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Town officials are making their support of an MWRA program that will include a series of sewer projects in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville. These projects will, however, add to the town’s yearly MWRA assessments.
On Oct. 19, the Select Board approved to sending a letter to the MWRA in support of its Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project based on a recommendation of Town Manager Christopher Senior and Town Engineer Matt Shuman.
“The CSO plan includes a series of improvements, including a series of sewer separation and storage tanks and pipes in Somerville, Cambridge and Boston that are sized to eliminate CSOs in a typical year in 2050,” reads a memo Senior and Shuman prepared for members. “This plan is the selected alternative among four alternatives analyzed. The remaining three alternatives provided a higher level of CSO control than the proposed alternative, albeit at substantially increased cost.
“The proposed CSO plan, to be implemented over the next 30 years, is anticipated to cost $1.3 billion. Cambridge and Somerville are each funding 20% of the project with MWRA communities funding the remaining 60%, borne by all participating MWRA members, distributed based on sewage usage and collected through the MWRA sewer assessment.
“It is important to note that MWRA is a consortium of member communities that all contribute to the function of the whole system. All investments provide benefit to the member communities, regardless of geography,” The memo concludes. “The MWRA has invested significantly in Winchester to reduce sanitary sewer overflows in their infrastructure in Town, including upcoming sewer rehabilitation at the Aberjona River. These costs were also shared by all member communities.”
The Aberjona is not directly involved at this time.
“We’re not contributing to the problem. Senior pointed out.
As for the impacts on the town, the memo states that Winchester’s “final fiscal 2027 MWRA assessment totals approximately $8.3 million, consisting of approximately $2.6 million for water and $5.7 million for sewer.”
The debt service for the CSO plan is expected to kick in in fiscal year 2029 and will continue until 2072.
What the fiscal impact will be to Winchester and other communities will “vary over time based on the timing of individual projects and the maturity of the bonds,” the memo reads. “The maximum annual impacts will ramp up to fiscal [year] 2043 with a maximum of about $680,000. It should be noted these costs are being compared to a baseline of no action, which is not realistic based on DEP and EPA requirements.
“These costs will certainly impact the town’s sewer rates in future years and they should be incorporated into the town’s future rate setting studies,” the memo concludes.
Much like a mortgager, the payments will last decades.
Shuman’s specific recommendations are to approve the CSO Long-Term Plan and its recommended Typical-Year standard, not require a higher level of CSO control unless the environmental and health benefits justify the substantially increased cost and require a meaningful federal or state funding commitment if a higher level of control is required.
“Winchester shares the fundamental environmental objective underlying the Draft Updated CSO Long-Term Control Plan: cleaner, healthier, and more usable waterways. Clean water is a shared problem that no household, business, or municipality can solve alone,” Shuman told the Select Board in a letter. “Addressing problems like these is a fundamental public responsibility, and the region’s decades of investment in CSO control demonstrate what sustained public action can accomplish.
“Sewage does not belong in healthy waterways, and continued CSO reduction is an important public objective,” he added. “Winchester supports the alternative recommended by the MWRA, Cambridge, and Somerville in the draft plan. It would achieve zero modeled CSO discharges in the Charles River, Alewife Brook and Upper Mystic River during a 2050 Typical Year while incorporating projected future climate conditions. It represents a substantial additional environmental commitment and a reasonable next step in the region’s long-running CSO-control effort.”
Shuman went on to say that Winchester should definitely support this current plan because an alternative plan “cost substantially more, with the 2050 5-Year Standard alternative costing roughly 2.6 times the recommended plan and the 25-Year Standard alternative even larger, more complex, and costlier.”
Shuman said a proposed CSO system is designed to “perform under specified conditions,” but that “no finite infrastructure system can guarantee that a CSO will never occur under every conceivable future storm.”
He maintained a “higher level of control” would help produce a definite CSO reduction. But, he said, the benefit depends on whether there is a “substantially greater commitment required to achieve it.”
The town engineer added that Winchester is already working on several of its own environmental projects.
“Winchester already bears substantial responsibility for other environmental priorities, including maintaining its own local sewer infrastructure, stormwater management including compliance with ever-increasing federal MS4 requirements, while also addressing climate change, flooding, and other water quality needs,” he said in his letter. “The costs to meet these responsibilities are ultimately borne on the same households and businesses that fund MWRA and will fund implementation of the proposed alternative. They all draw on the same finite local capacity. Requiring communities to devote substantially greater resources to provide marginal CSO reductions can therefore reduce our ability to invest in other measures that may also improve water quality.”
Shuman added, “The small incremental benefits of the higher levels of control simply do not justify the substantially higher costs associated with them, particularly when balanced with other programs that also provide meaningful environmental benefits.
“For these reasons, Winchester respectfully asks EPA and MassDEP to not require a materially higher level of control, including the 2050 5-Year or 25-Year Standards, unless the record demonstrates that the incremental environmental and public-health benefits are sufficient to justify the substantially greater cost, disruption, infrastructure demands, and long-term burden and if a materially higher level of control is required, that additional mandate with meaningful and committed federal or state financial participation, sufficient to materially reduce the incremental burden on local ratepayers.”
During the following discussion, the town manager added he didn’t know whether the state could provide a better financial alternative.
“I don’t know if anything less costly will be offered,” Senior said.
The Select Board then appointed Shuman as its designated representative to the MWRA Advisory Board.
Other business
In other business, Select Board member Bill McGonigle briefed the other members about actions and goals of the Affordable Housing Trust (AHT), including efforts to renovate and sell 160 Forrest St., for which they’ve secured grants help defray costs. Other projects include 33 Mt. Vernon St.
McGonigle also reported the AHT is looking into ways of securing grants and providing loans for other projects as well “as an opportunity to inspire people to do that more,” including forgivable loans for developments providing affordable housing as their research indicated has been done in Hyannis.
He also reported the AHT is looking for inexpensive or free legal representation on projects for which the town counsel lacks expertise.
McGonigle said donated or discounted work could provide experience for attorneys looking to “get their feet wet” in the field.
Neil Zolot has been a freelance journalist more than 40 years. He has worked for newspapers on the North Shore and in the Boston area.
