Editor: This article has been corrected to say that the main installation on Little Brook Road will be done this coming summer of 2023, and was not finished last summer.
Members of New Canaan’s state-designated local traffic authority at their most recent meeting approved use of local roads for detours during a major project from Aquarion water.
The Police Commission at its Dec. 19 meeting voted 3-0 for the Connecticut Department of Transportation to use New Canaan roads as a detour as it finishes installing a 36-inch water transmission line this year.
The state has already finished segments of its installation, which involves going down about nine feet, Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the Commission at its meeting, held at police headquarters and via videoconference.
“They did a piece on Lakeview Avenue, from [Route] 123 to Millport,” Mann said.
He continued: “They are working currently inside the cemetery, going through the cemetery so that they can bypass Millport Avenue and then they’ll come out and they’ll do Harrison Avenue from Main Street to South Avenue in the early spring and then jump back, begin in Wilton and start coming into town. The request is that any time that they are working on a state road, they have to utilize a town road for a detour. While they are working on the roads, emergency vehicles and school buses will always have one lane open. They are asking to divert thru-traffic. So emergency vehicles and school buses will always have access through the work area. Thru-traffic they will ask to detour around and then truck traffic they are actually making a much larger detour around the entire work zone and actually utilizing state roads to do that. So in essence, each time they come through a segment of state road they need to use a piece of the town roads to do it, so they can get across the bridge [at the Silvermine River] from Wilton into New Canaan.”
Commission Chair Paul Foley, Secretary Jim McLaughlin and member Shekaiba Bennett voted in favor of allowing the detours.
Mann indicated that the detour for the east side of New Canaan would see motorists seeking to travel on Silvermine Road between Carter Street and the Wilton line diverted to Canoe Hill, Ferris Hill and Valley Roads while the state is working on that piece. It wasn’t immediately clear how the detour would work when the state does the stretch of Route 106 between Carter Street and Little Brook Road. (Little Brook itself is to be finished this summer when East School is not in session, Mann said.)
Plans for the water main installation first surfaced at public meetings in 2019. In 2021, public works officials described the project as a three-year transmission line expansion. Town officials noted in September that segments of the project would get done in 2022. (The president of the Lakeview Cemetery board has noted in comments on NewCanaanite.com that the board gave careful consideration to Aquarion’s request for an easement and that it was granted after months of negotiations “for a sum that significantly enhanced our endowment while ensuring the path would have limited disruption with no exhumations.”)
The Police Commission asked Mann what is the purpose of the project (bring water from the Belden Hill Pump Station through New Canaan in order to serve, mainly, Stamford and Greenwich), whether all the water traveling through New Canaan on the line will serve those communities (yes, and it will eliminate the need for temporary above-ground systems during droughts, such as New Canaan has seen in recent years) and whether there will be extra-duty work available for New Canaan Police (yes).
Mann noted that the state will share in restoration of New Canaan roads, and that the town will incur no extra costs with respect to that work. Police Chief John DiFederico (whose appointment to NCPD’s top post was made during the same meeting, where he technically was still in the position of deputy chief) noted that there will be no service lines running from the water main, and that the detours themselves are well-established.
Mann said, “They did a nice job last year managing the project in Wilton. They did a nice job coming through town on the stretch that they did on Lakeview itself. I feel confident that they will perform the same as they come on 106 from the Wilton Line to Little Brook Road.”