ZBA Approves Mystic Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrades

The Zoning Board of Appeals blessed a number of variance requests by the Water Pollution Control Authority Tuesday night at its first meeting of 2012. The  necessary approvals will allow construction to begin at the Mystic wastewater treatment facility. 

In November of 2010, Stonington voters approved an $18.3 million special obligation bond for the upgrade of the town’s three sewage treatment plants. The priority was the Edgemont Street plant, built in 1972 and in need of rehabilitation. 

“It’s old,” said WPCA director Harold W. Storrs during his presentation before the ZBA.

The WPCA asked for and received variances to reduce the required height of the basement, reduce the non-infringement area, rear yard setback and side yard setbacks—both of which abut the Mystic River.

“You’ll see we’re on a very tight site,” Storrs said. “Expanding the footprint would have been problematical.” 

Variances are granted when a significant hardship exists. In this case, the voters authorized the bond for the rehabilitation and construction, and of perhaps most significance, the building was constructed years before the area was zoned and well before FEMA flood zones. 

“This is a classic case of the plant was there before any regulations existed,” Storrs said. 

Town Zoning Enforcement Officer Joseph Larkin said the “restrictive RC120 zone” was established seven years after the plant was built. And he added that an application like this could have been avoided.  

“State statutes allow municipalities to exempt themselves from this type of [process], but the town has never gone down that route,” Larkin said. 

The rehabilitation includes “provisions for nitrogen removal” as well as to “accommodate projected sewage flows for more than 20 years into the future.”

According to the town, the Mystic plant is not only the oldest of the town’s three plants—in service nearly 40 years—but has “not undergone a significant upgrade or renovation since its commissioning.”  

And it currently is diverting some of its wastewater sludge to the plant in Stonington Borough. 

It is expected that $14.2 of the $18.3 million will be spent to renovate the Mystic plant.