9 September—At the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday evening, Perley Grimes and Kate Honan raised many thoughtful points about the threat of Woodridge Lake’s sewage being pumped to Litchfield. That brought to mind a letter I had written to Litchfield.bz just over a year ago. So here it is, significantly updated:

The Woodridge Lake Sewer District (WLSD) wants to send its affluent effluent to Litchfield. Why? First off, WLSD didn’t do the right thing at the right time, like upgrade its sewage treatment plant decades ago. So the state has been far too gently on their case for a couple of decades. The original plan, as approved by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP)—though it was probably just the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) back then—was to give all the sewage that WLSD’s plant couldn’t handle to Torrington.

So what happened? Well, the Torrington deal fell through, largely because the feds wouldn’t come up with all the scratch the Woodridge Lake people were hoping for. In other words, it would have been more out of the Woodridge Lake homeowners’ own pockets. It’s all about the money.

And running a sewer line to the Litchfield plant would cost the nice people at Woodridge Lake quite a bit less than running one to the Torrington plant. In other words, it’s all about the money. Isn’t everything?

Certainly, many Litchfielders have friends and/or family at Woodridge Lake; quite a few have summer cottages there; and some have even moved there, silly as that may be. So what?

Right now, put simply, it would appear that the WLSD plan to give Litchfield its raw sewage favors WLSD in a huge way and gives Litchfield nothing but lip service in return. Not to mention Woodridge’s sewage, of course. Sure, the cost of the mandated upgrade to Litchfield’s sewer plant would be shared minimally by the WLSD, but then there’s everything else. So, at the risk of sounding like Donald Trump, what’s really in it for Litchfield? Besides the Woodridge sewage, of course.

Even the Litchfield Sewer Commission—sorry, make that the Water Pollution Control Authority—Q-and-A on the subject makes it clear that the main deterrent to the plan is that there isn’t “adequate savings for the Litchfield sewer user.” If that’s the case, then, why even think about cooperating with the WLSD, since Litchfield has no obligation to Woodridge Lake or Goshen?

In actual fact, though, the inadequate financial incentive is only one of the deterrents to Woodridge’s sewage running through Litchfield to get to the town’s treatment plant. The adverse environmental impact to land and waterways would be significant, for instance, as would the detrimental effect on life during and after the installation of the new sewer line, with new junctions and pumping stations popping up where they’re not wanted.

What about Litchfield’s liability should anything happen to or because of the WLSD line? And let’s not forget that the Woodridge slicksters tried to pull a fast one on Litchfield officials about signing agreements.

So the bottom line is that Litchfield certainly doesn’t need Goshen’s sewage and should do everything but everything to keep it from desecrating any part of the town . . .