CRWA in the News

Sewage overflow problem called exaggerated

By Aaron Wasserman, Daily News staff

Milford Daily News, Thursday, March 20, 2008

MILFORD - The Board of Sewer Commissioners has claimed that the federal Environmental Protection Agency overstated how many overflow incidents occurred in town since 2001, when ordering the town to fix the problems.

The EPA last week said the town has had more than 100 overflows from its sewer system since Jan. 1, 2001. As a result, the agency ordered the town to perform a system assessment, prepare a plan to remedy any deficiencies and develop a long-term preventative maintenance program.

However, at its meeting Tuesday, the Board of Sewer Commissioners rebutted the EPA's figure. Sewer Commissioner Scott Lanzetta said there have been 18 documented overflows since 2001, all of which were handled by the department and reported to the necessary agencies.

"We've been working diligently on the issue," Lanzetta said. "Some pipes were broken. It's a 100-year-old pipe system. These things happen."

The EPA said sewage overflows have leaked into buildings and surface waters, including tributaries of the Blackstone River and the Charles River.

Nine of the overflows were the result of plugged or broken pipes, Lanzetta said. Six of the overflows occurred on Vine Street because a pipe could not handle the flow of substantial rain, he said.

The Vine Street issue was corrected in 2005 with the South Main Street relief sewer, Lanzetta said.

"There is no more overflow on Vine Street," he said.

However, selectmen Chairman William Buckley said sewage overflow on Vine Street and West Street is a regular event.

The town faces fines if the work ordered by the EPA is not completed in time.

"It would behoove the Sewer Department to get in touch with the EPA," Buckley said. "Because when they fine us, they will be going by EPA data."

EPA spokesman David Deegan could not comment on the discrepancy yesterday but said the agency is working with the town.

"We're asking the town to identify what needs to be done because there has been a chronic problem of overflow," Deegan said.

The EPA and the Sewer Department may be talking about different types of overflow, Buckley said.

"On any major storm event, I get 18 calls myself of sewage going into streets, going into buildings," he said.

Lanzetta said Buckley was invited to the sewer commissioners meeting Tuesday but declined.

Buckley, though, said he never received an invitation and is still planning on calling a meeting with the Sewer Commission and town counsel to address the issue.

The commissioners should appear at a future selectmen's meeting after they develop the corrective action plan, Buckley said.

"We'd like to see the plan before it goes out to make sure they're addressing what the EPA has for concerns," he said.

The assessment is due in six months, the corrective action plan is due in nine months and the preventative maintenance program is due in one year, according to the consent order from the EPA.

The system assessment should be completed this spring, Lanzetta said.

Within the next couple of weeks, the sewer commissioners plan to send a video camera down the pipe on West Street. The rest of the 18 overflows occurred there in the last five weeks, Lanzetta said, and the commissioners believe the cause is a broken pipe.

"We don't know until we camera it," Lanzetta said.

If the pipe is broken, the commissioners plan to repair or replace it immediately.

The commissioners have already inspected 34,800 feet of pipe by video camera and smoke-tested 290,000 feet of pipe, Lanzetta said. The board also inspected more than 500 manholes, and the Sewer Department repaired more than 100 of them.