As an investigative journalist, my hope when filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request is usually that it will result in the production of information I’m reasonably certain exists in a certain place but isn’t public-facing and will answer a specific question.

But FOIA, particularly in Connecticut, is much more frustrating than that.

Sometimes agencies don’t have records you’re reasonably sure exist based on information from reliable sources. And sometimes you’re directed to a different agency that, by all appearances, will also not have the records you’re seeking.

Because FOIA is rarely a first step in searching for information, being told responsive records don’t exist or that you need to get in the back of the requests processing line with a new agency you believe won’t have the records usually means you’ve hit a dead end. There are no other resources to turn to and, while learning records that should exist don’t exist is an answer of sorts, your questions are ultimately not going to be satisfactorily answered.

That’s always frustrating because FOIA, especially in Connecticut, is a significant time and energy investment. It’s even more frustrating when there’s a story of real-world harm being done that you can’t get to the bottom of.

In November, I wrote about Jean Farricielli, a Hamden resident who fears that soil the state brought in as fill for a nearby remediation project is contaminating the well water she and her neighbors rely on.

Farricielli’s husband has been battling the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) for over two decades–and the agency is using her marital ties to her husband to claim a no-contact order in which she is not named to argue they do not have to comply with her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Even though the Freedom of Information Commission rejected DEEP’s rationale for denying Farricielli’s FOIA requests, court proceedings have stretched her quest for answers into 2025. In my investigation, I noted that Farricielli had turned to legislators as a possible source of information, asking them to file FOIA requests for the information she was seeking.

Because that response is ludicrous and because I ultimately wanted the same questions answered for my investigation, I also filed FOIA requests for the information she had been seeking. The one I was most interested in was for well water tests conducted at the properties Farricielli is concerned are contaminated.

Farricielli had told me that, while she and her husband were managing the now-mired-in-controversy Tire Pond site, she was responsible for completing and regularly submitting water quality requests to DEEP (then DEP) as part of the water discharge permit the couple had to manage the site.

Finding out whether her well water was contaminated seemed fairly straightforward: submit a FOIA request to DEEP to the locations Farricielli mentioned and see what the water quality reports say. Because Farricielli has tests from the time when she was required to submit them, my request was focused on after DEEP took the site over, spanning 2007 to the present day.

But because FOIA is so slow in Connecticut, I unfortunately did not receive a response to my request for the well water tests prior to the investigation’s publication.

Over two months after the request was filed, I finally heard back from DEEP, who told me no responsive records had been found.

It would seem to confirm another tidbit Farricielli had relayed to me. Frustrated by DEEP’s stonewalling, Farricielli had turned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. And while she said they were cooperative, she had been told they had no record of wells being at the two addresses Farricielli was concerned about, with the closest marked a couple of miles away.

Because Farricielli completed water tests, DEEP must be aware the wells exist. But they’re not currently monitoring them and haven’t been since at least January 2007. Were that not the case, they would have been able to produce documents.

They suggested the Department of Public Health (DPH) might have well water testing records.

DPH does deal with well water, but only private wells. Local health departments have authority over wells as they are drilled and constructed and DPH manages licensed labs that can test the quality of drinking water, but the agency points people to DEEP to deal with man-made pollution and remediation. And the Tire Pond is a remediation site.

After waiting over two months for answers, I’m now in a familiar place: waiting to hear from DPH about whether they conduct any testing for DEEP or any well water testing at remediation sites. I chose to reach out to DPH’s communications contact in the hopes this question could be answered without filing a FOIA request. Especially since I’m fairly confident I already know the outcome of that question, I did not want to file a FOIA request for that data and prolong the length of time I have to wait for information.

But communications requests are not always faster than FOIA requests. And, in the meantime, I’m left to ponder: where do I go if, as I expect, DPH says they don’t have those types of records?

DEEP has already told on itself: it’s not monitoring wells at a remediation site where contaminated soil has been brought in as fill. And that in itself is notable. But it isn’t really satisfactory. Because the question of whether the well water Farricielli and her neighbor use is contaminated isn’t answered.

For all I know, DPH could turn around and produce those documents out of nowhere, but, short of that miracle, there’s nowhere left for me to go to answer that question.

Which highlights another problem with FOIA: when enforced well, it’s still only as good as the record-keeping systems of state agencies.

I’ve had a number of investigations stymied by the staggering amount of records Connecticut just doesn’t bother to maintain, from keeping track of plea deals to statutorily required reports that simply don’t exist. It no longer surprises me when records don’t exist, but it’s still frustrating.

Because of the state’s lack of transparency, I have to turn to FOIA to find information. But when that information is simply not collected, FOIA doesn’t do anything other than delay finding out information is unknowable.

We’re working to root out corruption through investigative journalism, and transparency is key to that success. Have your own frustrations obtaining information through FOIA? Let me know by emailing katherine@insideinvestigator.org.  

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