Water issue has Lynners boiling

LYNN – They said they are fed up with sewage flooding their basements, but 60 residents – many of them from West Lynn – wrestled during a Monday night City Hall hearing over costs associated with ending street and cellar flooding during heavy rains.”You’re talking about $106 million for one of the poorest city’s on the North Shore,” said East Lynn resident Thomas Mason.That is the price tag commission consultant Anthony Omobono cited for a proposal to reduce rainwater overflows into the ocean carrying sewage. A side benefit is flood relief, but to what degree, residents wanted to know.”If you see sewage coming into your home and you have children, how long do you have to live with this? asked Cindy Rice.West Neptune Street resident Oscar Pacheco said he can’t get out of his home during heavy flooding.”Is there something that can be done?” he asked commission officials.Water and Sewer Commissioners scheduled Monday’s hearing and plan to continue to discuss separation and flood relief projects.Jean Rogers said she may move off River Street after living on the flood-prone street since 1988.”It’s really scary living in their neighborhood,” she said, but she expressed reservations about the commission’s proposal.”Is this plan going to work now but not for 20 years because it’s going to be out of date?” Rogers asked.Pacheco, Rice and other residents held off endorsing or criticizing the separation plan, focusing instead on asking commission officials why flooding problems seem to have worsened in West Lynn without being solved by the city.Commission chairman and Councilor Wayne Lozzi said the commission can clear sewer line blockages in the short term, but Omobono said work on the $106 million project would not begin in earnest until 2017.Omobono said not doing separation work would result in an average bill for ratepayers from 2013 to 2035 of $1,166. Doing the work over a 10-year time frame would result, he said, in an average $1,372 from 2015 to 2035.There is an alternative plan to spend $6 million to significantly reduce flooding, according to Lynn Water & Sewer Commission Executive Director Daniel O’Neill.”You could get an instantaneous bang for your buck,” O’Neill said.Camden Street resident Dorothy Mezakowski dubbed her neighborhood “the chopped liver district” in reference to decades of somewhat-ignored proposals to end flooding in the area. O’Neill said relatively low-lying West Lynn streets and high tides combine to create flooding during rainstorms.Mezakowski said clogged pipes might be part of the flooding problem. “The city’s not doing its maintenance,” she said.Garelick plant manager Aubrey Leak called flooding a problem for the Lynnway business and said the $6 million approach to flood relief “makes sense from a business point of view to do.” He said a larger-scale proposal could boost the firm’s bill by $250,000 annually.”That makes it hard to do business,” he said.But Omobono, under questioning by Ward 6 Councilor and LWSC board member Peter Capano, said flooding relief afforded by the $6 million plan would not necessarily meet with state and federal approval relevant to sewer-separation.”It’s a good first step,” Omobono said, but he noted even one overflow means the Water & Sewer is not in compliance with a “zero overflow” standard.He also said Lynnway work involved in the $106 million project could be “achieved without tying up the Lynnway” by tunneling under the road.Enes Cangalovic said he is tired of living with dirty streets smelling of sewage following storms and said heavy rains keep him from getting his children to school. Mason asked if the $106 million proposal will eliminate the overflow problem.”I can’t say over time; it needs to be assessed,” Omobono answered.