During the 1940s, it seemed like a good idea to dump garbage in the Connecticut River watershed just outside of downtown Hartford’s northern gateway.
That failure in judgment — meeting an immediate need without a care for long-term implications — created an eyesore that has grown over six decades, one that now leaves an awkward first impression on visitors driving south from Bradley International Airport.
Now Broadwater executives are considering their legal options to appeal New York Gov. David Paterson’s decision to block the construction of their proposed liquefied natural gas plant in Long Island Sound.
Their appeal, if there is one, will be decided on narrow legal grounds. Do the plans conform to the specific requirements of the law? If they do, expect the plan to move forward.
What’s missing — and what was missing from Hartford’s decision-makers in the 1940s — is the component of judgment.
With more legal wrangling, in the forecast, will there be an opportunity for common sense to play a role in yet another important natural resource?
Building a natural gas terminal in the middle of the sound would place a Sword of Damocles over the vital waterway.
The project would raise the state’s commitment to fossil fuel-based energy in the era of global warning while providing a tempting target for terrorists. It would also expose the region to a much more likely scenario, the mundane accidental catastrophe.
Granted, if the Broadwater plan sinks, the region must come up with an efficient and cost-effective natural gas delivery system — at least to the extent that today’s demand for natural gas cannot be reduced by renewable energy solutions.
The renewable technologies have improved dramatically over the past 35 years, since the last major energy crunch. Doesn’t it make more sense to bank on these and future advances rather than to risk building a fossil-fuel dinosaur that poses an imminent threat to a vital natural resource?
Hartford didn’t need to build its mountain of trash on once pristine land next to the Connecticut River. There were alternatives. But short-term expediency won out, and later generations — that’s us, folks — were left with the consequences.
During the 1940s, the city openly burned garbage at the city dump in the North End, within 1,500 feet of Hartford residences but far enough away from the city’s affluent downtown retail district. From 1953 to 1977, all city waste was burned at an incinerator at the landfill, and its popularity grew among its suburban neighbors. So much so, that Hartford’s neighbors began to send their garbage and waste to Hartford.
Today, the dump is the home of the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, created as a statewide solid waste management agency to develop waste-to-energy projects across the state.
Even as it become clear in recent decades that large dumps tend to contaminate groundwater, affecting public drinking water, the Hartford landfill continued to grow.
While other cities — San Antonio and Providence to name two — have grasped the value of riverfront property on tourism, property values and a city’s revitalization, Hartford is stuck with its dump.
If approved, the Broadwater project would set in motion a similar sad story of official folly.
