Testimolny to Environment Committee Feb 27, 2023

 Chairman. Members of the Environmental Committee,

Len Yannielli

The Gunntown Environmental Group

Naugatuck

We are in support of HJ37, the CT Environmental Rights Amendment.

In the Late 1960s, I worked in Thomaston Ct. teaching 8th grade and high school science classes.

I had classes sample the Naugatuck River. There were no fish in the river at this Thomaston site. Why?

One night as I was driving over a bridge there, A vat opened from a factory and molten metals poured out and hit the Naugatuck River. A plume of vapors rose that looked like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Mystery solved.

Pollution is ongoing.

There were three pollution events, from now smaller shops, into the Naugatuck River in 2018. This was at the junction of Waterbury and Naugatuck. Hundreds of fish died. Of course some pollutants would reach Long Island Sound.

There is a huge methane plant in Oxford, close to the Naugatuck border. We breathe in the 2.5 micron carbon particulates that are a product of burning fossil fuels. Also, methane gone astray from a web of pipelines enters the atmosphere aggravating climate change.

Carbon particulates are insidious as, unlike vats of molten metals, these air pollutants are invisible.

The closest housing development to this methane plant in Naugatuck is South Meadow Apartments. It is populated mainly by people of color. Thus the important environmental justice section of the Ct Environmental Rights Amendment.

On the solution side, brown fields up and down the Naugatuck Valley need remediation. It is very expensive. Money that our country is sending off to the Ukraine in a proxy war with Russia, is badly needed here.

HJ37 would allow us at the grassroots to take preventive steps concerning pollution and to hasten environmental solutions.

Thank You.

Len Yannielli

Community Outreach Director

The Gunntown Environmental Group