June 2024

An engineering error dating back to 2014 is believed responsible for a couple of recent effluent discharge violations at the Litchfield wastewater treatment plant. Alarm over the situation created recent tension between First District Association and city officials, in addition to concern among the 225 employees and 600 dairy farms affiliated with the cheese plant cooperative headquartered in Litchfield, which is the largest cheese operation in the state.

20 YEARS AGO: NEWS FROM THE ISSUE OF JUNE 24, 2004 It took decades for Lake Ripley to become a weed infested, declining body of water. Organizers of a revived Lake Ripley Improvement Association figured it would take some time to reverse the decline. But just months into the group’s revitalization efforts, the lake on the south end of Litchfield has shown remarkable improvement. And with initial cleanup work going better than expected, members of the Lake Ripley Improvement Association hope to accelerate their quest to “make Lake Ripley the community attraction and asset it ought to be,” said Dr. David Ross, association president. Ross said that in two months of fundraising earlier this year the association raised $14,000, including $2,500 from the city, to be used for improvement efforts. The group contracted with a lake management firm to treat about 35 acres of the the lake to kill curled pond weed, and just one season of treatment led to conditions “beyond what I could have imagined,” Ross told the City Council. “It’s been flat-out amazing.”

For 20 years, Pablo Sobron sought a better way to learn exactly what was in the soil, rock or any other substance on Mars. Instead of sampling and laboratory analysis — the old way of soil testing — scientists began to use lasers and sensors to get high precision data quickly.