Membership will meet to decide course of action

By Wiley Wood

A modest brick building beside the Blackberry River going toward Canaan houses Norfolk’s wastewater treatment plant. Bill Hester, the plant’s superintendent, points out a sunken concrete box near the building into which a 12-inch pipe discharges water. Although the influent looks only slightly murky on a cold weekday morning in April, this is the sewage collected from the 378 houses in the Norfolk Sewer District. It is Hester’s job to process the sewage so it can be released into the Blackberry, whose waters join the Housatonic and eventually flow into Long Island Sound.

Complicating Hester’s task is that the 9.5 miles of underground pipe that collect Norfolk’s domestic wastewater were installed in the late 1890s using three-foot sections made of clay. In the century and a quarter since, the sections have shifted, cracked and in some cases been invaded by tree roots. In dry weather, sewage can leak out of the pipes. In wet weather, groundwater infiltrates the system, which is the bigger problem.

“I have seen times,” says Hester, leaning over the railing of the concrete box, “when this whole thing is full. The flow meter will be submerged and just stop recording.” This is the grit chamber, where the channel widens, the flow is meant to slow, and heavy particles—sand, gravel, bone chips, coffee grounds—settle out before reaching the pumps and clarifying tanks.

During a warm wet spell earlier in April, the plant processed flows of 650,000 gallons per day, although the system was designed to handle about half that amount. During the peak of the wet season in spring and fall, the daily volume can rise to one million gallons, overwhelming the treatment system and threatening to cause spills and overflows.

In May 2011, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which keeps close tabs on the plant’s performance, issued an order for the Norfolk Sewer District to fix its collection system. Since that time, Ron Zanobi, the chairman of Norfolk’s Sewer Commission, has been working to obtain the funds to make the repairs.

An initial trial was made in 2015 to reline the sewer pipe along Laurel Way. The technique, much less expensive than replacement, requires introducing an epoxy-drenched fiberglass sock into one manhole and shooting it down to the next with compressed air. Steam is then introduced until the liner cures to a rock-hard, smooth-surfaced consistency. The 1,500-foot Laurel Way section, successfully relined without serious disruption at a cost of $50,000 to $60,000, allowed Zanobi to make a credible estimate of the size of the total project.

After the sludge is pumped off, the remaining liquid is clarified in one of the sand filter beds.

At this year’s annual meeting of the Norfolk Sewer District in May, Zanobi plans to describe his negotiations with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and ask his membership for authorization to apply for a combined grant and loan for $4.2 million. Forty percent of the total, or about $1.6 million, would come to the sewer district as a USDA grant, and 60 percent, or about $2.6 million, as a low-interest 40-year loan. “This is about the best deal we can get,” says Zanobi, who sets a two-year timeline for the repairs.

The cost will be borne by the members of the Norfolk Sewer District and, as the deal is currently structured, will add about $250 per year to the bill for each hookup. Servicing the debt will considerably increase the district’s total operating costs, which are currently around $350,000 per year, largely for the salaries of Hester and his assistant Brian Hutchins, plant maintenance, lab costs and utilities.

Building a centralized sewer treatment system in Norfolk in the 1890s was a measure of the foresight and ambition of the town’s residents. “If it weren’t for the sewer utility,” says Hester, “there wouldn’t be a center of town.” Colebrook, with its sparser village center, relies entirely on wells and septic systems. Most town-owned buildings, Hester points out, are part of the sewer district, including Botelle School, Town Hall, the fire station and the ambulance barn, as are all the private and public structures in the downtown core.

Bill Hester shows a visitor where the cleaned effluent flows into the Blackberry River.

As a measure of how much groundwater infiltrates the collection system, Hester contrasts the total water usage of the sewer district households, measured by the water company at 10 million gallons in 2017, and the volume processed by the treatment plant that same year, which was 103 million gallons. The aerating tanks can, under normal conditions, eliminate 70 percent of the organic solids through bacterial action. The remaining sludge is pumped off and ends up in the town landfill. The liquid portion is further clarified in one of the half-dozen sand filter beds below the plant, each the size of a baseball infield, before the effluent is discharged into the Blackberry River.

“It’s all done without chemicals,” says Hester, though he adds that from May to October the water is briefly chlorinated and dechlorinated before being released, to control for E. coli. Standing by the outflow pipe above the Blackberry, he catches the water in his hands: “It’s drinkable. Our effluent is way cleaner than the river.”

The annual meeting of the Norfolk Sewer District, where Zanobi and Hester will explain the repair project, answer questions and ask for the members’ authorization to proceed, will be held at Town Hall on Wednesday, May 16, at 7:30 p.m. Sewer district members are encouraged to attend.

Photos by Bruce Frisch. Top: Bill Hester is the superintendent of Norfolk’s wastewater treatment plant.