Posting on behalf of James Mol candidate for state rep for East Granby, Suffield, and Windsor Locks.
At the doors these past few weeks, the sewage in the Connecticut River comes up a lot. And almost every time, the person I’m talking to says some version of the same thing: they’ve seen the headlines, they’re worried, and they don’t really know what’s going on.
That’s fair. What most of us get on an issue like this is a headline, a number, or a picture of a dead fish. Not much in between.
So I spent a week reading what the sources actually say: the Massachusetts and Connecticut environmental agencies, the EPA, the court orders, and the volunteers who test the water every summer. Then I put it in a fact sheet, a video, and on my website.
What a combined sewer overflow is. How much really goes into the river, and why the number swings so much from year to year. How dangerous it is, and when. What’s been done since the 1990s, what’s still left, and who’s responsible for it.
To be clear about my role: the orders on these cities are federal, and no state legislator fixes this alone. But there are things a state representative can do, and I’d do them. Get the water tested on our side of the line, because today nobody does. Get the Massachusetts overflow alerts to reach Connecticut towns, because today they don’t. And push, with our congressmen, for the federal money the plans are waiting on, because the plans are written and the money is what’s missing. People asked, and they deserved a real answer.
No drama, no villains. Just the facts as the sources state them, so you can decide what you think.
Everything in the video, with sources, is at jamesmol.com/river
