Connecticut Coalition for
Environmental Justice

Regionalizing Water Pollution Control
in the New Haven region

New Haven Environmental Justice Network (NHEJN) supports with reservations the current Regionalization Plan for the Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA). NHEJN has successfully negotiated with the City of New Haven to introduce four important improvements to the Regional WPCA Plan:

1) an Environmental Stakeholder to serve as a voting member of the the GNHWPCA Board,

2) an independent Environmental Fund, created with one million dollars from the sale of the WPCA, to support environmental justice projects and technological innovation at the GNHWPCA,

3) increased means of accountability and public input to the GNHWPCA, and,

4) a commitment by the GNHWPCA to support innovative, environmentally friendly technologies in its operations.

NHEJN's goals of ensuring majority representation to the most heavily impacted community (New Haven) and securing a commitment to a reduction and eventual elimination of sludge incineration are not met in the current proposal. A compromise in the form of super majority vote required for new service agreements and constraints on the process of adding municipalities to the region in the future may address these concerns. We remain strongly committed to the phase out of all sludge incineration and to the implementation of point-source control of pollutants. NHEJN believes that regionalization can be used to meet environmental justice goals, and we look forward to working in the future with the City and the Regionalized Authority to see these goals come to fruition.