Swampscott to upgrade Humphrey Street water main

SWAMPSCOTT – Public Works Department officials say that water service will only be “minimally disrupted” for close to 200 homes while the Humphrey Street water-transmission pipe is upgraded during the next three months.”Residents will be on a temporary water main and will just have to be switched over to that main,” said Assistant Town Engineer Victoria Masone. “The main goal is to keep affected residents informed.”The project is part of a 10-year, $5.6 million effort to upgrade the town’s main water lines.Mains underneath Puritan Road and a section of Burrill Street were completely upgraded in 2005, Masone said, and the water main extending from the Lynn border to the railroad bridge on Essex Street was completed when the high school was constructed in 2007.This project will complete the upgrade of the transmission pipe running beneath Humphrey Street from the Lynn to Marblehead town lines and the pipe underneath Salem Street.Sixteen hundred feet of unlined 10-inch cast-iron pipe along Humphrey Street from Salem Street to the Marblehead town line and 3,700 feet of 12-inch pipe underneath Salem Street will be cleaned and then lined with concrete, said Masone.”The pipes are original to whenever the streets were built,” said Masone. “In places we have 100-year-old cast-iron pipes.”But over time, Masone said minerals in the water start to calcify and clog up the lines.The project is funded by a no-interest loan from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.To fund the repayments, the water rate increased by 95 cents, said Town Accountant Dave Castellarin. Castellarin and Town Treasurer Denise Dembkoski added that this should be the highest annual charge.Residents along Humphrey Street, Salem Street, Roy Street and Melvin Avenue will be impacted by the project, according to Masone.The town is holding a Neighborhood Meeting for all those affected on Tuesday, March 29 at 7 p.m. in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room at Town Hall. Representatives from Woodard & Curran engineers, which designed the project, and contractor N. Granese and Sons will be available to answer questions.