Rivers Alliance
of Connecticut
Connecticut's United Voice for River Conservation

Home

STREAMFLOW REGULATIONS ENACTED INTO LAW!

On December 12, 2011, regulations to conserve streamflows in Connecticut waterways became the law of the state.  These regulations represent a vital step forward in protecting rivers and streams for today and tomorrow. Connecticut has now taken the lead in New England and very likely the nation in officially recognizing that naturally flowing rivers and streams are essential to life, health, and economic wellbeing. 

To have water in the future, we must protect the water we have now. Draining streams dry for short-term convenience endangers the natural world and all its creatures (including us). For quality of life and economic wellbeing, there is no more valuable resource than water. It is liquid gold.

Connecticut has been trying to devise a fair, effective flow regulation since the 1970s. In 1979, a minimum-flow regulation was enacted, but it was so minimal and so complicated that it had little effect. In 1982, the state passed the Water Diversion Policy Act, which put reasonable limits on most new takings of water but included a giant loophole that grandfathered “rights” to hundreds of millions of gallons of water. (Whether these grandfathered claims to water were really “rights” was never entirely clarified.)

A decade and a half later, threats to water flows led to two prominent legal cases involving the Shepaug River in Litchfield County and the Mill River in New Haven. The legislature created the Water Planning Council in 2001 in the hope that the state agencies with jurisdiction over water could come up an acceptable method of water allocation to forestall complex and expensive litigation.

In 2004, frustrated river advocates, including Rivers Alliance, Nature Conservancy, and Trout Unlimited, began a campaign to persuade the legislature and the agencies -- primarily the Departments of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Public Health (DPH) -- to support a law to protect streamflows. Newly appointed DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy took the lead. Water utilities manifested a willingness to negotiate.

In 2005, with agreement from all major stakeholders, the legislature unanimously (!) passed An Act Concerning the Minimum Water Flow Regulations. From 2005 to the end of 2011, extremely difficult bargaining and politicking led finally to the regulation now in place.

These are its good features:

• It affirms the public trust in water, which requires a balance between water consumption and water conservation.
• It applies to all watercourses.
• It applies to all major water-supply reservoirs.
• It requires variable flows based upon the seasonal flows that are natural to streams.
• It creates a classification system for river segments, from high-quality water flows (Class 1) to poor-quality water flows (Class 4), thus enabling long-term planning.
• It sets a goal of 75% natural flow for high-quality (Class 2) rivers and fairly protective, variable releases for segments below water-supply reservoirs.
• It guarantees that water supplies will be adequate for public health and economic wellbeing.
• It is flexible, taking into account special needs in times of drought and special conditions faced by individual utilities.
• It provides for public participation in river classification and planning.

These are its weaknesses:

• It does not regulate groundwater diversion, that is, wellfield pumping that draws down streams.The potential for stream impairment or destruction by pumping is high, as witness the extreme damage to the Fenton River at the University of Connecticut in 2005. Lawmakers were clear that they would not pass the regulation if it included groundwater, but several pledged to work to introduce a regulation on groundwater as soon as possible.
• There are a number of significant exemptions, including agriculture and golf courses.
• The timeline for compliance is very long, possibly five years for classification, ten years for compliance, with extensions readily available.
• The regulation is complicated and will be difficult to monitor.

The regulation was rejected three times in 2010-2011 by the General Assembly’s Regulation Review Committee before finally passing unanimously in November 2011. Negotiations were intense throughout 2011, managed by Betsey Wingfield of the new Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Participants included representatives from DPH, Connecticut Water Works Association, Aquarion Water Company, Connecticut Water Company, South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority, Wallingford Water Department, Connecticut Business and Industry Association, Rivers Alliance of Connecticut, Housatonic Valley Association, Nature Conservancy, and Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

Invigorated by weekly supplies of homemade cakes and other sweets, the participants reached consensus on the following knotty issues (put in bullet and sub-bullet form by DEEP).

• Definitions, including adequate margin of safety (MOS), releases, and outlet structures;
• Exemption provisions including golf courses, small watersheds that naturally yield little water and certain man-made conveyances;
• Release rule criteria and considerations for Class 4 stream segments;
• Classification certainty for existing public water supply diversions,  added consideration for classification of potential future water supplies, expanded consultation with other state agencies (including the Department of Economic and Community Development), and additional criteria considering economic impacts, ecological benefits, and adequate MOS as considerations in finalizing classifications;
• Protection of MOS of water utilities while moving long term to full release by:
  o   A tiered reduction of releases, with conditions, to provide relief to water utilities that would be left with an inadequate supply to meet current demands,  including a self implementing  50% reduction and a greater than 50% reduction subject to implementing an approved plan;
  o   Flexibility to reduce releases by 15% during a dry spring in order to maintain reservoir storage for water supply and summer releases;
  o   Opportunity for extension of time to comply with release rules;
  o   Opportunity to obtain renewable variances to address temporary hardships;
  o   Opportunity for customized release requirements through site specific release plans; and
• Simplified reporting requirements including added flexibility and alternative methods.

