Danbury ad hoc committee recommends amendment to Danbury–Bethel sewer and water agreement

Councilman Peter Bizaid, chair of a Danbury City ad hoc committee, said the group recommended that the City Council approve an amendment to the 2008 Danbury–Bethel interlocal sewer and water agreement to allow a Great Pasture Road property that straddles the Danbury–Bethel line to discharge through Bethel without reducing Bethel’s plant allocation.

The move matters because the amendment separates the Danbury buildings’ sewer usage from Bethel’s municipal allocation, preserving Bethel’s 2,000,000 gallons-per-day allotment while allowing the development to proceed. "Their allocation is 2,000,000 gallons a day," said David Day, superintendent with the Department of Public Utilities, confirming the figure Bethel has reserved for its use.

Why it matters: the change would enable site development while protecting Bethel’s contractual share of plant capacity. The committee heard that the proposal covers an existing building on the Danbury portion plus additional new construction; an engineering representative said the plan would add three new buildings in Danbury and one in Bethel, for five buildings total, and is currently in Danbury’s site-plan review process.

Details and technical limits: committee members asked how usage would be measured and whether excess flows would trigger penalties. Day said the property’s allocation is set as an average of 13,000 gallons per day and is enforced via metering: customers pay for recorded usage, and staff would address any exceedance rather than an automatic fine. "The engineers calculated what the expected flow would be, and it's under 13,000," the city attorney, Eric Gottschalk, said, adding that a cushion had been included in that calculation.

Legal and procedural notes: Gottschalk said he drafted the amendment with input from engineering and public works and that the town of Bethel had already approved the changes; he described the next step as signatures by Danbury's mayor and Bethel's first selectman to make the amendment effective. "Now the council authorizes that the mayor can sign it and, as can the … first selectman for town of Bethel and be in effect then," Gottschalk stated.

The action taken: a committee member moved to recommend that the City Council approve the proposed amendment; the committee voted unanimously to send that recommendation. The ad hoc committee then adjourned.

Next steps: the committee’s recommendation will be forwarded to the full Danbury City Council for consideration and final approval.