New Haven Independent

“We want change in the way the environment is run here in Connecticut, fundamental change and I intend to be, if necessary, a rebel in that connection,” said Meyer (at left in photo), who represents the 12th Senate District, a group of shoreline towns that includes Branford, Guilford and Madison.

Meyer is the new co-chair of the state legislature’s Environment Committee. He made the comments to a group of environmental and government leaders gathered at a recent press event at Hammonasset Beach State Park.

State Sen. President Donald E. Williams, Jr. (at right in photo), who appointed Meyer to the chairmanship, stood beside him at the event along with Kiki Kennedy, a well-known Branford environmentalist.

“We are going to make history in moving Connecticut forward on the environment,” Williams told the crowd of 40 supporters who gathered round, shivering on a cold blustery day at the banks of the Hammonasset.

Meyer related an anecdote he called symbolic of the DEP’s failing management style.

“I want you to know that our staff asked DEP and the state parks if we could use the lodge across the street in case it snowed today. They turned us down. They turned us down. We said, ‘This event is sponsored by the president of the Senate of Connecticut and that the environmental community is going to be here. Will that make any difference?’ And we were told again this morning that that made no difference.”

The reason? The building is closed on Mondays, even though one of the park’s volunteers has the keys and offered to open the building and make coffee and tea.

“So this is an organization, a very significant organization that is in dysfunction,” Meyer said. “And I don’t think there is anything more important that I can do as the new leader of the Environment Committee than to try to build it, strengthen it, and reorganize it, if necessary. I am absolutely committed to doing that,” Meyer said to a round of applause.

“There were substantial cutbacks in the staffing of DEP during the Rowland administration. That staffing cutback continues to this day,” Meyer noted. As a result, he said, the agency moves far too slowly and ineffectively. He said one of his chief goals is to strengthen DEP as quickly as possible in order to “to bring about a strong enforcement agency in DEP. I am very concerned about this being a dysfunctional organization.”

Dennis Schain, communications director for the DEP, responded: “I would say that we appreciate the senator’s concerns and there are definitely parts of the agency that have been affected by the level of resources available to us in past years …. We are looking to rethink what we do and how we do it so that we can do an even better job …”

Meyer is concerned about the agency’s ability to monitor and enforce violations. He said: “There are 109 companies in Connecticut that have been given permits to discharge into the rivers of our state. DEP has not really enforced those permits. Eighty of those 108 companies have exceeded their permit limits, a recent study showed. Seventeen of the top 35 companies that are discharging have permits which have expired as long as ten years ago.”

Schain said “we are aware” of the permit expiration issue. “We have put more resources in that area; we are working closely with companies to bring them into compliance.”

Meyer said he believes DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy “is talking in ways in which she is crying out in some ways for that help. Maybe we have to bring in the top executive in the state to be part of it. I look forward in the next two weeks to sitting down with Commissioner McCarthy and discussing these very things.” McCarthy was appointed three years ago after a national search; Schain said she has invigorated the agency.

Against the backdrop of the beach, Meyer said he chose this place “because we are at the most important state park in Connecticut, a park that is hurting for lack of staffing … but it is such an important state park; we have over a million people coming here every year.

“We are also here because right over there is the Hammonasset River, a recreational river that has been highly threatened.” He praised State Rep. Deborah W. Heinrich and citizen groups from Madison and Clinton who beat back a threat from the Unilever Company that wanted to put a discharge line directly from the plant in Clinton right into the river.

“This is a river on which is now planned a very high-density housing development called Madison Landing. It will again threaten this river. That is again a story that has not yet been fully told, as to whether that will happen. There are many of us here who have fought that as a poor land choice, a bad environmental decision and something that will not work.”

Beyond these shores, he said, lay two other threats, both now household names in the environmental lexicon: Islander East and Broadwater, he said.

Broadwater & Islander East
“Islander East was to be a pipeline that went thru the great Thimble Islands, through its beds and tidal wetlands. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal was a magnificent leader in bringing the law suit that has been won so far. And that was won in the lower court and was upheld recently by the [federal] appeals court. So we are very very happy about that development in defeating Islander East’s assault on the environment.

“And then of course, further out there, is the proposed plan for Broadwater, a disaster, for the great resource of Long Island Sound.” Broadwater is a 1,200-foot long floating liquefied natural gas barge proposed for Long Island Sound.

Meyer told the group that a year ago he went to the inauguration of New York’s Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whom he described as a friend.

“I spoke to him against Broadwater. I heard nothing. Two weeks ago, really at the suggestion of the Senate president, I wrote to Eliot again asking him to turn down Broadwater. I recognize that Broadwater is much more important to the state of Connecticut. I said if you have to do it, put Broadwater on the other side of Long Island, referring to the ocean. ‘That’s where it should go.’”

The crowd cheered. Afterwards, in a question and answer session, Meyer said Spitzer has remained silent. He said neither he nor Gov. Jodi Rell has heard from him.

This week pressure mounted on Spitzer. Attorney General Blumenthal, who led the legal opposition against Islander East, promised a long legal battle if Broadwater gets federal agency approval, which he expects it will. Blumenthal addressed New York state officials: “They should soundly reject Broadwater as abhorrent to New York citizens if there are realistic alternatives.”

And there are realistic alternatives, the Branford RTM said in a letter to Gov. Spitzer written by Rep. Lonnie Reed and approved by the legislative body Wednesday night. “Please ask your energy advisors about on board re-gasification LNG tankers that can utilize existing pipelines by retrofitting them with special nozzles. The re-gasified product goes directly from the tanker into the pipeline and on its way to where it is needed. Norway has safely used this system for years….” Click here to read the letter. She asked the community to write to Spitzer.

Reed, who is also the co-founder of Hands Across Our Pond, an organization that encourages collaboration between Connecticut and New York on these issues, said in an interview she hoped Meyer’s appointment would help get Gov. Spitzer off the fence,

“Sen. Meyer has an important role to play because he has served in both the Connecticut and New York legislatures and knows from within how they work,” she said.

Back at Hammonasset, as the seagulls listened attentively to the speakers, Meyer left little doubt where he stood when it came to development and the environment.

“I want a new day for the environment in Connecticut,” he said. “Economic growth, as important as it is, has to be consistent with a sound environment.”
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