Much has been said, written and criticized over the past weeks regarding how things are being handled within the Derby WPCA.
The attention and discussion is good because there are many challenges facing the WPCA which have an impact on Derby residents. As newly appointed Board Member, I thought I would offer some perspective as my first 90 days on the board comes to a close.
Derby’s Water Pollution Control Facility is a complex system of infrastructure, equipment, regulations, procedures and people. It is overseen by citizens who are politically appointed and approved by those elected to public office.
Those with the final say may do so with or without their own political priorities and agendas. When a system of this complexity breaks down it will do so in complex ways. Meaning, that the root cause of any one of the breakdowns may not be what appears obvious on the surface.
Here is a simple example.
A piece of machinery at the plant is years beyond its intended design life. Under normal operating conditions it should operate with little to no oversight by a plant employee.
However, in its aging condition, it now requires frequent oversight and workarounds to keep it running. This takes a plant employee away from other tasks such as routine inspections, general maintenance, or other work.
Complicating the workload is the fact that 2 of the 7 plant employees are on leave and there are contractual and budgetary limitations around the ability to address this.
The result, a single piece of aging equipment leads to operational deficiencies which show up in violations identified by the current State and Federal Investigations.
The referendum approved by voters in 2014 was not intended to address these operational deficiencies or violations.
However, in some cases correcting them means addressing the aging infrastructure and thus we have overlap between infrastructure improvement which the referendum is intended for and operational improvement.
Confused?
It can be and we must protect ourselves from rushed reactions and unnecessary distractions which can lead to poor decisions. Let me attempt to sort out a few pieces of the situation as I see them.
The Investigation – I will not speculate on what the final outcomes of the State and Federal Investigations will be because at this point I don’t know. I will say this.
There is a significant amount of collaboration occurring between WPCA Employees, the Environment Law Firm assisting us and Regulators. I am confident the outcomes will provide us a path to get better operationally. There has been some question as to why we hired an outside Environmental Law Firm to assist us.
It is simply because you can’t investigate yourself.
The WPCA Employees are central to the investigation. Putting them in the position of having to respond directly to every aspect of the investigation is not good for the integrity of the investigation and further complicates the workload challenges we face. That said, they are involved and accessible to Investigators.
The Conflicts – There is nothing more valuable in the decision making process than to have the perspective of your front line people. I welcome the WPCA employees to the discussion.
I value their opinions, experiences and suggestions but in the end, it is the WPCA Board Members who hold the decision making authority and it is the Board Members who are accountable to the residents of Derby for those decisions.
There are some opinions of both WPCA Employees and our Engineering Firm that I don’t agree with.
However, if they have an opinion, idea or recommendation, I want to hear it so that it can be talked about and considered. It is the responsibility of the WPCA Board to keep the good of the community as the priority.
I have complete confidence in Board Alderman President Carmen DiCenso and Tax Board President Judy Szewczyk to identity if a particular WPCA issue requiring their respective Boards vote presents a conflict and to address it.
As for the rest of the conflicts Alderman Art Gercken’s has expressed concerns over, I can only offer this. He held something I do not. A Board of Alderman vote that would have prevented the conflicts he is concerned about.
The City Employees who were elected by the residents can only take office if the Board of Alderman approves a waiver for each. Each waiver is voted on separately. It is my understanding that the approval requires a unanimous vote by the Board of Alderman.
Mr. Gercken’s had the opportunity to vote against the waivers and did not. I respect Mr. Gercken’s opinions, but unfortunately they now only serve as distractions. He voted to approve the waivers and we need to move forward.
Regionalization – The concept of regionalizing our Water Pollution Control System continues to come up and is something which must be considered. Any decision to move or not move in this direction must also be discussed with Regulators.
Whether we go the road of regionalization or not is really about two important questions.
1: What is the strategy for Derby? You may recall hearing “Making Derby Great Again” and “Keeping Derby Moving Forward” during our last election season. These are powerful slogans which were used to convey the beliefs of candidates running for office.
They serve a purpose but they are not specific strategies. A strategy might be something like marketing available land in Derby to increase new business growth by some number each year or securing a developer for downtown. These high level strategies are set by our City Leader, Our Mayor. Whatever the chosen strategy, how we handle waste water produced by this development needs to be a tactic of the strategy.
Can we handle it alone or are we better served by regionalizing? Without being clear about the strategy, it is hard to reach the right conclusion.
2: If we believe regionalization is in our best interest, do our neighboring communities agree and are they willing to explore it? Once we have these answers, we can decide on a course of action and seek support and input from Regulators. I recently shared my concerns on this issue with the Infrastructure Committee.
Neither the Infrastructure Committee, WPCA Board or Board of Alderman can independently will regionalization into reality. We must work together and be aligned on a strategy. To help us, Derby will be participating in a Naugatuck Valley Study on the concept Regionalization.
The study is expected to take about 18 months. There are infrastructure improvements such as some of our Pump Station upgrades that we can work on while the regionalization study is completed. These upgrades would not impact a decision to regionalize.
I hope the perspective I have shared is helpful.
If you have suggestions or concerns, please consider sharing them in the public portion at an upcoming WPCA Meeting. We meet the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 6:30PM in City Hall.
— Don Demanuel
The writer is a member of the Water Pollution Control Authority, a volunteer, appointed body.
