New Canaan won’t benefit from the 36-inch main line that likely will see a stretch of Main Street dug up for the third time starting this year or next, officials say.
The water company’s transmission line is designed to move water from Bridgeport’s system to Greenwich, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihan.
“Believe it or not, Greenwich actually contracts to sell their water to Westchester towns, and when we had the drought and we had that temporary pipeline, they had to move water which is available in Bridgeport reservoirs over to Greenwich,” Moynihan said during Tuesday’s Board of Selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall. “this is a permanent fix for that, I guess.”
The comments came during an update on general matters before the town.
Public Works Director Tiger Mann had discussed the future project during a meeting last month. The line is coming from Wilton and will run through New Canaan to Stamford, Mann said.
Most of the route will stick to state roads, but it will come off of Route 106 near East School before hooking back up with Route 124/South Avenue near Waveny, according to Mann.
“The only issue is from 106 near East School to basically 124 and Saxe, that area through town,” he said. “That will be town roads and we are trying to determine how it will go through town.”
Asked by Selectman Kit Devereaux what condition the state will leave the town roads in when the project, Mann said, “They will be repaving them.”
“It might be the third time that gets done, the gas service and new water main on Main Street and then this transmission line on Main Street, possibly, so the roads might be dug up three separate times, unfortunately,” he said.
Moynihan said, “It’s a big project, a big pipe and there are issues of where it’s going to go through our town to get to Stamford.”
It should be noted that a new 36″ pipeline connecting the Wilton Reservoir to Stamford will be the second such pipeline to follow the Main Street/Farm Road route through New Canaan. The first such 36″ pipeline was built in the 1990’s and was intended to the be the first leg in connecting Bridgeport Hydraulic water resources to the Greenwich reservoir. At the time, the pipe was build from Wilton to the reservoir just south of the Woodway Country Club on Rt 106. However, the permanent connection to Greenwich was never authorized or constructed. It looks like additional capacity is now needed. By the way, the construction in the 1990’s made a mess of all the affected roads.