Blumenthal pushes for fed help to repair deteriorating dam
“This is a tragedy we need to correct. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission needs to do its job and the fish ladder needs to be repaired so it can do its job.” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal
SEYMOUR — The fight to fix the deteriorating Kinneytown Dam and its inoperable fish ladder has been cranked up a notch.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., joined municipal leaders and environmentalists Monday to call for federal help to fix problems dating back at least a quarter of a century.
“This is a tragedy we need to correct,” Blumenthal told the gathering, standing at the dam Monday morning. “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission needs to do its job and the fish ladder needs to be repaired so it can do its job.”
The Kinneytown Dam fish ladder was built in 1998 to allow fish to swim along the 32 miles of the Naugatuck River to spawn. The $ 6.3 million Tingue Dam fish bypass was built in 2014 to connect to the earlier ladder. Despite the bypass, fish still pile up at the dam, unable to get past.
Blumenthal pledged “to mobilize the entire Connecticut delegation” in a concerted effort to resolve the dam’s and the fish ladder’s deficiencies.
The delegation — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy and U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Jim Himes, all Democrats — are “very interested in this issue,” Blumenthal said. The politicians and their staffs will be working along with the Naugatuck River Restoration Coalition to get repairs under way sooner rather than later, he said.
DeLauro said she’s already been in touch with the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments and insists that the property’s owners should focus on cleaning up the site.
“Millions of federal and state dollars have been invested in the restoration of the Naugatuck River, its tributaries and its migratory fish passage and (the owners) should be held accountable for ensuring that their responsibilities to these efforts are being met,” she said.
Earlier this month, Waterbury Mayor Neil O’Leary, who heads the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, pledged his
group’s support and said getting the public and private entities that are responsible for the dam and fish ladder to step up will be “one of our highest priorities moving into the New Year.”
‘We’re going to use every means to engage with FERC” in convincing them “a major recon
struction is needed,” Blumenthal said. “I am going to cajole, persuade, pummel at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as part of the docket that’s been open.”
He said he wants FERC to produce a strategic plan that goes beyond “just the repair of
this fish ladder.”
FERC has jurisdiction because the dam is connected with two hydroelectric power plants. One adjacent to the dam in Seymour is designed to produce 1.8 megawatts of power while the other, about a mile and a half away on Ansonia’s Fourth Street, was built to produce about a megawatt. It has been offline since a 2013 fire.
The conditions and the failures of the dam and its fish ladder were brought to light in a recent Hearst Connecticut Media Group article as well as an opinion piece by John Waldman, a City College of New York biology professor.
Waldman, who attended Monday’s conference, said he studies rivers and has “never seen a river where the situation is so egregious. You have a multimillion dollar restoration upstream for 30 miles and basically a cork (creating) a whole system that doesn’t work.”
“I also have never seen a dam in such bad condition,” Waldman said, describing cracks in the concrete during his private inspections.
Blumenthal said he believes the ladder was built “poorly and defectively.
“It’s not doing the job,” he said Monday.
Most recently, Enel, a multinational energy company headquartered in Italy, has owned the dam and its two nearby power plants through a subsidiary called Kinneytown Hydro Co. Inc.
Lawyers involved with the Naugatuck River Restoration Coalition, which includes the Naugatuck River Revival Group, Save the Sound and the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, are attempting to confirm whether Enel still owns the properties.
In 1983, FERC granted Enel “an exemption for the dam on the condition (there be) an efficient means for fish to surmount the dam,” Blumenthal said. As a result, he said he believes Enel is responsible for repairs.
“Nature didn’t put the dam here,” Blumenthal said. “Man put the dam here and the dam is interfering with nature.”
A request for comment to Enel was not immediately returned.
Annmarie Drugonis, an environmental engineer who recently became Seymour’s First Selectman, said she is horrified by the condition of the Seymour power station, the amount of debris in the water and visible broken buoy lines.
“This is something we can’t let go on,” she said. “It effects the ecology of the Naugatuck River.’
Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti, who previously owned Birm-1 Construction, pointed out to Blumenthal areas of the dam that he said concerned him.
“We need to send scuba divers down to inspect the whole perimeter of the bulkhead,” Cassetti told Blumenthal. “There are breaches in the front. This needs to be taken care of as soon as possible because it’s been neglected for so many years.”