Stripp Introduces Open Space Bill

HARTFORD — State Representative John E. Stripp, R-135th District, has introduced a bill that would allow neighboring towns to join together to form an agency that would acquire water company lands threatened with development and preserve them in their natural state.

The agency would be authorized to issue and sell bonds to raise funds. It also would be granted the power of eminent domain, which would enable the agency to take over watershed properties if that became necessary to prevent them from being developed, Rep Stripp said.

“I am extremely pleased with the amount of legislative support this concept has received over the last year and a half,” Rep Stripp said, adding that state Senator Judith C. Freedman, R-26th District, and state Representative Cathy C. Tymniak, R-133rd District, also have signed onto the bill.

“I’m also very pleased with the progress being made in negotiations between the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Kelda Group PLC (the British firm that acquired the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company as well as thousands of acres of BHC watershed lands) toward working out an agreement to protect the water company land,” Rep Stripp said.

“With the introduction of my bill and the apparently productive direction the negotiations are taking, we are on a parallel track that should result in the preservation of the Kelda lands,” Rep Stripp said. “I’m flexible about which approach ultimately prevails, but I am absolutely inflexible about the final goal– the protection in perpetuity of the Kelda watershed lands, which must be saved as a legacy for this and future generations.”