Bethel voters to decide on $12.3M water treatment project
BETHEL — A referendum on funding for the proposed Bergstrom Well and Water Treatment Plant is set for Dec. 1. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
About 25 people agreed to the date during a special town meeting last Thursday.
The plant would be located north of Joe Freebairn Field near the intersection of Plumtrees and Walnut Hill roads. The town would replace the subsurface water used for its water system with well water.
Of the roughly $12.3 million needed for the project, nearly $10 million would be for construction, roughly $1.8 million for professional services, about $499,000 for contingency and $16,000 for legal fees.
Not all Bethel taxpayers would bear the cost — only those who get town water, according to Acting First Selectman Rich Straiton, who said Bethel has 3,500 town water users.
Straiton said their water rates will go up, but it’s not yet known how much as the town is “applying for over $3 million in grants, which will help lower the cost.”
The project is part of a 30-year capital improvement plan that the town embarked upon after voters rejected a proposal to sell Bethel’s water system to Aquarion in 2013.
Since then, the town has built two new storage tanks, drilled two new wells, refurbished a couple of existing ones and renovated virtually every pump system. Part of the work involved the 2016 completion of the 750,000-gallon Eureka water storage tank, which allowed the town to move forward with plans to further expand Clarke Business Park.
According to Straiton, the well on the Bergstrom property would produce 800 gallons of water a minute that’s “much more suitable for the public water supply.”
“Well water is much better than subsurface waters from reservoirs,”
he said earlier this month, noting that wells provide “a more constant source of water” compared
to reservoirs, which can yield drastically lower amounts of water during periods of drought.
If approved, construction is expected to start in the spring and take about two years to complete.