Allan Appel Photo
When Martin Looney was a kid growing up on Wolcott Street in Fair Haven, the English Station power plant a couple of blocks away was already seen as toxic. Kids weren’t allowed to go anywhere near it or in the surrounding waters of the Mill River.
Looney, who grew up to become Connecticut State Senate President, did go near the plant on Wednesday — to call for state regulators to insist that a long-overdue clean up happen there.
Looney called for any approval of a pending merger pending between the plant’s original owner, United Illuminating, and Spanish conglomerate Iberdrola including covering the cost of cleaning up all the pollution on the abandoned site so it can be redeveloped.
“We know the actual cost is close to $30 million for remediation. We want to be sure the new entity [and not New Haven taxpayers] will be responsible for that,” he said.
Alder Greenberg speaking, with Looney, Marchand, and Megna.
He made that point at a press conference with State Rep. Bob Megna and Alders Aaron Greenberg and Adam Marchand beneath the station’s‑shut down smokestacks on the parking lot of the nearby John Martinez School.
Click here to read a recent in-depth story about the site and how it has fallen into a legal tangle in which clean-up of the eight-acre brownfield of petroleum and PCBs has languished as the property has moved into hands of new owners who couldn’t proceed with redevelopment plans.
The Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which must approve a merger, last month rejected the companies’ initial filing. It also rejected permitting the city of New Haven to have legal standing to pursue coverage of the clean-up.
Last week the companies refiled a merger application. That filing puts the estimated cost of the clean-up at $30 million. An estimate, but no indication of who would pay the freight.
That was the reason for the press conference.
“The clean-up of the toxic and blighted English Station site should be seen as a kind of community benefits agreement for Fair Haven. There has to be some benefit not only for the corporations, but for the community involved” in any merger deal, Looney declared.
Megna and the other local politicians said that English Station’s potential to be redeveloped cannot proceed without the clean-up, and city taxpayers must not be left holding the bag.
Although the city appears not directly to be part of the negotiations, the Attorney General’s office and DEEP [the Department of Energy and Environmental protection] are carrying the torch for the city, said Looney.
“The AG has a great interest in this,” he said. (Attorney General George Jepsen confirmed that in a conversation with the Independent during a recent visit to the city.)
“UI has moved to the suburbs already,” Looney said. “We don’t want this proposed merger to be the occasion for further urban dis-engagement.”
It's amazing that since being a kid, some 60 years earlier, has Looney, who grew up to become Connecticut State Senate President, go near the plant on Wednesday—to call for state regulators to insist that a long-overdue clean up happen there.
It's well past time the state and federal government stepped in to insure the site is cleaned-up before any such merger take place. Should the merger fail, Looney and the state should continue after UI to fulfill its obligation to the federal/state clean water act, without raising rates on UI customers to achieve this necessity.
"Bob Megna and the other local politicians said that English Station's potential to be redeveloped cannot proceed without the clean-up, and city taxpayers must not be left holding the bag".
Correct, and state taxpayers should not be held financially accountable either through increase taxes or state and city bonding for Brownfield remediation.
Get to it Looney we're behind you..Make it happen.