Torrington City Council: $11.6 Million Sewer Infrastructure Upgrades Approved

Special Meeting 6/15/26 6:38 PM

Present: Mayor Molly Spino and City Councilors Paul Cavagnero, Anne Ruwet, Armand Maniccia, Rachel Hannon-Harrel and David Oliver. Absent: Councilor Chris Beyus.

The Harris Drive Pump Station, the largest one in the city of Torrington, is set to receive millions in upgrades as Torrington looks to shore up its aging sewer infrastructure. Councilors voted unanimously June 15 on resolutions to set underway upgrades to the station. The cost of overhauls at the facility would be around $11.6 million with almost $10 million coming from bonding.

Torrington will pay those bonds back for the next 20 years at 2% interest, according to Water Pollution Control Authority (WPCA) Administrator Ed Tousey. He said at the meeting the project includes a significant rebuild of the current Harris Drive building — one of Torrington’s 14 pump stations.

“This building has to be rebuilt,” he noted. “It has to go up higher out of the flood zone. Electrical equipment has to go on the second floor, the generator has to be elevated, and the transformer has to be elevated.”

The $11.6 million would cover the costs of planning, design, construction, acquisition and installation, related site and other improvements, equipment, materials, technology infrastructure, storage and other temporary relocation fees, traffic control, permitting, survey and study, architect, engineering and other consultant fees, legal fees, and net temporary interest.

Upgrades to the station raised questions from at least one city resident who stated the cost does not align with the city’s most recent capital improvement plan — a five-year roadmap of the city’s infrastructure spending. Prior to the formal start of the meeting, during a public hearing on the renovations to the pump station, city resident and sewer system user Tom Kandefer told councilors he was confused about the project’s price tag. Kandefer said he identified the Harris Drive project as item “D9” in the city’s latest five-year capital improvement plan.

That item, he noted, had a price tag of around $6 million. Kandefer also called on the council to host Tousey at a future meeting to explain what he considered a massive hike in the price tag of the project. Tousey addressed the council on the project shortly after the closure of the public hearing.

“Well, that is a lot of money for one little building,” Kandefer said. “I understand that when you prepare this capital improvement plan you put out seat-of-your-pants estimates. But this seems like quite a discrepancy. What changed here?”

Kandefer said he wondered if the cost of the project was driven up by the fact that the area is located on a floodplain, leading to increased costs for construction and electrical equipment.

“It is a desirable thing and critical thing too. You can’t tell [Lakeridge Residential] to stop flushing because there is a flood down on Harris Drive,” Kandefer said.

Tousey said concerns about the project’s price tag are valid. He added that engineering consultants arrived at that number by projecting conservative, worst-case-scenario numbers regarding the rising cost of materials and services.

“The actual cost could perhaps come down when we go out to bid,” Tousey said.

To supplement the almost $10 million in bonds, the city plans to apply for a grant from Connecticut’s Clean Water Fund (CWF), a state grant program that helps municipalities pay for infrastructure improvements. Tousey said the CWF grant will help cover around 20% of the project, but in order to apply for the grant, the council needed to first approve the resolution to bond for the bulk of the project’s costs to comply with the state’s criteria.

Tousey said sewer rates could go up $24 for each individual customer to help pay for the upgrades. Councilor Paul Cavagnero asked if the adjacent municipalities that have a sewer services agreement with Torrington would be pitching in. Currently Litchfield and Harwinton use Torrington’s sewer services.

“Their increase is only triggered when we do capital improvements on shared infrastructure,” Tousey said in response. “This is not shared infrastructure, so the answer is no.”

Tousey expressed deep concerns about the rising costs of construction.

“It is a moving target,” he noted. “If this was put on the backburner for three years, I can see it becoming a $15 million project.”