Annual Penalty OK’d For English Station Mess

" which is reportedly polluted with carcinogens, polychlorinated biphenyls, heavy metals and other contaminants produced over the years" - This is what corporations all over our communities and entire United States have done for the sake of pure greed. The pain and suffering caused by the big corporations is beyond comprehension. MAKE THEM PAY! While innocent hard working class people trusted their employers to do the right thing, the big wigs laughed all the way to the bank. They moved their families out to the pristine suburbs safely away from the disgusting toxic waste they dumped into our soil and waterways and spoiled their children rotten. Money hoarders continue to destroy our environment and shirk their responsibility for the obscene mess they created. Enough is enough. The whole earth is contaminated by greedy men with no regard for our planet, its living creatures and the sacred responsibility we have to be good stewards of this precious world. Stop justifying and excusing what is nothing but their selfish, obscene, quest for the fast dirty money they like to squander and hoard to the detriment of all other living things.

School’s about to start. Kindergartens can clean up their mess, leave spaces better than they found it. My 20 month old toddler enjoys mopping up spilled water. UI, stop acting like such adults. State Attorney General William Tong, thanks for calling them to the carpet, let us all know how we can continue to help mitigate this disastrous showcase of absurd neglect!

The only thing that will make corporations like UI care to be responsible is losing money. But this penalty is not enough compared to their profits to make them care. They will write it off on their taxes and continue to whine about their lowered rate hike that PURA approved as the reason that they can’t clean up their mess at English Station, or get live power lines removed from people trapped in vehicles in a reasonable amount of time, or why they clear cut wide swaths of trees away from power lines beyond what is necessary, or take days to restore power after storm damage. Public utilities like electricity, and home heating fuels, water and sewer should be owned and maintained by the government for the public so they are protected from exploitation from corporations whose main focus is profits on utilities that nobody should be without.

I would spend the rate reduction coming out of this decision just yet. Ui has handled the clean up badly, and the penalty is reasonable. But Ui will likely appeal the decision, to the Appellate Court if it loses at trial.

As precocious as David's (very cute) toddler is, she should go nowhere near the river. The partial consent order does not cover pollution that was already in the water

Finally a DUPC with some guts. Probably the best one we have had in the last 50+ years and an AG willing to use the States resources to back them up. Thank you AG Tong.

Although a $1.63 million dollar fine a year is chump change to this mega corporation and is pitiful at least it is a start. The law should be amended to read the fine will double every year until meaningful action is taken and will restart the moment such action is suspended from the highest dollar amount, now that will not take long get their attention.

4sq and I both made typos, mine more serious. I forgot "not" in my first sentence 4sq. meant DPUC, the former term for the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA).

United Illuminating is not worry about the fine.This will take care of the fine and United Illuminating will still make a profit.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which oversees the state's utility companies, released its 289-page ruling Friday. Starting Sept. 1, UI customers will see their monthly electric bills increase by about 2%. For example, if your electric bill is $100 a month, it will go up to $102 monthly.

Big corporations in America tend to enjoy keeping their profits privatized while their risks & externalities are socialized. About time someone finally made these guys pay to clean up their mess.

Excellent points made by everyone. Thank you General Tong. UI should be banned from passing the buck to consumers by raising its prices. I totally agree with Heather especially on this point “ Public utilities like electricity, and home heating fuels, water and sewer should be owned and maintained by the government for the public so they are protected from exploitation from corporations whose main focus is profits on utilities that nobody should be without”. This needs to happen all over the country, but there’s no reason why it cannot start with Connecticut. Also agree with Benny that well the penalty is a start. It is not hefty enough and should be doubled every year they neglect full clean up.

Can some one ,anyone account for where all the FINE money New Haven has ALREADY received gone? They received money from this, They received money from the Axiom abandonment. They have received money from landlords paying into a program that doesnt do its job. They receive money from law suites but It doesn't appear that anything the state receives or New Haven receives in damages ever actually makes anything better. The history of the spend spend and spend with little to nothing to see for it is mind boggling. Prior to the 1990's the state funded education off of tax dollars etc. Now we have Casinos and guess what... part of their slot revenue goes to CT faithfully supposedly towards education yet education is definitely worse than ever. There have been countless fines and lawsuits awarded to CT and New Haven but where is the money. The tax payers don't benefit from it so why bother!

Dad101, just to clarify. The city is not going to get a check. Rather, its electric bill, like those of other UI customers, will be slightly lower than it would be absent the penalty.

Kevin McCarthy- oh, I know, money is always issue when we talk about taking private essential providers to public non profit entities, whether it is single payor universal healthcare replacing private insurers or public utility companies being moved to the public sector. But as many of us, including you, have pointed out, our current system of mostly unfettered capitalism, and putting profits over people, especially when it’s comes to the environment or people’s health and safety, is unsustainable. If we had let costs dissuade us from innovation and change, we would not have train tracks or highway systems, or other public good infrastructure in the world.
At some point, sooner than we think, if we don’t undertaken a massive change in our status quo, the system will reach a point where average people can not afford shelter, utilities, products or services, and people will die in massive numbers, and ecosystems and infrastructure gets wiped out due to climate change impacts. It is starting already, but we all still have our heads in the sand, and denial of the reality of where we are heading is strong. Especially from those who are reaping the profits from the current market system, but the chickens will be coming home to roost.

We have to bury our overhead wires, because the costs of not doing so is much greater due to the more severe storms taking down live wires and sparking wildfires. The increased lightning starting fires we can do very little to control. Burying our overhead wires so increased winds don’t take them down we can control.
Remember the insane number of wildfires in Canada bringing smoke down to the Midwest and Northeast and as far south as Virginia? Remember Hawaii with hundreds of lives lost, buildings destroyed, and businesses gone? Remember the fires in California, and the Pacific Northwest, burning thousands of acres, and then having terrible mudslides when the rainstorms came because the vegetation was burnt to a crisp and could not absorb the rain?
We have to do every little thing we can to mitigate climate change, regardless of immediate costs, because the costs of not doing so in the near future is much greater.
Our children and our grandchildren are looking at a very bleak future if we don’t do something now.