Officials from the City of Lynn, Town of Swampscott and entities such as Kleinfelder and Apex Companies gathered for a public discussion on the King’s Beach ultraviolet pilot program and potential next steps in the endeavor for cleaner beaches.
Mayor Jared C. Nicholson reiterated the importance of the joint mission to clean up the beach.
“This is a really important issue to our respected communities. It’s been a problem for decades, and a really unacceptable status quo in our ability to enjoy the beach as we should and have a level of public health that we deserve… While that frustration has built over decades, I think we’re closer to a solution than we’ve ever been,” Nicholson said.
He continued, “It’s an incredibly difficult, complex issue for a lot of different reasons. I’m very grateful for all the folks who helped work on it… Everyone’s efforts are appreciated and helpful.”
Neil Johnson, superintendent of Lynn Water & Sewer, gave an overview of the Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination (IDDE) efforts in the nearby water.
“The job is to find any illicit connections and to eliminate them, to document it, and report to the public… Lynn Water & Sewer hired Apex Engineering to implement the IDDE program, and they’re here to give us a report on those findings,” Johnson said.
Eric Kelley, principal at Apex Companies, said they’ve been working with the Lynn Water & Sewer Commission for more than two years.
“When we first got started, we were looking at a comprehensive, holistic view of the watershed to try and identify potential sources of illicit discharges… Roughly speaking, there’s about 27 miles of drainage, which makes up about 13% of the city’s watershed.”
Kelley explained that the company started off sampling using traditional methods, looking for things like bacteria and ammonia. It was also noted that 17.5 miles of drainage pipe have been cleaned and inspected to date, with six illicit connections removed since 2022.
Gino Cresta, Department of Public Works director and former acting town administrator, gave an overview of Swampscott’s side to update the audience.
“Back in 2015, we were hit with a consent decree from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about the discharge… We thought the issue was old sewer pipes and old drain pipes, and sewer and waste water was extracting out of the sewer pipes and getting into the drainage system,” Cresta said.
Cresta continued, saying that the plan was to start relining the sewer pipes to help keep the waste water out of the drainage system.
John Rahill, project manager for Kleinfelder, explained that Phase 2A of the IDDE Program for sewer improvements is slated to complete construction in March 2026, a year after it started. The work entails 4,500 linear feet of sewer rehabilitation, 903 linear feet of sewer pipe replacement, 77 sewer lateral rehabilitations, and 43 manholes rehabilitated. The area included for the project encompasses Essex Street, Essex Avenue, Columbia Street, Duncan Terrace, Erie Street, Pine Street, Curry Circle, and Humphrey Street.
Kleinfelder Project Manager Courtney Eaton explained some of the key project objectives as a part of the UV Pilot Program. She noted that the goals were to evaluate the UV disinfection performance under dry and wet weather conditions; gain operational experience with UV technology; and improve public access to King’s Beach during the trial period.
Liz Smith noted that there were five testing locations, where volunteers worked each day to sample the water that was both coming in the UV tanks and leaving them after treatment. She said the volunteers were “diligent, reliable, and deeply committed,” and that “one of the best things was working with these passionate young people.”
The pilot program ran a total of 59 days, spanning from June 20 to Aug. 17. Six out of the 59 days were fully offline where operational issues were noted, and 14 of the 59 days the UV system was partially offline. There 53 of the 59 days where the system was fully or partially operational.
There were also 41 dry weather days and 12 wet weather days, according to the presentation.
It was determined that the UV system can effectively treat dry weather flows from the nearby culverts, though the effectiveness is reduced during wet weather, particularly in the first 24 hours due to increased turbidity of the water.
The UV system also helped reduce the number of days King’s Beach was closed for community members.
“Seaweed was definitely something we struggled with… Tide itself can be an issue for managing the seaweed. We had a lot of debris and trash, and these are elements we’d want to consider if we move into the next steps,” Eaton said.
Nicholson echoed the sentiment of gratitude toward those who contributed to the initiative.
“It was a great deal of effort for it to be possible, including a lot of volunteer work with Liz (Smith) and her team… It was a true team effort, and I also recognized that it was an unwelcome presence to some of our neighbors, and I wanted to acknowledge that as well,” he said.
Nicholson continued, saying that the work with IDDE as a main strategy will continue forward and that “we also got some great information this summer about complementary solutions that we’ve been evaluating with the UV pilot.”
He added that the parties involved need to know more from an engineering perspective of what exactly the kind of UV solution that may work there permanently would entail.
Swampscott Town Administrator Nick Connors highlighted that “this is great information and great data that we got.”
“I also want to make sure we have Kleinfelder and Gino (Cresta) come before the Swampscott Select Board as well to make sure that everyone is on the same page with our next steps moving forward,” Connors said.
Cresta reiterated Nicholson’s perspective on collaboration, noting that the Town’s next steps are similar and will “continue the work with IDDE and our partners to ensure that both communities have a clean beach.”
