Council Approves Wastewater Treatment Plan With Rand Whitney

After a two-hour executive session, the Montville Town Council voted unanimously to “endorse the submission of a waste water improvement plan to the bond commission to receive grant funding.”

And that’s all that was said. No remarks by any of the council and save for a thank you and job well done from Water Pollution Control Authority administrator Brian Lynch, no one else said a word.

Lynch said he was looking forward to partnering with : “A new beginning with the WPCA and Rand Whitney.”

Patch received a copy of a letter by a consulting engineer detailing the plan to pre-treat Rand Whitney waste water using an anaerobic digestion treatment process. Rand Whitney would operate the system at a cost of $362,000 annually – a significant cost, the consultant wrote – but there would also be a significant reduction in the user fees the company pays to the town, to the tune of around $1.19 million.

Based on the wording of the resolution, it appears that the town is looking to help cover the costs of the system by securing grant funding. Town Councilors declined to comment at all on any aspect of the plan, referring questions to the town attorney. And also declined to address why it took the discussion of a improvement plan into executive session.

According to the document, WPCA staff said if the project between the town and Rand Whitney didn’t move forward, the agreement on user fees between the two would have expired and that would cost the town even more, around $200,00 to $250,000 in lost revenue.

The report states that based on cost analysis, the project “may” disproportionately benefit Rand Whitney over the town.  

Montville will be required to make the first $1.35 million bond payment to cover the Rand-Whitney Containerboard $11.7 million settlement. That deal was struck after years of legal wrangling over just how much Rand Whitney had to pay Montville in sewage fees.