The regulation and its history can be viewed at the DEEP website. Do a search on DEEP and then “streamflow regulation.”

The price of making this work will be eternal vigilance, but the reward will be a unique state water management plan that includes an allocation for the environment. Streamflow protection has been the top priority for Rivers Alliance since 2002, and we are delighted to have something to be vigilant about.

Next step: rules for wellfields!

ARCHIVED DOCUMENTATION BELOW

(OCTOBER, 2011) NEWS ABOUT STREAMFLOW

Agreement has been reached among representatives of river conservationists, water utilities, and the state’s departments of environment and public health on the first phase of a statewide streamflow regulation. A vote was expected in October by the Regulation Review Committee. A few legal queries are holding up the October vote, but passage is expected in November. Meanwhile, see the article from the CT Post by Vinti Singh, Staff Writer, paraphrased here:

Environmentalists have been warning for years that we may be taking too much water from our state's rivers and streams and the soulution is to regulate how much water can be used. But industry experts said if the rules are too strict, they would be bad for business and for public health. After intense negotiations, the two sides have reached a compromise and are confident state lawmakers will pass new regulations next month.

"I believe this is the most forward-looking stream-flow management proposal in New England and possibly in the nation," said Margaret Miner, executive director of Rivers Alliance "This is a very significant step forward in managing water both for the environment and supply." The proposed regulations would require water companies to collect less water in their reservoirs and release more from dams back into rivers and streams, especially in the warmer months when water levels naturally tend to dip. In exchange, the water companies would be allowed to retain more water in the late winter and early spring, when water levels tend to be at their highest. "We'd like to see more water released (from dams) during all times of the year, but this is a major improvement over the status quo," said David Sutherland, director of government relations for The Nature Conservancy in Connecticut.

(JANUARY 2010) Protecting Natural Flows in Our Rivers and Streams

Increasingly, many experts are concerned that diversions of water from rivers and streams for various human uses are leaving too little water for fish and other aquatic animals to survive. Many dams also alter the patterns of stream flow during the year.

Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection has revised proposed regulations to implement the stream flow standards bill that was passed in 2005. These regulations will provide DEP the authority to work with large water users and dam operators to see if they can alter their water release practices to more closely reflect natural seasonal flows.

The public hearing on the initially proposed stream flow regulations officially opened on Thursday, January 21, 2010, 9 a.m. at the CT Department of Environmental Protection Headquarters, 79 Elm St., Phoenix Auditorium, 5^th floor, Hartford. 

We hope you will submitted comments or, if you prefered, signed on to a group letter.  This was our best chance in the foreseeable future to get adequate state standards for flow in rivers and streams. 

Please take part in this effort, we need you!

Information regarding the proposed stream flow regulations is listed below.  Please contact us if you have questions or need more information.  We can be reached at 860-361-9349 or via e-mail: rivers@riversalliance.org.

HEARING REPORT August 16, 2010  Please note that everyone's comments are listed in the appendix of the report starting page 85. There is an error however in the links to actual documents submitted. There is a link for each document on the first word of the listing, but that link does not lead to that listing, but to the listing 7 down from it. If you put your cursor over the first word in the listing, the link should appear in a box near your cursor, it includes the document number the link leads to. For example, "Exhibit 42 Comments from Margaret Miner...", has the link to Exhibit 49, not 42.   If you click on the link for Exhibit 35 (42-7) you get Margaret's testimony.

The listing of comments received on the DEP website http://www.ct.gov/dep/cwp/view.asp?a=2719&q=434018&depNav_GID=1654 has the right links.

Stream Flow Protection in 2010?

Fact Sheet (2 pages)

Stream Flow: Balancing Water Use for Future Generations (CT DEP Summary)

Proposed Stream Flow Regulations (pdf file)

CT DEP, Stream Flow Regulations (link)

Low Flow Rivers Information

Rivers Alliance’s Comments/Testimony

Rivers Alliance of Connecticut PO Box 1797 7 West Street, 3rd Floor Litchfield, CT 06759 860-361-9349 rivers@riversalliance.org www.riversalliance.org