Tag: Bodies of water

HAVERHILL — The city will borrow $12.4 million for a project aimed at reducing the amount of combined sewer overflows reaching the Merrimack River.

The City Council this week unanimously approved borrowing $12.4 million for a project intended to reduce CSOs pouring into the Little River and into the Merrimack River while also improving the water distribution system in the Locke Street area.

In his request for the funding, DPW Director Robert Ward told the council the amount of the loan order increased by about $2 million since the original request passed about a year ago.

He said the project was deferred a year due to permitting issues hit by cost increases.

He said a number of things, including the need for additional quantities of items such as 18-inch diameter pipes, the creation of additional stormwater outfalls not in the original cost estimates, the need to rehabilitate some stormwater drain pipes, additional roadway restoration costs and other items.

The council was provided with documents explaining the project, which will play out in three phases over the next 10 years.

In his letter to the council, Ward noted that in 2016 the city entered into a consent decree with the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) requiring the city to reduce CSOs.

Ward said that before the 1960s, sewage and stormwater were commonly collected in the same pipe. These combined sewers were designed and built to overflow into nearby waterways to prevent excessive flooding during rain storms from backing up into basements, streets, parking lots and other areas.

Ward said the Locke Street area is the city’s biggest contributor to CSO overflows into the Merrimack River.

This Locke Street Phase 1 combined sewer overflow (CSO) separation and water system improvements project will involve separating the combined sewer system in that area into separate wastewater and stormwater systems, thereby reducing excessive stormwater entering the sewer system during rain events.

Ward noted that Phase 1 separates about 3,500 feet of combined sewers in the Locke Street area by installing new stormwater pipes, disconnecting catch basins from them, and connecting them to the separate stormwater lines. The project also involves upsizing existing storm drains, installing new outfalls to increase capacity of the existing storm drain system, and rehabilitating existing sewers and manholes.

In conjunction with the sewer and drain work, old, undersized water mains in the Phase 1 area will be replaced and upsized. Ward said it makes sense to upgrade water lines in that area rather than return at a future date and having to dig up the streets again.

The average household’s sewer rate impact from this project will be less than $21 annually, Ward stated in his letter. The water rate impact will add about $8 to the annual bill for an average size household, he said.

The loan order funds Phase 1 of three phases over the next 10 years or so. Phases 2 and 3 will be in other areas, including Primrose, Main Street and Lawrence Street, which also discharge into Little River and to the CSO outlet behind the downtown bus station.

“We’re paying for the sins of the past,” Ward said.