LYNN — The expression “what is old becomes new again” might be the best way to describe a proposal to complete a 40-year-old water main project and measure its results against the impact and cost of a new plan for ending West Lynn flooding.Three drainage pipe systems laid under city streets in the 1970s could reduce West Lynn flooding and ease sewage overflows into the ocean, said Water and Sewer Commission Executive Director Daniel O’Neill, by installing a new pipe and sending water from the systems emptying into Lynn Harbor near Blossom Street extension.The price tag for the new pipe is about $5 to $6 million, said O’Neill, compared to $106 million for a plan, to be discussed at a City Hall hearing next Monday at 6:30 p.m., intended to reduce both flooding and partially treated sewage that is discharged into the ocean.“It’s a step to evaluating the impact and see if we have reduced overflows,” O’Neill said.O’Neill does not like the more expensive plan, claiming the project’s sheer size “will close the Lynnway for months.” One of the project’s supporters, City Councilor and commissioner Peter Capano, and its toughest critic, commission chairman and Councilor Wayne Lozzi, sat in a commission office in 2011 when O’Neill talked about dusting off the 1970s pipework plan and updating it.“They came up with a design: It made sense to me at the time,” Lozzi said.The plan’s price tag appealed to Lozzi: He thinks the $106-million plan to separate storm water from sewage in West Lynn will only slightly reduce flooding and ocean discharges while saddling ratepayers with double-digit rate increases.But Capano said a large-scale answer to flooding and federal requirements for ending discharges is an approach the commission must take now, and not later, when the cost of compliance could even be more expensive.He also said the $106-million project and its costs can be spread over 20 years with the initial $42 million plan spaced over 10 years.“This takes care of compliance issues and flooding,” he said.Capano said if O’Neill has a less expensive plan for addressing what said is worsening West Lynn flooding, he wants to hear it.Herman Nunez isn’t sure which plan he favors, but the Oakville Street resident is tired of street flooding leaving the sidewalk in front of his home covered in slimy mud and ruining his garden wall.“I’d like it fixed,” he said. “It’s no good.”His wife, Nohemy, said the couple’s most recent Water and Sewer bill totaled $214, but flooding is already costing the Nunezes money. Wells Fargo, the firm that holds the Nunezes’ mortgage, told the two they are in a flood zone and need to put money in escrow annually for insurance.“They want us to pay $537 a year,” Herman Nunez said.O’Neill said disconnecting the 40-year-old Pleasant, Blossom and Commercial Street drain lines from the two main sewer trunk lines running beneath city streets and connecting them to a new pipe draining rainwater into the harbor makes sense.“The idea is, do some work and then evaluate it. Why spend $42 million and then evaluate rather than spending $6 million and evaluating?” he asked.