For the sixth year in a row, the state of Connecticut is writing Farmington a check.

That's the short version of what Superintendent Mark Batorski told the Water Pollution Control Authority at its April 8 regular meeting — a session that covered March performance numbers, a rodent-caused equipment failure at Batterson, a grease mystery traced to Five Corners, and a pump station upgrade sitting fully equipped at Yukon except for one thing: the discharge piping.

The nitrogen credit story takes a minute to land if you haven't been following it. Connecticut's nitrogen trading program works as a cap-and-trade system: treatment plants get a permit limit, and if they come in under it, they can sell the surplus credits to plants that came in over. For years, Farmington was on the wrong end of that math — back in the day, Batorski said, credits could run the authority over $100,000 when nitrogen output ran above the limit. Now they're on the right end. For the sixth consecutive year, the plant came in under permit, which means instead of a bill, "they buy them from us for other plants that are over their permit." The annual check runs $2,000 to $5,000. It is not a large check. But it is not a bill, either, which, as a frame for municipal fiscal achievement, works remarkably well.

March made that performance more notable because March was not an easy month for flows. Daily averages came in at nearly 5 million gallons, with a single-day peak of 9.1 million — and that matters because the nitrogen formula is flow times concentration times pounds. When it rains and the plant is processing triple its normal volume, the math gets harder even if the treatment process stays exactly the same. The plant came in 2.5 pounds under its permit limit anyway. Last March, it was over by a pound. "To be under when your flows are that high," Batorski said, "is really, really good."

March's other numbers held similarly: 94% removal efficiency for biochemical oxygen demand, 98% for suspended solids, 82.2% for nitrogen. UV systems were activated for the season, and phosphorus came under permit for the month as well.

A portion of the nitrogen success traces back to the fermentation tank — an investment that has quietly transformed the authority's phosphorus chemical budget. Before the tank, Farmington was spending $75,000 to $80,000 per year on phosphorus treatment chemicals. "There's years," Batorski said, "that we haven't even run chemical on phosphorus." Those two wins — nitrogen credits earned rather than purchased, phosphorus chemicals largely eliminated — represent the two biggest financial returns in the facility's recent operating history.

The 170 Miles Are the Problem

The treatment plant, Batorski explained for the benefit of newer board members, is actually the manageable part. "The plan, like once you dial it in, it's okay," he said. "It's the 170 miles of pump stations and street lines that are the issue. I say 75 to 85% of the time, that's where your problem is."

Farmington currently operates 17 pump stations, with 20 or more possible once MDC and the West Farm station — already in design — come online.

March gave the collection system a workout across several stations:

Snowberry. Pump 2 tripped during the month. The suspected cause is a corroded discharge flange on the wet well pump rail — when the pump kicks on, flow is spraying out of the discharge area and faulting the system. Now that temperatures have come up, a bypass and flange replacement is scheduled for April.

Batterson. The backup automatic transfer switch — the outdoor unit that allows a towable generator to connect if the primary generator fails — had to be replaced after mice chewed through the wiring in the floor. It was cheaper to buy a new unit than to source individual replacement pieces. The replacement includes a quick-connect fitting. The mice, as far as the record shows, have not been accounted for.

High Road. On March 24, the station's operator interface terminal failed, triggering a low-level alarm even as the wet well was actually rising. Staff brought a replacement PLC onsite and had the station running within 15 minutes. The station moves 600 to 1,300 gallons per minute, so the restoration window mattered. The incident revealed a redundancy gap: the station lacks an ultrasonic transducer, which can run pumping operations independently even if both the PLC and primary transducer fail. The upgrade is being written into the station's control program.

Harlan Road. Rags removed from the float switches. Not the strangest item retrieved from a pump station this month — that distinction belongs to a two-by-four, a piece of curb, a pair of jeans, and a matchbox car. "I don't know how they get in there," Batorski said, "but they do."

Five Corners and the Grease That Predates the Tenant

The month's most involved incident began with a backup complaint at a residential address on Colt Highway, roughly a quarter mile from Five Corners, where WPCA crews found significant restaurant grease in a manhole outside a home. That is not where restaurant grease is supposed to be.

Staff traced the line back. The sewer layout at that end of Colt Highway dead-ends at Five Corners, with a branch running the other direction near the old gas station. Everything upstream of the residential address was coming from a short list: a few more houses, and Rebel Dog Coffee Co. at Five Corners.

When crews inspected the manhole outside the restaurant, they found the grease. Two laterals run from the building. The Big Dipper grease interceptor inside — a basement-mounted unit with a spinning wheel that catches fats before they reach the collection system — was, by all accounts, clean and well-maintained. The FOG inspection reports were current.

The working theory is that the buildup predates the current tenant. Rebel Dog opened roughly six or seven years ago, and the lateral grease may have accumulated under a previous operator long before anyone installed a Big Dipper or ran a quarterly inspection. "If those lines were clogged from 2012, it was closed for several years," Batorski said. "And that could have just sat there." One board member noted the Five Corners complex "has been nothing but restaurants for the last 50 years." Another on the board mentioned a similar situation at a restaurant he operates in Middletown — grease leaking slowly through a faulty baffle for years before inspectors tracked it down three manholes from the building.

The restaurant was fully cooperative. WPCA cleaned the manhole and the public line up to the curb. A cleaning truck was on-site within two days handling the private side. WPCA's own jetting equipment runs at up to 3,000 psi — enough, Batorski noted, to blow the toilets out of a restaurant if crews work too close to the building. "After a couple of times of that," he said, "we're like, we'll try as a courtesy, but we don't like to create two problems out of one." Rebel Dog handled the rest.

Going forward, FOG inspections at the location will run semi-annually rather than on the authority's standard two-year rotation, and interior Big Dipper cleanings will be more frequent. Inspections were also completed this month at Georgia Pizza, Discover Village, Farmington Gardens, and River Bend.

"I think they're going to be fine," Batorski said.

The Yukon Is Ready. The Pipe Is Not.

The Yukon pump station upgrade with Holzner Construction was supposed to begin within the week of the meeting. The PLC, variable frequency drives, and equipment are already at the station, but a discharge piping supply backlog has pushed the start approximately four weeks. The project begins when the pipe arrives.

The meeting adjourned with two sewer connections noted for the month, no budget discussion, and the chair's assessment that it might have been a record for short meetings. The 3% sewer rate increase approved last month went unmentioned.

Previously: Farmington's WPCA Confronts Frozen Scum Lines, Float Switches, and a 3% Rate Hike Like It's Totally Normal — February 2026

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Jack Beckett covers civic and municipal affairs for The Farmington Mercury. Reach him at the newsroom.

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