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Commission hears regional remediation update on Manresa Island, DEEP and confined aquatic disposal planning
Summary
Commissioners received a detailed briefing about marine-sediment remediation planning around Manresa Island, including references to state DEEP materials, confined aquatic disposal cells the Army Corps has used elsewhere, and unresolved local cost-share questions for disposal sites.
Commissioner Jeff Hiller gave commissioners a regional briefing on remediation planning for contaminated marine sediments around Manresa Island and related harbor-management work.
Hiller said the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) has posted hundreds of pages of planning documents and progress reports online but that the state has not set a specific date for marine-sediment remediation. He described the Army Corps’ use of confined aquatic disposal (CAD) cells for contaminated dredge material in other Connecticut harbors and said that who will pay local cost shares for construction of such facilities remains unsettled: “One of the unanswered questions is who’s the cost share, the local cost share for constructing those projects?”
Hiller also said harbor commissions are working to update harbor-management plans to include specific protections for natural shellfish beds, and noted parallel efforts by neighboring municipalities (Greenwich, Stamford, Bridgeport, Black Rock Harbor) to create policy language or code updates that make protections more durable than an executive order alone.
Why it matters: The remediation approach—whether to cap, remove, or place dredged material in a CAD cell—and the allocation of construction cost shares determines how and when contaminated sediments are addressed and whether natural shellfish resources receive added protection in the harbor-management framework.
What’s next: Hiller said the commission will continue to monitor state and Army Corps planning and is meeting with regional partners and conservation staff to scope investigations and potential policy language to protect natural shellfish grounds. No formal action or vote was taken on funding or project commitments at this meeting.
