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FALLS VILLAGE - It’s looking more and more as though, after five years without a municipal swimming facility, Falls Village will finally open its new town pool this summer.
"I told you we’ll all be hanging by our thumbs and our toes in the public green if it’s not finished," First Selectman Pat Mechare said to her fellow board members at the Jan. 14 Board of Selectmen’s meeting.
The foundation for the pool house was poured last year and the frame for the poolhouse is currently being erected. The excavation and the pouring of the foundation of the pool itself were completed in 2005, as were the underground plumbing and stainless steel exterior.
"Everyone needs to keep in mind that much of this is being donated," Mechare explained in an interview.
The project is being completed in large measure by volunteer labor and donated material. Such an arrangement saves taxpayer funds but tends to drag out municipal construction projects as volunteers try to balance work on the pool with their paying jobs, she explained.
Mechare said she hopes the poolhouse will be up by sometime in March, but winter weather might intrude, in which case the structure will be done in the spring. Then the installation of the bathrooms, along with the interior electrical and plumbing work, can be completed in short order.
Tim Downs, superintendent of the town’s department of public works, has been clerk-of-the-works for the pool project and is receiving a stipend of between $2,000 and $3,000. Lumber for the project has been donated by the Falls Village Saw Mill and former First Selectman Louis Timolat.
The pool was approved by voters in March 2003. It was supposed to have been built that summer but construction was delayed in part by an unsuccessful lawsuit filed against the town by a contractor who was not selected during the bidding process.
The pool process was also slowed by the need to find a site and obtain health department approval for a new well.
Some residents also argued that the town could not afford the price tag, that there might be hidden costs and that there were possible health issues associated with the site near the town transfer station, which is located on the now-closed former landfill.
The pool will be built on 76 acres of town-owned land at the intersection of routes 63 and 126. Known as the Town Farm, the site also has plenty of room for additional facilities that could be constructed over time, such as new ballfields and a skating rink.
The new pool replaces the old spring-fed pool that used to be next to the Falls Village Day Care Center on Page Road. That pool was ordered shut down by the Torrington Area Health District at the end of the 2002 season.
The town’s swimming team has been using the North Canaan pool since 2003. But since then, Falls Village has not had to hire lifeguards and other personnel to staff a pool, resulting in financial savings.
In a town meeting in March 2005, residents voted 32-11 to increase the size of the proposed municipal pool from four lanes to six. The larger size will allow the town swim team to host its own meets, but it also increased the projected cost of the facility.
A reimbursement grant of $250,000 has already been secured from the state’s Small Towns Economic Assistance Program (STEAP). Savings of as much as $150,000 have been set aside as a result of having no facility during the last five seasons. Total costs were originally estimated at between $400,000 and $500,000.
Mechare said the final costs are still unclear. She has already told the Board of Finance there could be a gap in funding. If more funds are needed to complete the project, voters would have to approve the additional spending in a town meeting.
"It’s gotta be ready for this summer," Mechare said. "I believe it will be worth the wait."
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.