Ambrosino: No quick fix for Sherman Street sewage woes

REVERE – A new pump has been ordered to replace one that failed during an Aug. 8 rainstorm and deluged Sherman Street basements with sewage.But Mayor Thomas Ambrosino warned two-dozen homeowners Monday that permanent Sherman Street drainage improvements could take years to plan and pay for.The city’s first priority, Ambrosino said, is to help residents calculate damage from what he called “a catastrophic event.””This was absolutely awful,” Sherman resident Roberta Ministeri told City Councilors and Ambrosino Monday, “I had four inches of raw sewage covering my basement. That was my daughter’s home.”Public Works Superintendent Donald Goodwin said Sherman is served by a pump system that can handle sewage, but not heavy flooding.”There’s absolutely no drainage,” Goodwin said.The pump failure on the street during Aug. 8’s heavy rain underscores the need for long-term repairs on the order of ones made on Arcadia and Ellerton streets located in a low-lying neighborhood off North Shore Road.Ambrosino said the Arcadia-Ellerton improvements took nearly 10 years to plan.Councilors are also seeking city officials’ recommendations for improving drainage on Asti and Tuscano avenues and Eastern and Tapley avenues and Gore Road.Drainage improvements done in connection with construction of the new Rumney Marsh Academy are designed to reduce or eliminate flooding on these streets.The city was saddled with $900,000 in repair costs to a culvert near the American Legion Highway site of the new school. Workers discovered the collapse in March 2007 near the commuter rail tracks.The collapse posed major problems for the city because the 24-inch wide line carried sewage from the eastern side of Revere, including Point of Pines, to pipe connections along Legion Highway.A company specializing in underground drain work laid temporary drain lines and installed pumps while engineers sketched out a plan for rebuilding the culvert.Contractors think the culvert was built on top of wood timbers and other debris and gradually sunk under its own weight into the unstable material.