Septic Treatment Plant Arguments Continue

The developer of a proposed septic treatment plant continued to tweak the design of the project in the face of continued deep opposition by neighbors and concerns by city officials.

Attorney Paul Jaber, representing William Coffey, who wants to build the plant on Beaver Brook Road, said the proposal represents the most sophisticated approach to odor control possible. He spoke at a continuation of a public hearing before the Planning Commission on Wednesday night.

Jaber said other treatment plants use some components employed in the proposed Danbury plant, but none use all the design and mechanical advancements that would be put to use here.

He also pointed to the city’s septic pumping facility, less than a mile away at the municipal sewage treatment plant, where septic waste is drained from trucks at an outdoor facility, with none of the sophisticated controls proposed for the Coffey plant.

“What I don’t understand is why those officials who oppose this won’t go to the same expense as Mr. Coffey to reduce odor at the city facility,” Jaber said.

Still, although the crowd of about 20 was half the size of previous meetings, several residents spoke in opposition. Many echoed the position of Robert Taylor of 55 Beaver Brook Road, who expressed concern that the plant would have a detrimental effect on nearby homes.

“The city plant was probably there before many of the houses were, and now you are going to take a new facility and put it where existing houses are,” Taylor said.

Engineering consultant Benjamin Doto, representing Coffey before the commission, detailed several improvements to the plant design added to address neighbor and Planning Commission concerns.

They included an additional fan that would capture odors and send them through filters; the latest in containment devices for water that would be separated from the septic waste and then pumped into the city sewer system; the most reliable coupling devices to connect hoses to trucks while waste is being pumped; and an electric generator that would run the plant in the case of power outages.

In addition, Jaber submitted a letter from a consultant who designed the system to capture odors but who could not attend the meeting.

George Federico, an environmental consultant whose business, TDM, has designed air filtering systems for similar plants, defended the proposal, which opponents criticized at a previous meeting.

“We have not worked on, nor do we know of, any septage receiving that is operated fully indoors, with this degree of odor capture,” Federico wrote. “The thoroughness in this design, degree of redundancy, and level of treatment that we are employing in the design of this facility is more similar to the design one would see in an industrial facility.”

The commission set a deadline to close the public hearing by August 17, after which members will have 65 days to make a decision. The next Planning Commission meeting will be at 8 p.m. on August 3.