Public hearing set for proposed sewer-separation project

LYNN – Residents will get a chance to weigh in Dec. 15 on a $106 million sewer-separation plan that supporters say will alleviate West Lynn street flooding but opponents claim will overburden ratepayers? wallets.The 6:30 p.m. hearing in the City Council Chamber at City Hall is one of several meetings the Lynn Water and Sewer Commission will hold before voting on the plan, said commissioner and Ward 6 Councilor Peter Capano, who supports the project and said West Lynn residents need the relief from street flooding he thinks the project can provide.?People have sewage in their basements; this could alleviate that,” Capano said.But Ward 1 Councilor Wayne Lozzi, the commission?s chairman, said nearly $100 million spent on combined sewer overflow (CSO) work by the commission since the early 1990s succeeded in giving the commission a 90-percent success rate in keeping partially treated sewage from flowing out of the Commercial Street waste treatment facility and into the ocean.He said the project is too big a burden on ratepayers.?We are talking about the possibility of spending upwards of $120 million and only achieving small results,” Lozzi said.The plan calls for digging up streets and installing beneath them 32,000 square feet of storm drain pipes, in addition to removing 237 catch basins that allow rainwater and melting snow to flow into sewer lines.The work would also involve installing and improving sewerage structures with names such as sluice gates, flow controls and outfalls.?Something has to be done, but I don?t think $106 million is the answer,” said Commission Executive Director Daniel O?Neill.From Lozzi?s viewpoint, the project is just too much: Estimates from consultants figure that project costs could require a 36-percent rate increase in the first year of construction if the project was done over 10 years, or a 26-percent increase in the first year if a 20-year plan is adopted.Overall rate increases over the breadth of 10-year plan could approach 60 percent. The average ratepayer, said O?Neill, currently pays about $700 a year and rates since 2010 have risen less than 10 percent.Capano, appointed by his councilors to the commission this year, said money spent now on sewer separation and flood relief will be less than the costs the city will face in the future if there is a West Lynn sewage or flood-related emergency.?I?ve lived there all my life – I don?t remember it flooding as often as it has recently,” Capano said.He thinks the cost to ratepayers could be $50 a year, spread over 20 years, but said he thinks the commission could obtain state and federal tax dollars to help offset the project?s costs.?If you ask most people, they would pay more rather than pay a lot more if it becomes an emergency,” Capano said.Moody?s Investors Service, the city?s bond rating firm, raised a warning flag in a 2013 report about commission rates, cautioning average residential sewer bills “…are approaching levels we consider unaffordable.”The commission?s high bond rating favorably affects its ability to borrow money for major projects; but Moody?s, in its November 2013 letter, warned that “…the pace and magnitude of the capital requirements of the CSO abatement program” could hurt future ratings.O?Neill estimated the commission has about $120 million in outstanding debt, and that 34 cents from every dollar collected from ratepayers goes toward paying off the interest on the debt.Separating storm water and waste water as it flows from building drains and down toilets on its way to the ocean is a challenge the commission has alternately met and postponed for four decades.Prior to 1982 and the construction of the primary and secondary treatment complex off the Lynnway, sewage flowed into ocean.The commission spent $37 million to comply with a 1994 consent decree signed with federal officials aimed at eliminating ocean discharges. O?Neill said another $35 million was spent between 2000 and 2004 before contractual disputes led to sep