FACES Annual Meeting Presentation Of Sewering Challenges

By CHRISTOPHER KAZARIAN

To get a sense of the challenges that lie ahead for Falmouth when it comes to protecting the town's estuaries and ponds, F. Bradley Stumcke Jr. of Sailfish Drive, East Falmouth, pointed to the project to sewer 210 homes in New Silver Beach.

It has taken more than 10 years for the project to get through litigation and finally go before residents to vote on whether the town should share the betterment costs with the 210 New Silver Beach homeowners or have those homeowners incur the costs themselves.

Mr. Stumcke, president of Falmouth Associations Concerned with Estuaries and Ponds (FACES), said voters in Precinct Four, where he lives, voted to not have the town share those betterment costs in May. Luckily, he said, the majority of the town's residents voted otherwise.

"That was a wake-up call," he said last night at the FACES annual meeting held at the Waquoit Bay Natural Estuarine Research Reserve. It is a sign of how much needs to be done, he said, to educate residents about the importance of sewering and the need to tackle this problem together. "We have quite an educational mountain to climb," he said.

Over 40 residents and members of FACES attended last night's meeting to hear ways to make climbing that mountain a little easier.

Keynote speaker Barry B. Balan of Starboard Drive, East Falmouth, a summer resident for the past 27 years, provided some hope as he talked about how Chelmsford has managed to sewer 10,000 properties and lay more than 150 miles of piping down.

Mr. Balan, who is Chelmsford's sewer commissioner, said the town's sewer system "is one of the largest and most successful systems within the commonwealth."

If Falmouth had continued what it started in 1981 when it completed a facilities plan, he said, the town would probably be at a similar stage to that of Chelmsford, with nearly 90 percent of its sewering complete.

He said Chelmsford began seriously looking at sewering due to state mandates, a result of septic systems tainting the groundwater the town uses for its drinking water. The main impetus, he said, was the Clean Water Act. "The state mandated we come up with a solution to this pollution," he said.

In 1968, the town set up a sewer commission that acted as a conduit between the residents and the board of selectmen. The commission, he said, was allowed to take land by eminent domain and enter into contracts with the approval of selectmen and Town Meeting.

He recommended that a similar board could be helpful in Falmouth to alleviate pressures on selectmen. "Our board of selectmen don't have time to sit down with consultants and put out contracts for bid," Mr. Balan said.

Eventually, when the sewer infrastructure was put into place, he said, the Department of Public Works created its own sewer division to handle maintenance. "That has worked out really well," he said.

During the early years, Chelmsford started out by developing and completing a facilities plan for wastewater management, targeting the highest areas of need, representing 68 percent of the town, that would be phased in over a 20-year period.

In 1995, after the state made stricter regulations on Title V septic systems, Chelmsford decided to sewer the remaining 32 percent of the town.

In terms of costs, Mr. Balan said, Chelmsford residents have appropriated $109 million to sewer the town, including passing six debt exclusions, one for $49 million in 1996. When complete, he said, the total cost will be roughly $145 million.

In 1988, the first year that betterments were assessed, the cost to each household was $1,200. Now that is up to $5,500 and soon it will go up to $6,000, Mr. Balan said.

The town has utilized state and federal grants and tapped into the state revolving funds, which allows towns to utilize low-interest loans based upon need.

In addition, Chelmsford benefited from accessing private development funds. He explained that some businesses that connected to the sewer only paid 60 percent of the betterment fee. However, they paid for a half-mile of piping that allowed homes along that route to connect to the sewer. Through this approach, he said, the town received $6.5 million worth of infrastructure.

Due to the increase of 40B properties, he said, Chelmsford implemented a capacity impact fee in 2003 for properties that exceed a specific limit.

The major difference between Chelmsford and Falmouth, Mr. Balan said, is that there are no wastewater treatment facilities in town. Chelmsford accesses the City of Lowell's wastewater treatment facility and pays 10 percent of the costs to operate it.

Wastewater Superintendent Gerald C. Potamis said this difference may be the biggest challenge to overcome, because of the costs associated with constructing and operating treatment facilities.

Despite this challenge, Mr. Balan said, it can be done. The key to everything that Chelmsford has done is education. "Educating the voters is the most critical part," he said.

He said town officials would visit churches, synagogues, men's clubs, women's clubs, and any organization that wanted more information on the need for sewering. The sewer commission created its own show, "Sewer Soup," that aired on public television and became a useful tool in its mission.

In addition, presentations were made at every Town Meeting to provide further information on sewering. Combined, he said, these strategies are the major reason that the project to sewer Chelmsford has been so successful and he urged FACES members to focus their efforts here.