LWSC separation project to begin anew

LYNN – The Water and Sewer Commission is restarting its storm water and sewage separation project four years after firing the contractor and suspending work.Grove Construction of Bellingham will work through November on an initial project phase involving construction on Groveland Street, Chestnut Street at Bowler Street and Sanderson Avenue.Crews will work Monday through Friday and spend about a month working on each street. Streets where construction is scheduled will be partially or completely closed during construction with traffic detours posted and police on hand to direct drivers.Residents will have access to their streets and construction representatives will hand deliver work schedule notices to them before work begins.The project is part of the commission’s effort to build separate storm water and sewage pipe networks beneath Lynn streets.By separating rain runoff and snow melt from sewage, Water and Sewer hopes to reduce the amount of partially treated sewage discharged from the Commercial Street sewerage complex into the ocean during periods of heavy rain.Grove is being paid $1.2 million to complete work separating East Lynn storm drain lines and sewer lines. The contractor will also construct structures called regulators that control storm water drainage. The Sanderson Avenue regulator must be rebuilt in order to separate flow in two major East Lynn drain lines.The project’s goal is to remove storm water flow from 272 catch basins that currently discharge into Lynn’s sanitary sewer system.The commission is under a 2009 mandate to eliminate the discharges but it has asked state and federal officials to ease the mandate by allowing three discharges annually.After firing contractor USFilter in February, 2004 over a contract dispute, the commission reviewed plans to complete the storm sewer project by spending $65 million to separate sewer and storm drain lines in part of East Lynn and West Lynn.State and federal officials have asked Water and Sewer to assess how much water rates will increase in order to pay for the separation project and determine if local ratepayers can afford the estimated increase.Water and Sewer initially estimated the Sanderson, Groveland and Bowler area work would cost $1.7 million. Grove’s low bid saves local ratepayers over $500,000 in construction costs.