Our aging sewer infrastructure creates unacceptable sewage pollution in Rocky Hill.

Every time it rains, there are reminders in Rocky Hill and Wethersfield that the MDC District’s aging sewer system is unable to handle our 21st Century development and population.

Why? One problem is that storm water overwhelms the system.

Rocky Hill has aging sewers – some 100 years old – with cracked pipes that allow groundwater to pour in. When the Connecticut River floods, the high river levels inundate the sewer system. Homeowner drainage also burdens the system with flows from roof drains or leaders, basement sump pumps, and yard drains.

When all this storm water enters the sewer pipes, it mixes with the wastewater and fills the pipes beyond their capacity. Over-full sewers send extra-large flow volumes to the Rocky Hill treatment plant. From Rocky Hill and neighboring Wethersfield, these sewage flows exceed the facility’s treatment capacity and cause basement backups and discharges of raw sewage to local streams and the Connecticut River. Similar problems occur in Hartford where the core sewer system is 150 years old and six MDC towns depend on the Hartford treatment plant. Throughout the MDC District, these problems happen more than 50 times per year.

Over 1 billion gallons of untreated Sewage overflows every year in Greater Hartford
But the MDC has a solution – The Clean Water Project

The MDC District recently reached a Consent Decree with the U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate illegal discharges from our sewers within 12 years. A similar agreement with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection will call for additional remedies within 15 years.