Sewer
and water improvements could tax city
resources
By Richard Gaines , Staff
writer
Gloucester Daily Times
—
On orders from the state, Mayor John Bell
has begun the process of putting $13 million into the antiquated George P. Riley
Jr. sewerage treatment plant.
The mandated improvements would require the
city to borrow $10 million and use $3 million from a previous bond sale. The new
spending on the plant would be on top of $5.6 million recently invested to quell
odors, replace components and neutralize the heavy dosage of chlorine used to
kill toxins in the wastewater.
The order comes with the city in the midst
of a mandated $30 million underground plumbing modernization to separate the
combined storm drain and sewer system that overflows and illegally discharges
untreated waste into the harbor when its capacity is overwhelmed, such as in a
heavy rainstorm.
In addition, the city has been advised of the need to
spend between $46 million and $58 million on its water supply system of
reservoirs, dams, pumping stations and treatment plants over the next five
years, bringing committed and proposed spending on infrastructure to more than
$100 million.
A draft "water needs assessment" by the engineering
consulting firm CDM was delivered to the city last May 30. A copy of the
executive summary was released to the Times yesterday.
Public Works
Director Joseph Parisi last June told the Capital Improvement Advisory Board
that the city could effectively use twice that amount to modernize and expand
its water and sewer systems.
Most borrowing would be supported by water
and sewer rates, already thought to be among the highest in the nation. The
sewer rate this year was set at $7.39 per 1,000 gallons, a 29 percent increase;
the water rate was $7.02, a 19 percent increase.
The full impact of
borrowing for the combined sewer overflow work has yet to be felt.
The
administrative order for the sewer treatment plant improvements was signed by
the mayor 10 weeks ago. It included $33,000 in fines.
The order was
written by state Department of Environmental Protection, which was reacting to a
March 2006 plant malfunction that discharged 20,000 gallons of untreated sewage
in the vicinity of a storm drain connected to the Annisquam
River.
Chief City Engineer David
Knowlton requested the $10 million loan authorization last Wednesday in a memo
to Steven Magoon, the mayor's chief of staff.
Magoon told the Times Bell would
ask the City Council to authorize the borrowing.
"We'll send it forward,"
said Magoon.
Knowlton's memo also announced a tour of the plant today
for councilors followed by a workshop and briefing on the balky, 23-year-old
facility, which is one of only two left in New England that does not put sewage
through advanced biological (or secondary) treatment before discharge into the
Atlantic Ocean.
The administrative order was signed while federal and
state environmental agencies are reviewing the city's application for a
continuing exemption from secondary treatment, which would require an enormous
capital outlay, perhaps $20 million, to expand the facility across
Essex Avenue from
the river.
The improvements "are necessary to enhance plant performance,"
Knowlton wrote to Magoon. They would be needed, he said, "even if the plant gets
upgraded to secondary treatment."
The engineering consulting firm, Brown
and Caldwell, which advises the city on its sewer system, was in the midst of a
review of needs at the sewer treatment plant at the time the state intervened to
require the improvements.
The Brown and Caldwell study was commissioned
in the aftermath of a previous state order in March 2006 for upgrades in
staffing and operation that followed a more serious malfunction.
In May
2005, the electrical system collapsed, and with the plant unable to pump treated
sewage through the 9,000-foot ocean outfall, emergency pumps were used to divert
about 600,000 gallons into the Annisquam.
Fearing contamination, the
state ordered the clam flats closed, but the emergency communications system
failed, so clammers went to work only to have their harvest
confiscated.
The Department of Environmental Protection found the city
had not met the deadlines for improvements ordered after the first malfunction.
"Required dates didn't happen," Knowlton said in an interview. "A lot of things
slipped."
The second order encompassed the requirements of the first, and
added demands that the plant be retrofitted top to bottom with better record
keeping.
The city is required to respond by May 1.
Brown and
Caldwell advised the city to take on the plant improvements at once "because the
systems and facilities have reached or exceeded their useful
lives."
"A phased approach," the company wrote, was akin
to asking for more trouble at the plant and risking violations of the existing
permit and waiver from secondary treatment and harming the city's chances of
having both renewed.
Earlier this month, EPA issued its final order to
the city of Portsmouth, N.H., to upgrade to secondary
treatment. The order leaves Gloucester's as the only major plant in New England
still authorized to put its sewage through only primary (or chemical)
treatment.
Brown and Caldwell acknowledged the problems financing the
plant upgrades which include tanks, pipes, processors, electrical and separation
systems. "There may not be room within the city's existing municipal bond cap to
finance all of the proposed improvements," it wrote.
The water and sewer
bill
* New request - $13 million for plant upgrades
* Previously
invested - $5.6 million mostly for odor control
* Pipes and mains - $30
million to separate run-off from sewage
* Other upgrades - $30 million
around the city
* Water system needs - $46 million to $58
million
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