NAHANT — The yearlong deadline is approaching for the town to fund sewer infrastructure repairs, and a citizen vote to approve funding will take place during a special town meeting on Sept. 27 at 7 p.m.
Nahant’s sewer infrastructure has been an important matter for the town. The main pipe, which was built in the early 1980s and is used to pump wastewater from the Ward Road Pump Station to the Lynn Water & Sewer Treatment Plant, urgently needs to be repaired and replaced.
The town has spent more than $2 million on emergency repairs since 2017. At the end of 2020, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) required through an Administrative Consent Order (ACO) that the town replace a portion of the pipe that will be in critical condition by the end of 2021.
At the 2018 annual Town Meeting, the ACO authorized the town to borrow $4 million for sewer infrastructure purposes. In early 2019, the town used a portion of the borrowed funds to hire engineering service Wright-Pierce to assess and review options for repair and replacement.
During rain, the volume of water in the sewer system puts a strain on its infrastructure and makes treating the town’s wastewater more costly.
By spring of 2020, Wright-Pierce completed its assessment on the main pipe and found that the portion under the Nahant Causeway had lost about 25 percent of its wall thickness. The section of the pipe beneath the Lynnway had lost 75 percent of its wall thickness, giving the Lynnway higher priority for repairs.
The town took a vote on Sept. 26, 2020 to borrow $4.6 million from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF). Two days later, another break occurred in the main pipe, which resulted in the MassDEP requiring an ACO and coming together with Nahant to come up with a reasonable, but expedited, schedule for repairs.
Nahant has a total budget of $7 million (a $2.3 million balance from the 2018 borrowing and $4.6 million which was authorized through CWSRF). The lowest bidder for the construction contract quoted $8.8 million; the unexpected extra costs were due, according to the contractor, to economic factors that did not exist last fall.
Nahant now faces a new problem of needing additional funds. The CWSRF was able to raise its initial funding from $4.6 million to $7.6 million, and the Sept. 27 vote will approve this $3 million increase.
The meeting will be held indoors at Town Hall and will follow COVID-19 guidelines. The town has installed air purifiers and spaced the seats out and will keep fans circulating, open doors and windows, and require masks.
“This (sewer infrastructure) article is extremely important to us; we need 75 people to show up and vote,” said Town Administrator Antonio Barletta.
While the town requires at least 75 people to appear in person, Barletta stressed that they want to err on the side of COVID compliance by avoiding a large crowd. Residents should not attend in person if they are feeling sick, and the meeting will be streamed so that residents may tune in at home.
Nahant will also be providing a free COVID testing clinic to residents on Saturday, Sept. 25. Testing is suggested, but not required, to those seeking to attend in person. Barletta said that test results will be in by the time of the meeting.
“The last thing we want to be doing is bringing people together to create large groups indoors,” Barletta said. “But we have no other choice, because this sewer project is so important (and) we’re under a deadline.”
