Tewksbury sees 4 water main breaks in 5 days as Select Board seeks to address aging pipes

TEWKSBURY — The Select Board met for a working session Oct. 22 to talk about long-term plans to address the town’s aging water pipes, and soon after the issue was highlighted further when the town faced four water main breaks in less than a week.

Water main breaks were reported on James Street Oct. 30, Veranda Avenue on Nov. 2, Astle Street on Nov. 3 and Pleasant Street on Nov. 4. Town Manager Richard Montuori said in a phone call Monday afternoon the first three breaks had already been fixed, with the Pleasant Street break expected to be fixed in short order as well.

Montuori said there is nothing extraordinary about four water main breaks in a relatively short period of time, with age being the likely culprit rather than any other external factors.

“These are the normal water main breaks we see throughout the year,” said Montuori.

Tewksbury’s water pipes are aging, an issue the Select Board had a working session to discuss recently at the lead of board member James Mackey.

Mackey said in a Monday phone call about half of Tewksbury’s roughly 160 miles of pipes are past their estimated end of life, and Tewksbury has been averaging about 30 breaks per year in recent years.

“I have always been fiscally conservative, and I think there are very few things we should be throwing money at to solve our problems, but this is a unique situation,” said Mackey.

Mackey has taken the lead on the issue for the board for the last three years, working with Montuori and the Department of Public Works, which he joked has given him “a master’s in water.” Some older New England water infrastructure is made up of asbestos cement, which Mackey said is a formerly common water conduit that sags over time. When such pipes are depressurized and then pressurized again, Mackey said this causes micro-cracks to form, compromising the pipe’s integrity.

The town has a five-year capital plan, as does the Department of Public Works, but Mackey proposed a 10-year plan to address the aging pipes with a higher rate of replacement, which he called “the most realistic timeline we can achieve it in.”

“Shorter than that, and we run into issues with shutting down too many roads at once. Any longer and more of it would age and have to be added to the plan,” said Mackey.

During the Oct. 22 meeting, Mackey roughly estimated that plan would be about $200 million over the course of that 10 years.

Mackey also sought to clear up what he said was misinformation surrounding the water main breaks.

“There has been misinformation going around about water main breaks having to do with overdevelopment in town. That is unrelated,” said Mackey. “This is because of the aging water infrastructure.”

None of Mackey’s colleagues on the board disagreed with the idea that Tewksbury needs to address its water infrastructure, and all of them were supportive of at least coming up with a longer-term plan during the recent working session. Some of them though had concerns over the potential costs of replacing pipes faster than the town’s current rate of one to three miles per year.

“To put it in 10 years, the only way we are going to do that is if we raised taxes,” said board member Mark Kratman during the Oct. 22 working session. “I don’t know if there is an appetite to be able to do that at this time.”

Board member Eric Ryder called the potential $20 million annual cost “a big ask.”

“I would love a plan, a plan would be great, but a 30% water increase, or even a 20% water increase and a 7% tax increase, or an override, I just can’t support that right now,” said Ryder, also expressing concerns over the amount of extra staff a faster plan would require.

Ryder said it would not be economically in the cards for the town right now, but he praised Mackey’s plan and said it would be worth looking at in future years under different economic circumstances.

Select Board Chair Patrick Holland suggested that the town should continue to seek grant funding or low-interest loans from the state and federal government to avoid the burden on the ratepayers or taxpayers. Getting that funding, Mackey said to Holland in response, will be easier with an actual marketable plan in place like what he put together.

“I totally agree with having something on the shelf ready to go,” said Holland.