Lynn Water and Sewer stimulus money wish list hits $70M

LYNN – Water and Sewer Director Daniel O’Neill wants to know if a long-standing 2009 federal deadline for building separate storm and sewer lines under city streets can be met with the help of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money.Water and Sewer included $55 million to complete the combined separation (CSO) project in a long list of local projects submitted to federal officials as part of the massive stimulus package. The city stimulus wish list also includes $15 million for other water and sewer projects including construction of an energy saving wind turbine.”These are projects that are shovel-ready and can be done in two years,” O’Neill said.Water and Sewer has planned and undertaken CSO work for almost 20 years with the goal of meeting the federal mandate to end discharges of partially treated sewage into Lynn Harbor.The commission has done some of the separation in phases over the past 15 years with work accelerating in 2003 and 2004 when USFilter completed sections of East Lynn, including the Lynnfield and Chatham streets areas.The project ground to a halt in February 2004 when the commissioners fired USFilter, citing contract violations. The rift left a substantial amount of separation work downtown and in West Lynn unfinished and prompted USFilter to sue the commission.The Water and Sewer Commission in September 2004 endorsed the latest plan to finish the work. Major components include a seven by 10 foot-wide pipe running underground next to the Lynnway and separate pipe line systems for handling storm water and for channeling sewage to the Commercial Street treatment complex.The design reduces the number of sewage discharges but does not end them, meaning Water and Sewer officials must renegotiate the mandate’s terms with federal environmental officials. Those talks have not reached a resolution and O’Neill is not sure when they will be completed.”We want to get a new consent decree based on the new plan but with the economy and the USFilter lawsuit, the feds and state officials are probably waiting to see what happens,” he said.