WILTON – Selectmen considered a proposal to connect Wilton’s water system into the Farmington system last night, for use by the local hospital in emergencies.
Farmington Village Corporation is a quasi-municipal organization which provides water throughout Farmington. They also provide water to the campus of Franklin Memorial Hospital. FVC is proposing a connection between two segments of dead-end pipe, one on the Wilton side and one on the Farmington side of Routes 2 & 4.
“They are looking for an emergency connection only,” Dirigo Engineering Project Manager James Lord said. “That is the intent.”
The hospital campus now consists of several buildings, including a nursing care facility. These buildings use 20,000 gallons of water a day, provided through a 12-inch wide length of pipe running from the part of town near the Sandy River all the way to within 750 feet of the Farmington-Wilton town line.
FVC’s concern is if that long, dead-ended pipe should break. While the hospital campus could be provided water through temporary fire hose from the Wilton system, FVC wants to consider a more permanent emergency system.
This system would consist of two sets of valves and meters, one set on each side of the town line. Should the Farmington main line rupture, FVC would alert Wilton’s water department, which could then turn on their valve. The meter would track how much the hospital used, and the Wilton department would then bill them for it.
Wilton Water Department Superintendent Russell Mathers did not like the idea.
“You are responsible for your area,” he said. “If you can’t provide water, then you shouldn’t be putting up buildings.”
He raised concerns about how the two systems would affect each other should there be a major break somewhere in the system. Lord said that such problems could be countered by good engineering.
Selectman Chair Paul Gooch noted that the idea had been broached before, but that negotiations had broken down between FVC and Wilton and the hospital.
“Last time we met, we figured out it was going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “I just don’t see that in our budget.”
FVC representatives said they hoped to get some funding through grants and governmental agencies. Lord said that the nature of the project, bringing an emergency option to a hospital, weighed in favor of the concept getting some state or federal funding.
Mathers said that using the hospital as a way to leverage a sharing of systems was not in the best interests of the town. He noted that Wilton itself already had many miles of pipe that was well past its normal lifespan.
“You take care of the town you live in,” he said. “If there’s an emergency? Run fire hose.”
Selectman Irving Faunce disagreed.
“We’re in this together,” he said. I don’t buy this notion of we take care of Wilton and nobody else.”
All selectmen agreed that Wilton couldn’t be expected to add the cost of the project, tentatively estimated at greater than $200,000, to an already overburdened budget.
“I don’t want to see Wilton residents hammered, and I don’t want to go into debt,” Selectman Russell Black said. “[The water sold to FVC in an emergency] is metered, but if we don’t use this insurance policy for 10 years, then we’re paying for a dead horse.”
Selectmen instructed FVC and Lord to come back with more specific data on the costs of the project as well as, at Selectman Terry Brann’s request, other possible ideas. Faunce said that it was important that the hospital have a representative involved as well.
