LWSC wins water fight

LYNN – A legal decision in favor of the Water and Sewer Commission blocks the state’s ability to limit how much water the commission draws from the Ipswich and Saugus rivers.Commission Director Daniel O’Neill said the December ruling preserves Water and Sewer’s ability to draw more than 11 million gallons a day during peak water use months from the two rivers. State environmental officials, citing water management needs, sought to limit water volume drawn from the rivers by Water and Sewer by as much as three million gallons a day.”We had to fight this or we would have potentially limited our ability to provide ratepayers with water,” said O’Neill.The December legal ruling favoring the commission had its origins in a 2003 state environmental protection ruling relative to the commission’s permit authorizing Water and Sewer to draw water from the Saugus and Ipswich.Commission officials raised concerns about the ruling’s restrictions and appealed it, setting the stage for administrative and, beginning last January, court reviews of the state’s actions. O’Neill said the legal decision declared state officials have “no authority to condition” commission water withdrawals.O’Neill said maximum volumes drawn by Water and Sewer total 11.5 million gallons a day with two-thirds of that volume taken from the Saugus River.Commissioners reviewed the decision Monday and also approved Kelly Jeep’s request to tie into Water and Sewer’s sewerage network. The firm will pay the commission $34,007 for the tie-in and pay the sewer rate plus a 10 percent premium.O’Neill said the tie-in arrangement parallels the nearly $1 million in tie-in fees paid to the commission by developers of the Lynnfield Commons and Heritage Woods projects.After stopping work nearly five years ago on a massive project to create separate storm and sewage pipe systems, the commission is waiting for state environmental officials to sign off on its plan to finish building separate storm and sewer drainage networks under local streets.Creating a separate storm and sewage pipe network is crucial to helping the commission meet this year’s federal deadline for reducing sewage discharges into the ocean.A single system carrying sewage and storm water during heavy rains has the potential of overwhelming the treatment capability of the Commercial Street plant so that partially treated sewage ends up in the ocean.The project includes work partially completed by USFilter before the commission fired the firm in February 2004 for failing to guarantee a performance bond underwriting the firm’s work. Two months earlier, state environmental officials rejected the firm’s proposals for completing storm and sewer separation work in East Lynn.A key issue in the federal approval review is the commission’s request for permission to back off its commitment to eliminate ocean discharges. Under the $65 million plan for completing the separation work, discharges would be allowed three times a year.The commission must weigh its current debt load and the cost to the ratepayers before it completes the storm sewer work. The commission has spent $84 million since 1995 creating separate storm water and sewer pipe networks.That expense represents a major portion of the commission’s current debt with 37 cents of every dollar in revenue received by the commission going toward reducing debt.