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May 10, 2005 Our desire to maintain the rural character of Killingworth is aided and, in part, shaped by the fact that much of the area serves as watershed acreage for two public water suppliers. The South Central Regional Water Authority (RWA) is a quasi-governmental non profit agency that was created by the State Legislature in 1980 for the sole purpose of acquiring the New Haven Water Company which included over 25,000 acres of land in sixteen towns. Is has its own police force and serves 400,000 people in 12 cities and towns in the New Haven area. RWA owns the Hammonasset Reservoir which lies in the Hammonasset River Basin and straddles the Killingworth-Madison line. It has a surface area of 377 acres. Its water flows by gravity through a manmade tunnel ( bored through bedrock in the early 1950s) into the 14 billion gallon capacity Lake Galliard in North Branford. The RWA owns and protects over 1400 acres of its 5800 acres of watershed primarily along western Killingworth north of its reservoir. The Authority has adopted a “protect the source” program and protected over 500 acres in Killingworth since 1996. The Connecticut Water Company (CWC) is a publicly traded corporation that serves 237,000 people in 36 Connecticut towns. Its Killingworth Reservoir lies in the Menunketesuck River Basin. CWC is presently in the process of building a bigger dam to significantly increase its impoundment capacity. Its watershed either flows into the Killingworth Reservoir or into the Menunketesuck River which then flows into the Kelseytown Reservoir and treatment plant in Clinton. The CWC system supplies water along the shoreline from Guilford to Old Saybrook and north to Chester. CWC owns over 1200 acres of its nearly 6,000 acres of watershed along the eastern and southeastern side of Killingworth. By definition, a watershed is land that drains down slope to the lowest point. Water moves through a network of drainage pathways both underground and on the surface. These pathways meander into streams and rivers that continually move the water down stream, eventually reaching an estuary or ocean. It is the interconnectedness of this drainage system that makes it necessary for those living in such a region to work together to ensure its integrity. Any activity that affects the water quality, quantity or rate of movement will affect reservoirs along the way. Those ramifications become considerations for Killingworth's land use commissions and of course, the water companies themselves. While Killingworth's land use agencies do not have specific controls dealing with watershed areas, the simple fact that the wetland and watercourses are present requires existing regulations to automatically protect those source areas. In addition to our own enforcement officers, professionals from water companies advise on and review activities in their respective watershed areas. Inevitably such regulations and required easements get in the way of the plans of men. Nevertheless, even inadvertently, they do protect the character of the town and afford us recreational activities. With 12 % of Killingworth owned by the water companies and half of the Town's area within their watersheds, development has its limitations. There are large tracts of Killingworth that will always be open space.
It is what we do with the rest of the acreage that will determine what
we look like twenty years from now. It will take a shared vision, timely
planning, and effective Town leadership to formulate a future that builds
on what is best about us today.
To learn more about the KDTC visit http://www.killingworth.dems.info or join us at our next meeting at the Library on Sunday, June 5, at 7pm. |
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