Saugus pumping station passes test

SAUGUS – Money bonded to refurbish the Lincoln Avenue pump station turned out to be a good investment.Four inches of rain Thursday sent more than 17 million gallons of wastewater swishing through the town’s sewer system and the pump station handled it all without any overflow dribbling into the Saugus River.Town Manager Andrew Bisignani called the rainstorm a true test for the newly rebuilt station and said it passed with flying colors.Department of Public Works Superintendent Joseph Attubato said while that might not mean much to the average person, it was very exciting news to him.”In all the years I’ve been here, this is the first time we didn’t have to discharge into the river,” he said.The Department of Environmental Protection came down hard on the town several years ago for pumping overflow from the Lincoln Avenue sewer station into the Saugus River. Attubato admitted at the time that the practice had been going on for years with the DEP’s knowledge, but that it only happened when the system became overwhelmed.After the consent order came down, the town invested in the station by installing one new pump and refurbishing the two backup pumps.Attubato said on average the system handles about 4 million gallons of waste per day, but would become overwhelmed during heavy rains when it neared the 10 million gallon limit. While Thursday’s storm sent 17.5 million gallons of wastewater coursing through the system Attubato said the pump station never missed a beat.He did admit that there was one surcharge problem with a manhole down the street, but the incident was less serious that previous surcharges. Attubato said overwhelmed pipes backed up and overflowed into a manhole on Hamilton Street, but it only lasted about six hours.”I reported it to DEP and we took the necessary precautions,” he said. “Six hours is pretty good, normally that would have surcharged for a couple of days.”Attubato said there is still a long way to go in fixing the town’s entire sewer system, which is a project that has been ongoing for two years and is expected to take another eight.”I hope to eventually see six or seven million gallons during rainstorms like that,” he said referring to Thursday’s storm. “We shouldn’t see 16 or 17 million gallons. There shouldn’t be that much wastewater getting into the system after a heavy rain.”