Thursday, June 29, 2000 Older Editions

Sewer delay?

By Rebecca Piro

Before Andover can begin the massive sewer project it approved back at 1999 Town Meeting, it needs to prove to state officials its existing sewer lines can take the extra water flow.

If the town can't satisfy state officials, Andover might need to redesign its plans and possibly limit the extent of the project, said state Environmental Analyst Richard Foster.

More details are needed concerning the impact of the Rogers Brook, Ballardvale Road, and South Main Street area sewers on local waterways, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. The state rejected a final Environmental Impact Report from the town recently because it did not sufficiently address four main areas of environmental concern.

The areas are: protection of wetlands, effect on the waterbed of the Ipswich River basin, preservation of archaeological resources and the status of water-quality monitoring.

But the true potential problem, said state Environmental Analyst Richard Foster, lies with the capacity of the Shawsheen interceptor, the pipe that will receive additional flow of sewerage after the project is complete.

Problems such as last May's overflow on North Main Street may continue to pop up if the Shawsheen interceptor pipe is not capable of handling the extra sewerage.

However, that was likely an isolated incident, said Andover Public Works Director Jack Petkus, because the pipe was blocked with lumber. "How it got in there, we don't know," said Petkus, but the pipe was clear as of Wednesday.

What now?

In response to the EIR's rejection, the town needs to look more critically at the Shawsheen interceptor pipe to determine if it has sufficient capacity to handle all the proposed additions, said Foster.

"The capacity of the interceptor pipe is key in determining how many more connections the pipe can handle," said Foster. "The DEP is concerned that the interceptor doesn't have the capacity to accept flow from the new areas that the town has proposed to add," he said, referring to the Rogers Brook, Ballardvale Road, and South Main Street area sewers.

The town is working to supply more information as soon as possible to keep the sewer project moving along schedule, according to Petkus. "We're going to provide a supplemental report," he said. He hopes the new information will be in the state's hands within the month.

But if the additional information provided reinforces DEP's concerns, the town may need to revise their needs analysis, to see which areas of town are most critical in terms of receiving sewer lines, said Foster. In that case, only a percentage of the plan would continue as is, and the rest would be rejected or redesigned.

However, the state demand does not necessarily foretell a shut-down on current sewer plans.

"It's not an outright denial," Petkus said. "They're saying they need more information. We're going to get that to them as fast as we can."