UConn declines proposal for water from Farmington River watershed

The Farmington River in Burlington.

According to published reports in several different media publications, the Board of Trustees at the University of Connecticut decided earlier this week to select a proposal from the nearby Connecticut Water Company in Tolland to supply additional drinking water to the main campus in Storrs and the town of Mansfield. 

The Board of Trustees rejected two other proposals for additional water from the Windham Water Works in Mansfield and the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) in greater Hartford. 

The MDC proposal worried residents and local officials in the Farmington Valley. The MDC had proposed to extend its current pipeline in East Hartford by 20 miles to bring up to 1.93 million gallons of water per day from the Farmington Valley watershed to Storrs. The water would have come from the Nepaug and Barkhamsted reservoirs, which are fed by the Nepaug River and the east branch of the Farmington River, respectively. 

The MDC was disappointed with the decision by UConn to choose another proposal. 

The MDC also criticized the process for requesting proposals supply water to UConn. Halfway through an Environmental Impact Evaluation initiated by the state’s Council on Environmental Quality, the MDC was asked to submit their proposal to supply water to UConn and Mansfield. 

The environmental assessment was completed, according to the MDC. But prior to any formal recommendation, UConn announced and the state legislature passed an unanticipated and unprecedented expansion of the Storrs campus. In a press release, the MDC criticized UConn for continuing to move forward without adjusting the water demand figures upward to accommodate additional development. The MDC said the proposal selected by UConn will be inadequate within a few years. 

The MDC also called for Connecticut’s regulatory authorities to undertake comprehensive future water supply studies and prepare a statewide water plan. 

The MDC is a non-profit municipal corporation chartered by the Connecticut General Assembly in 1929. The MDC provides water, sewer and household hazardous waste collection services to its member municipalities: Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Newington, Rocky Hill, West Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor. In addition, under a series of special agreements, the MDC supplies treated water to Glastonbury, the southern portion of South Windsor, the eastern portion of Farmington, East Granby and Unionville.