Printer Friendly Version - Water Company Talks Westbrook Tank Take-Down

The Connecticut Water Company (CWC) 500,000 gallon water tank on the Boston Post Road in Westbrook will be demolished in July and the antennas now attached to it relocated to a temporary tower being installed this week next to the tank. The antennas are for mobile communications companies and for municipal emergency communications systems including for the Town of Old Saybrook. No interruption in service is anticipated during the equipment relocation process, according to CWC. Photo by Becky Coffey/Harbor News

The iconic but deteriorating water storage tank on the Boston Post Road is coming down in July, and a new, temporary communications tower will be installed this week, according to Connecticut Water Company (CWC) spokesman Maureen Westbrook.

“The water tank needs a paint job and structural work in excess of $1.5 million to make it safe. We do not need or use the tank in our system,” Westbrook told the Board of Selectmen last week. “We have approval to demolish the tank.”

Before the tank comes down, antennas and associated equipment now attached to the water tower will be relocated to the new, 163-foot monopole tower by MCM Communications.

Craig Patla of CWC said that the plan is to begin tower demolition on July 1. The project is expected to have minimal disruption to traffic.

With the temporary communications tower going in this week, the next step is for MCM Communications to apply to the Connecticut Siting Council for a license to install a permanent tower. That decision will determine if the permanent tower will be on land where the water tower is now located or on a nearby site.

If the Siting Council recommends a move, it would likely be to a site several hundred feet north of the Boston Post Road on land owned by Dattilo Holdings, owner of Water’s Edge. Whichever proposal is favored by the Siting Council, the landowner on whose property the tower is built will benefit financially from MCM Communications’ long-term use of the site.

Water’s Edge Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and General Counsel Claudio Marasco has worked with MCM Communications to craft an alternative for the Siting Council that would put the new tower on Dattilo Holdings land instead of on CWC land next to the road edge.

If the Dattilo Holdings alternative is chosen by the Siting Council, a communications tower would not obstruct the future entry to Dattilo Holdings’ seven to eight acres of land, which it hopes to develop with houses. Placing the communications tower away from the road and at the far northern end of Dattilo Holdings’ land would increase design flexibility for a future development plan.

Marasco also said that he had contacted CWC about buying the land on which the water tower was located, but had not received a response. The water tank land abuts land owned by Dattilo Holdings.

In response to the question from a resident who lives nearby, CWC representatives confirmed that the new tower would not exceed 180 feet and would not, therefore, require lighting to alert airplanes.

First Selectman Noel Bishop said last week that the Board of Selectmen would schedule a public hearing to take comment on the alternative communications tower applications, once the Town is notified that MCM Communications had filed an application.