River flooding and the aging sewer infrastructure in Windsor create unacceptable sewage pollution.

Every time it rains in Windsor, there are reminders that our aging sewer system—including the core of the system in Hartford—is unable to handle our 21st century development and population.

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

In sections of town where older sewers remain, or where sewage is conveyed to the treatment plant through 150-year-old MDC pipes, those old cracked pipes let groundwater flow 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/leaders, basement sump pumps, and yard drains.

When all this storm water enters the sewage pipes, it mixes with the wastewater and fills the pipes beyond their capacity. Over-full sewers send extra-large flow volumes to the Hartford treatment plant. From Windsor and five other MDC towns, these sewage flows exceed the facility’s treatment capacity, and cause basement backups, street flooding, and discharges of raw sewage to local streams and the Connecticut River. 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. We are now negotiating a similar agreement with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CTDEP), and will also address the CTDEP’s requirements to reduce nitrogen levels, which impact Long Island Sound.