New pump station for three towns taps deep part of Lake Konomoc
Project in works for 12 years, slated to run when supplies are low
Waterford — During a summer drought about a dozen years ago, the longtime chairman of the New London Water & Water Pollution Control Authority started wondering whether something could be done to make sure the 44,000 customers served by the utility would have enough water in the future.
The answer, it turned out, wasn’t in buying more reservoir land or supplementing with water from another utility — potentially expensive undertakings — but in a resource the authority already owned: the 340-acre Lake Konomoc that is the main supply for its customers from New London, Waterford and East Lyme.
“We were limiting use of water, so we started looking into all the dif- ferent things we could do,” recalled Barry Weiner, chairman of the authority for the past 35 years and a member for five years before that. “We discovered that we had a
deep area in the lake that was too far out to drain into our current pumps,” he said. “It made no sense for us to be suffering through a drought when we had water in the lake we could draw out.”
On Tuesday, Weiner joined city officials in dedicating the new $ 5.9 million pump station that reaches that deep bowl in the lake with 2,200 feet of 36-inch diameter pipe connected to two powerful vacuum pumps that send water into the treatment system, and from there to faucets and showers in homes and businesses in the three communities.
“This allows us to reach over 300 million gallons of previously inaccessible water,” Weiner said before cutting the red ribbon during the dedication ceremony at the reservoir and pump station property, located off Route 85.
In recognition of Weiner’s work on the project and longtime commitment to the authority, a plaque designating the pump station as The Barry Weiner Deepwater Emergency Pump Station was unveiled during the ceremony.
Surprised by the honor, Weiner was at a loss for words when Joe Lanzafame, director of public utilities, made the announcement.
“This is very humbling,” Weiner said.
Later, Weiner said he doesn’t consider the volunteer post a thankless job, but one with great rewards.
“I love what I do,” he said. “Public service and commitment to New London is very special to me.”
During the ceremony, Lanzafame said the project took a dozen years from concept to completion, and ensures the utility’s customers will have an ample supply of clean water for the foreseeable future.
“This is a very important project to New London,” Lanzafame said. “Water is the most important resource we have as humans, and the most unrecognized.”
He said the new, 2,500- square- foot concrete pump station is built below ground with pipes drawing water from 28 feet below the lake surface. The main pump station pipes reach only 8 feet below the surface.
The project was funded with a combination of city bond funds and state grants.
Lanzafame said the new pumps, equipped with emergency generators, would be run about once a month to maintain service, then as needed when normal supplies are low.
The additional supply increases the utility’s safe yield — the amount it is allowed by state regulators to supply to its customers — from 6.65 million gallons daily to about 7 million gallons daily, he said.
The utility’s customers currently use about 6 million gallons per day.
“This improves our margin of safety,” Lanzafame said. “It’s bringing us to the point where we need to be.”