’s an intriguing question,” Mr. Hogan said. “The DEP struggles with that every day. Eventually, water is going to limit growth but that is purely a land-use question and we have no say over that. Right now, we don’t know where and when we hit that critical mass. I guess that day comes when we finally say ‘No,’ to a permit for a sewage treatment plant.”