Two members of the city’s tax board nixed a move Monday to pay lawyers hired by the city to respond to an order from state environmental regulators regarding the Derby Water Pollution Control Authority’s sewage treatment plant.
The tax board considered a request to transfer $40,000 within the city budget so that it eventually could be used to pay Pullman & Comley, a law firm based in Hartford.
The vote was five in favor and two opposed, with Democrats voting yes and Republicans voting no — but all seven votes were needed to make the transfer happen.
Tax board members Sam Pollastro, Jr. and Christopher Carloni, a WPCA employee, voted against the transfer.
The issue could be discussed tonight (Thursday, Nov. 19) at a special Aldermen-WPCA meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. in Derby City Hall.
Mayor Anita Dugatto has said Pullman & Comley is needed because they specialize in environmental law, and the state’s issues with the WPCA are complicated.
The city’s regular corporation counsel also recommended hiring outside counsel.
According to an audio recording of Monday’s tax board meeting, Carloni indicated Lindsay King, the WPCA superintendent, should be the person answering questions from the state instead of a lawyer.
But the mayor indicated King can’t represent the city in the matter, and that the WPCA needs help dealing with the state.
Background
In April, an inspector from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection reviewed the Derby Water Pollution Control Authority’s sewage treatment plant off Caroline Street.
A host of data reporting problems were found from 2014, according to the inspection report. A worker had altered fecal coliform reports without explanation, according to DEEP.
The complete inspection report is embedded below:
Derby Inspection – Laboratory Deficiencies by ValleyIndyDotOrg
Then, in August, DEEP issued an administrative order alleging WPCA employees were not properly trained, as evidenced by the April inspection, and that work had been done on the treatment plant without proper authorization.
DEEP described the Derby wastewater treatment facility off as “poorly operated and in overall disrepair,” as well as a potential threat to the environment.
DEEP ordered Derby to hire an engineering firm to study whether to modernize the facility or abandon it and pump sewage elsewhere. Derby officials worry that either option — modernize or divert sewage to a neighboring community — could cost the city millions and millions of dollars.
A copy of the DEEP order is embedded below.
DEEP Order To Derby by ValleyIndyDotOrg
The DEEP order has caused confusion in Derby, because voters last year approved more than $30 million in upgrades to the city’s sewer system. That work has not started.
The city’s WPCA has held several closed door meetings on the issue.
On Sept. 28, the city’s appointed, volunteer Water Pollution Control Authority submitted a point-by-point response saying “several of the major items” in the order had “already been completed, constructed and/or provided” to the state.
“We are concerned about the term ‘poorly operated’,” the members of the WPCA said in the response. “Therefore, the WPCA is requesting that DEEP clarify the intent of the ‘poorly operated’ term, as this appears to be subjective.”
Last week the Derby Board of Aldermen, the Water Pollution Control Authority and a city infrastructure committee met with two lawyers from Pullman & Comley to discuss the state’s problems with Derby.
Click here for a previous story.
Everyone at the meeting seemed to support the track the city was taking to deal with DEEP — namely, allowing two environmental lawyers to deal with it.
Not So Fast
But potentially spending $40,000 on legal fees triggered a 17-minute discussion during Monday’s tax board meeting, with Carloni questioning why the city had to hire a lawyer.
Carloni’s line of questions wasn’t out of left field.
The DEEP versus WPCA issue has caused some hand-wringing in Derby. Former WPCA chairwoman Carolyn Duhaime was critical of the mayor last month, questioning why she was heavily involved in a WPCA issue.
Technically, the WPCA is separate from the city — but when WPCAs get into DEEP trouble, the state sends orders to a municipality’s top official.
At Monday’s meeting Carloni pointed out the DEEP order didn’t order the city to hire a lawyer.
“You just went out and got your own legal counsel,” Carloni said to the mayor.
Dugatto indicated that an environmental lawyer was better suited to handle the issue than WPCA staff. She pointed out several times that DEEP asked for a simple list of WPCA employees and job descriptions. The WPCA superintendent sent a list marked “draft,” the mayor said.
DEEP didn’t ask for a “draft” list, the mayor said.
Someone has to answer DEEP’s questions and provide DEEP with information in the specific format DEEP wants, Dugatto said, indicating WPCA staff has been unable to do it.
“We are talking to the state and they are saying it’s insufficient, the answers we are giving them,” Dugatto said.
Dugatto also said the repairs and upgrades approved by voters last year were never reviewed by DEEP — a major mistake.
Derby didn’t think DEEP had to get involved because state money wasn’t being used, Dugatto said.
But Carloni said King, the WPCA superintendent, knows the treatment plant and its problems better than anyone, including a team of lawyers.
The city has enough money to pay its environmental lawyers through the end of 2015. The matter could return to the tax board’s agenda in December.
