To The Editor:

How many of us know exactly where our clean, crisp, and clear drinking water comes from? The answer, even if your water comes from the Aquarion Water Company, is one of the underground aquifers found right here inside our boarders.

Newtown is home to the only aquifer to be given the designation as a sole source aquifer in the State of Connecticut. Pretty amazing if you stop and think about how easily the water flows from our collective faucets. We might even get complacent and think it could continue to flow forever, but that is a naive assumption. In order for the aquifers to continue to function and provide the population of Newtown with the quantity and quality of water it craves, we need to protect them. Our town needs open spaces, which function as recharging zones for the collection and filtration of water. We need to keep petroleum products, lawn chemicals, and road salts out as well as contain and purify sewage treatment.

Despite what current developers believe, our Commerce Road sewage treatment facility cannot handle what they are dreaming. It is only a matter of time before we have a spill. I, for one, do not see why the taxpayers of Newtown should foot the bill to add more space to our treatment facility so that a developer can pad their pockets at our expense. What will Hartford offer us when our drinking water becomes compromised? Where will our water come from if we damage our self-sustaining aquifers?

We cannot afford to be short sighted or complacent. We do not want to become the next Flint, Mich. Rise in a clear voice and say No to 79 Church Hill Road. We as a community need sustainable clean water for the future more than we need 224 rental apartments. We need clean water more than we need 5,000 ten-cubic-yard dump trucks moving out our recharge area soil. Let's be smart; let's turn our eyes to the future and make sure it's what we dream.

Respectfully,

Virginia Zimmermann Gutbrod

4 Walnut Tree Hill Road, Sandy Hook         January 31, 2018