Time to get rid of Connecticut Siting Council?

Nothing can wreck your day like the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC), that overarching entity with authority to run gas pipelines and high-tension corridors through our backyards, site cell towers where they don’t belong and humble once-mighty ridgelines with huge broadcast towers. This council’s review is supposed to balance “public need” with “environmental compatibility,” but environment always seems to get short shrift, not to mention property values.Connecticut stands alone in having such an agency, which is funded solely by industry fees. Industries love our model and have tried, unsuccessfully, to get other states to adopt it. So what do the other 49 know that we don’t?Litchfield County has had two recent demonstrations of the arrogance of this agency. In Falls Village at an AT&T cell tower hearing Feb. 17, CSC Chairman Daniel Caruso drummed his fingers, networked with a nearby council attorney and cut off Starling Childs, president of The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council (BLEC). Cornwall experienced similar behavior last year during a cell tower hearing when Elaine LaBella from the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA) tried to talk some sense to them. That episode prompted state legislators Rep. Roberta Willis (D-64) and Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30) to request more civil behavior from the CSC, without much effect. In Falls Village, Childs’ brief statement was made during the public’s time to speak, and in theory he could have read the phone book aloud if he’d wanted. But the chairman repeatedly hurried him along for “relevancy.” For the record, I believe Childs’ remarks were all directed toward the application. Like LaBella in Cornwall, Childs was forced to edit on his feet but admirably held his ground, which won him a round of applause.The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council was founded in 1970 by Star Childs’ father, Edward Childs, and a handful of like-minded environmentalists. The reason the group formed was to stop an electric utility “pond and release” project, which would have flooded all Wangum Valley in Falls Village. The utility intended to pump water to the top of Canaan Mountain, store it temporarily, then release it downhill through huge industrial turbines to generate electricity. This would have permanently altered the Northwest Corner and created a virtual wasteland for wildlife. The project would also have destroyed the watershed of Robbins Swamp, a unique calcareous wetland now known to be critical habitat for many endangered and special concern species. Robbins Swamp hosts flora and fauna not found anywhere else on earth. Environmentally speaking, it just doesn’t get more important.AT&T’s proposed 150-foot tower on Cobble Hill sits smack in the middle of Robbins Swamp. A less appropriate site is hard to imagine. Falls Village is virtually united against it, an accomplishment in itself. The tower will be visible for many miles, dominating an area surrounded by pristine ridgelines successfully protected by BLEC in the past. Childs tried to point out that in 1970, the threat was from water, but now is from radiofrequency radiation (RF) known to affect many species, especially in wetland areas where water is conductive. He tried to cite a just a few of hundreds of wildlife studies, but Caruso cut him off.Childs certainly has the chops to address the CSC. A geologist, licensed forester and lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry, he teaches graduate students how to inventory wildlife. As an environmental expert, he’s focused on how RF couples with living systems, especially migratory birds, throughout Litchfield County. He’s also the scion of Norfolk’s 6,000-plus-acre Great Mountain Forest, now in federal conservancy thanks to the civic-minded Childs family. When will the CSC stop rubber-stamping applications rather than approving 96 out of 100 cell towers? When will the CSC protect the environment and the public first? When will the CSC expand environmental review beyond mere width of an access road and the 100-by-100-foot footprint being leased? When will the CSC assume responsibility for damage after applications are approved, rather than advising property owners to hire attorneys? When will the governor appoint a more responsive chairman? And when — oh when — will the CSC recognize the solid expertise that exists in organizations like BLEC and HVA?The CSC resists all attempts at reform and has lost public trust. Perennial legislative tweaks, which never get beyond committee, aren’t enough anymore. It’s time lawmakers revoked the CSC’s enabling legislation and replace it with a public utility review board under the DEP, with legal town partnership, and at arms length from industry. Maybe then true public interest and environmental balance will be possible again. B. Blake Levitt of Warren is communications director for The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council.