West Hartford resident Kim Green has started the ‘West Hartford Concerned Citizens’ Facebook group, and is still hoping to stop the MDC from selling as much as 1.8 million gallons per day of water to Niagara Bottling Company.

West Hartford resident Kim Green has been speaking out about the MDC’s deal to sell water to Niagara Bottling Company. Photo credit: Ronni Newton

By Ronni Newton

West Hartford resident Kim Green is on a crusade and has spent nearly every night this past week speaking to area residents and to the Metropolitan District Commission in an effort to raise awareness about Niagara Bottling Company’s plans to build a bottling plant in Bloomfield and purchase as much as 1.8 million gallons of water per day from the MDC.

Green did not stop after organizing an information session at St. Peter Claver Church attended by approximately 80 people who braved the snow and icy cold on Monday night to learn more about the issue. On Tuesday, she officially started the “West Hartford Concerned Citizens” group, and launched a Facebook page that already has 348 “Likes.” The group is described as “a non-partisan, citizen-run organization focused on increasing citizen engagement on topics concerning West Hartford, CT,” and right now the focus of that engagement is the MDC and Niagara.

On Wednesday night, Green and several other West Hartford residents spoke at the MDC’s board meeting in Hartford. On Thursday, she and others from West Hartford were among approximately 200 people at a discussion and rally against Niagara in Bloomfield organized by the Bloomfield Citizen group.

“We must stop the MDC’s commodification of our precious natural resource, our reservoir,” Green said Friday, vowing to continue her fight. “If the MDC is lacking in money to pay for infrastructure, because residents have learned to conserve water, they should be charging Niagara more for the water, not less than what the customers pay. Why was Niagara offered a deal upfront? If MDC’s hand is not slapped and a thorough investigation is not launched in to the quasi-public company, this will happen again and again,” Green said.

For complete details about Thursday night’s anti-Niagara rally in Bloomfield, click here to read an article by Steven Goode and Kristin Stoller that appeared on the front page of the Hartford Courant on Friday.

The MDC has now scheduled a special meeting at its training center, 125 Maxim Rd., Hartford, on Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 5 p.m. Green is hoping that residents turn out in large numbers “to ask MDC the tough transparency questions and demand answers,” she said. “The spotlight must not be taken off the MDC!”

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