The Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) held a hearing on Tuesday, August 24, on the proposed extension of a water line from Newtown to the Greenridge development in Brookfield, which included a presentation from the Town of Brookfield on an alternative plan to bring water down route 25 from the Silvermine Line.

Under the current proposal before the DPUC, United Water would extend their service from Newtown into Greenridge. Work on the extension began in May, however it was halted due to concerns from Newtown officials over whether their water supply could handle the additional demand. The DPUC and Department of Public Health (DPH) agreed to review the project and hear Newtown's concerns, holding a number of hearings.

Brookfield First Selectman Bill Davidson developed an alternative proposal to extend the newly completed Silvermine Line down to Greenridge and was able to provide specifics for the first time at Tuesday's hearing.

In order for the Brookfield alternative to work, "We'd need a ton of cooperation and a ton of flexibility," Davidson said. "We have to reinvent timeframes. That doesn't mean we don't follow statutes, that just means that we do things a lot quicker.

"We have a lot of experience building water lines and we don't undertake this whole thing lightly," he continued, "We believe what we are presenting is realistic and, I'll be the first to say, optimistic."

"The town of Brookfield got into this when we realized the extremely high cost to the Greenridge residents," the town's water consultant Martin Handshy said. "We project the total cost of all this is $2.877 million, of which $490,000 would pertain to onsite costs," or costs applicable only to Greenridge residents. The extension from Silvermine to Greenridge would require another 8,900 feet of pipe (approximately 2.2 miles), passing 77 homes, two schools and two churches along the way. The cost of the project (minus the $490,000 in specific costs) would be assessed to all 307 potential users along the line, spread across a 20-year bond, or approximately $714 per household per year.

"Originally it was suggested in 2007, but at that point in time there was very little pipe in Brookfield," Handshy said. In 2007 the pipe would have had to extend the entire length of Whisconier Road to join the BV Line at Four Corners.

Steve Sullivan, an engineer with CCA, of Brookfield, put forth two timetables for the project. "For the traditional timeframe, essentially we're saying 20 months," he said. "We have to get agreements between the two water companies [Brookfield Water Company and Rural Water], engineering, permits, a referendum by the town of Brookfield [to cover the bond] and then there's the construction phase." The plan calls for a five-month construction phase, which would mean hiring multiple contractors according to Sullivan.

The fast-track timeline would require "total cooperation between the water company and the Ds," the DPUC, DPH and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The 12-month schedule includes an even shorter construction phase and fast-tracked approvals and permits from the various agencies. "It's optimistic," Sullivan admitted, but "even with the permits we'd need to obtain, it's a viable solution."

Since this was the first time the plan had been officially presented in the record, DPUC Commissioner John Betkoski chose to schedule an additional hearing to give the various stake-holders time to research the proposal before asking questions. "I know time is of the essence," he said, "but we don't want to rush."

The plan has gained traction among politicians, getting the endorsements of Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra, State Representatives David Scribner (R-Brookfield) and DebraLee Hovey (R-Monroe/Newtown) and U.S. Senatorial candidate Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

In a letter to the DPUC, Blumenthal also posited the installation of a water treatment facility onsite, a method used at the nearby Whisconier Village condominiums.

"If you do a financial calculation, that gets expensive from that point into infinity," Handshy said, as future maintenance of the facility and disposal of the contaminants removed from the water tend to become cost-prohibitive.

Besides the potential long-term expense, this solution wouldn't work for Greenridge, according to Martin Foncello, former Brookfield First Selectman and former president of the Greenridge Association, as the wells have not been able to keep up with demand. Later in the hearing, Superintendent of Operations for United Water Steve Houst stated that the company had to truck in supplies several times in July, bringing in a high of 104,000 gallons on July 5, due to underperformance from the main well.