Never question anything, that is the message from the Government.
I can research, I can show you where the research leads, but if what I say counters what the Government says you need to check me out. PLEASE check me out. If you don’t check it out for yourself please vote against spending taxpayer dollars for what you won’t investigate.
Government has your best interests at heart. If we need to spend $51,000,000 to upgrade a sewer system then anyone who questions the EPA or DEEP part in that upgrade is a fruitloop. Because if you investigate you will find there is no such environmental issue likely to be helped with that $51M. I would truly love to find out I am wrong.
As with climate change there is no long term data to prove the issue, but rather it is common knowledge the the Government is right. There are EPA goals and requirements and fines for violations. But anyone who questions the issue at all is a fruit loop.
I don’t question climate change or the fact that we need to clean our environment, I question who is getting rich from our efforts to clean up the environment. Who gets Torrington’s $1,670,000 to clean a 41 space parking lot? Who gets Torrington’s $7M for administrative costs on the $51M sewer project? I know exactly who got $100,000 for testing and consultation requiring no cleanup when I bought a building that used to be a dry cleaner.
And then when we read the small print, that the EPA target for the watershed served by the Torrington WPCA sewer plant we find the only issues are nitrogen and phosphorus which are biological nutrients that come from all living organisms. The EPA says we need to reduce our watershed contribution of nutrients to 28 and 15 pounds per day respectively. I challenge anyone at all to please tell me what we could possibly gain by lowering our nitrogen and phosphorus levels that low. PLEASE.
The real answer is that we will gain $10M from the Government if we spend $51M to lower our nitrogen and phosphorus levels. Who will benefit from spending that much money? Certainly lawyers, government employees, Licensed Environmental Professionals, and the construction industry.
Other than that, well, we can talk about hypoxia in the Long Island Sound, but no sane person will actually suggest that Torrington’s contribution of ammonia to the Naugatuck River actually affects hypoxia and fish populations in the Long Island Sound. The EPA’s own web site says this: “studies of the limited historical data base for the Sound suggest that summer oxygen depletion [hypoxia] in Western Long Island Sound has grown worse since the 1950s” The EPA cannot even show conclusively that there is a problem with hypoxia in the Long Island Sound, much less that Torrington’s $51M would help with such a problem if it exists. The EPA says only that all data that exists “suggest” there might be a problem. And they are not publishing that data.
Perhaps we are asked to contribute on the basis of an experiment that if everyone stops putting nutrients in our sewage we will have more fish in Long Island Sound. If that is the point, please says so. But surely we need a better reason than this to spend $51M on such a project.