The following is a message sent from the Waterbury Bureau of Water, to the Mayor's Office, earlier today, September 1st, in the wake of power outages following Tropical Storm Irene.

   Apparently the CT TV news is reporting that there are a number of water systems in the state that must boil their water first before using. We have received a number of calls on this within the last 1/2 hour.

   Developer Norman Drubner has withdrawn his offer to sell 133 acres of woodland to the City of Waterbury as open space. The property, which abuts the Western Hills Golf Course, is the largest undeveloped tract of land in Waterbury. Despite an outpouring of support from neighborhood groups throughout Waterbury, and an overflowing crowd at the last Board of Aldermen meeting speaking in favor of open space, the aldermen voted to send the issue to a non-binding referendum.

Nearly 700,000 Connecticut Light & Power customers lost service during tropical storm Irene Sunday. Two and a half days after the storm cleared there are still hundreds of thousands of residents in Connecticut without power. The utility company has set the goal of having power restored throughout the state by the end of the day Sunday. Photo by John Murray

Gary Briane Tuttle

 ( As the Observer was going to press in August we received a remarkable e-mail from Gary Tuttle asking for our help. Unable to fulfill his request, we decided to do the next best thing and directly share Gary’s e-mail with Observer readers. Gary’s love of Waterbury, and of life itself, are awe-inspiring. Take a moment to read about Gary and see if you’d like to help. We think you will.)

   The Selection Committee of the Waterbury Independent Party is pleased to announce that Cicero B. Booker Jr., who is currently serving his fourth term as an Alderman and elected Minority Leader of the Board of Aldermen, will seek the party’s endorsement on Saturday, August 27TH for reelection this November 8th.

Senator Joan Hartley speaking at the opening of the new water sculpture at UConn Waterbury in June.

  State Senator Joan V. Hartley (D-Waterbury), vice-chair of the legislature’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee, is set to receive an award this weekend for her steadfast advocacy of heightened breast cancer awareness and mandatory insurance coverage for comprehensive breast cancer screenings.

Story and Photographs By John Murray

   The Waterbury Observer has confirmed with five sources that Saint Mary's Hospital and Waterbury Hospital are planning to sign a letter of agreement to merge, and if they get state approval, the new entity will build a new hospital in the city, possibly on Freight Street. Sources for this story included board members from both hospitals, political insiders, and a prominent local businessman, all who requested their names not be published before the hospitals make the announcement official.

Waterbury resident Jim Russell helps extract an old shopping cart from the Naugatuck River Sunday morning during a joint clean-up between We Are Change and the Naugatuck River Revival Group. Photographs by John Murray

   (Editor's note - Kevin Zak is the founder of the Naugatuck River Revival Group and has been instrumental in generating awareness of the unique ecosystem that flows directly through Waterbury)

Column By Kevin Zak, Photographs By John Murray

   A Red Shouldered Hawk was trapped in the bucket of a cherry picker with water up to its chest. The clock was ticking. How long this raptor was in his watery tomb, or how he got there, was anyone’s guess. The hawk was not going to live through the night. Heavy thunder storms overtook Wolcott the previous week and somehow, bizarrely, this raptor had trapped itself in a narrow bucket and couldn’t spread his broad wings. The sides of the bucket were too steep and there was nothing for him to dig his sharp and powerful talons into so he could climb out. With each day the hawk grew weary and with each new down pour the water got deeper. Without food for days his condition was like a Chinese finger trap - the more he struggled the weaker he became. This magnificent creature was injured, weakened, and about to drown.