Marc Lemcke is a Westport resident, and a close observer of Aquarion. He writes:
On Tuesday (October 6), the Representative Town Meeting will vote on Jonathan Steinberg’s appointment as Westport’s representative to the new Aquarion Water Authority.
It should vote yes — but that should be the beginning, not the end, of the decision.
The first selectman should give Steinberg a broader mandate: become Westport’s water czar and build, for the first time, a comprehensive strategy for
drinking water, fire protection, flooding, land use, water quality, conservation — and the costs residents will increasingly be asked to bear.
Jonathan Steinberg
The recent flood was not the first selectman’s fault. But it exposed what his administration has failed to address: Westport still manages water as a collection of disconnected problems.
Flooding goes to one board, sewers to another, land use rules somewhere else, while drinking water and fire protection are left to Aquarion.
For too long, Westport has treated water as someone else’s problem: Aquarion’s, the state’s, or the next storm’s.
But the water flooding our streets and the water in our pipes are part of one system, and the town’s own choices affect both.
Flooding last month at Pumpkin Hill and Colony Roads. (Photo/Kimberly Paris)
Development standards that increase impervious surfaces, zoning decisions that fill flood-prone land, and public assets managed without regard to drainage (including the Longshore golf course, which draws heavily on public water at
subsidized rates), all belong in the same conversation.
The consequences are no longer abstract: rapidly increasing costs, Westport’s PFAS remaining above the contamination threshold beyond Connecticut’s 2029 compliance deadline, and an intolerable public safety risk from inadequate
fire flow.
Westport needs a water czar: one official, answerable to residents, responsible for every part of the problem.
No one holds that job today. The first task would be simple and overdue: put
the town’s water records, spending and plans where residents can see them.
That opportunity arrived when the new public Aquarion Water Authority completed its acquisition at a cost to ratepayers — including transaction fees — of $2.6 billion.
Westport went from being a customer of a private monopoly to one of 59 communities represented in the governance of a public authority.
But Aquarion’s equity investors have been replaced by debt investors with even stronger contractual rights, and public ownership is no guarantee of public
benefit.
Westport holds only one seat among 59. Unless Steinberg enters with a clear mandate and builds coalitions before voting blocs harden, the authority could repeat the failures of what it replaced — under a public seal.
Fire protection shows what deferred accountability looks like. In 2008, the Westport Fire Department warned Aquarion about inadequate fire flow, meaning not enough water reaching hydrants to fight a serious fire, in the Rayfield Road and Turkey Hill Road areas.
On September 9, 2008, the company replied. It had replaced pressure regulators but “only realized a minor increase” in fire flow. Meeting the requirements of the town’s recent Insurance Services Office evaluation, it said, would take improvements “more extensive than a retrofit of existing infrastructure.”
In 2014, six years later, the ISO, which rates towns’ fire protection for insurers, tested 15 hydrants across Westport. Fourteen fell short of Aquarion’s own
standard.
As far as the public record shows, no one has retested since. This is what it looks likewhen everyone is responsible, and no one is accountable.
Fire hydrant, Parker Harding Plaza.
PFAS presents the same failure, but its consequences are harder to see. In a regulatory filing, Aquarion disclosed that Westport’s wells exceed the federal limit for PFAS. and that treatment will not be ready by the 2029 state deadline.
Yet residents have no way to tell which source reaches their homes, or what their own exposure might be. Westporters have been left to piece together the risk on their own.
A lawsuit now in Waterbury Superior Court goes further. The amended complaint in Vincent v. Aquarion Water Company alleges that the company knew about the contamination and pushed treatment spending into”later capital-plan periods.”
These are allegations, not findings. No court has ruled on them.
But one thing is not in dispute. By Aquarion’s own account, Westport’s water will not be in compliance when the state deadline arrives.
The formal Aquarion position for Jonathan Steinberg comes with only an honorarium. The expanded role proposed here does not.
Building coalitions across 59 communities, overseeing a comprehensive town plan, and challenging a powerful utility will require serious time, expertise,
and access to technical assistance.
Jonathan Steinberg has spent many years dealing with this state regulatory agency.
Westport should compensate its water czar accordingly and provide a modest operating budget. Becoming a model town for 21st-century water management
may be the smartest investment Westport can make.
Mr. Steinberg is unusually qualified. During 16 years in Hartford — and as House chair of the Energy and Technology Committee — he has dealt directly with utilities, regulators, and the lawyers surrounding them.
He understands that Aquarion has often behaved like a law firm with a water business attached, and he is not naïve about the resistance meaningful reform will encounter.
He also knows how to build coalitions, which will be essential if Westport is to turn 1 seat among 59 into real influence.
Inside the authority, Steinberg should organize communities with shared interests. He should demand a strategic review of Aquarion’s service territories, built under an entirely different assumptions, and capital priorities — asking whether ratepayers can afford golden tanks and silver pipes while basic risks remain unresolved — and press for a credible PFAS compliance schedule, reliable fire flow, and affordable rates.
Aquarion has a large presence in Westport — including the North Avenue storage facility. (Photo/Richard Fogel)
He must also prepare Westport for Aquarion’s steadily declining payment in lieu of taxes before it becomes another surprise.
In Westport, his mandate must connect that work with everything the town has kept separate: drinking water, fire flow, PFAS, flooding, stormwater, land use regulation, conservation, and public assets.
Longshore alone warrants a review: its irrigation demands, rain capture, drainage footprint and flood exposure make it a test case for what 21st-century management of a public waterfront asset should look like.
He should convene responsible officials and civic groups, establish shared priorities, and produce Westport’s first comprehensive water plan — one that
assigns responsibility, sets deadlines, and measures results.
That requires transparency the town has long withheld. Steinberg should press the authority to end unnecessary redactions, and disclose rate and capital decisions before they become irreversible.
In Westport, he should establish a public water dashboard — tracking PFAS
progress, fire-flow testing, infrastructure investment, flood initiatives, and Aquarion’s declining tax contribution — and hold an annual public reckoning.
After years of hidden filings and decisions made beyond public view, residents should not have to investigate their own government to learn whether they are safe.
On October 6, the RTM should confirm Jonathan Steinberg. The first selectman must then give him the mandate, authority and resources to do the job properly.
Steinberg, in turn, should accept the challenge and tell residents what he will demand from Aquarion and from the town itself.
It is late to act. Hopefully, not too late.
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