Hetherington Supports Notifying Towns of Contaminated Water

HARTFORD – State Representative John Hetherington (R-125) today welcomed the passage by the state House of Representatives of SB- 1021, An Act Concerning Notification of Contaminants in Drinking. The measure would require the Commissioner of the Department of Public Health to notify local municipal leaders when contaminated drinking water is discovered within their municipality.

Rep. Hetherington said, “I support any effort to ensure the safety and quality of Connecticut’s public water supplies.”
The public health commissioner would be required to notify, in writing or by e-mail, a municipality’s chief elected official after obtaining test results that show that a contaminant in a public drinking water supply, including community and non-community water systems, exceeds U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) national primary standards.
“Contamination can come from a wide-range of sources and short of such contamination being the fault of the municipality itself, remediation should be a joint state-local effort,” said Hetherington. “Adequate authority should be given to both to recoup costs associated with the clean-up from the responsible party. Such responsibility should NOT be the sole burden of the municipality, especially when public water supplies generally feed a region.”

Rep. Hetherington concluded, “It is important that municipal officials quickly be aware of a contaminant in the local water supply and that action be taken to remedy the situation.”

The bill will now head to Governor M. Jodi Rell for her possible signature.