Officials in Holyoke, Massachusetts are breaking ground on a sewer system project – one aiming to further reduce how much and how often city wastewater is discharged into the Connecticut River.
One of the first planned industrial cities of America, Holyoke leaders say there are times when the city’s infrastructure shows its age – particularly when it comes to sewers.
Like Springfield and Chicopee, parts of Holyoke have long had sewage and rainwater collect in the same lines – and all of the problems that come with it.
“This worked okay under normal circumstances - the wastewater was directed to the city's wastewater treatment plant, where contaminants were removed and the water quality was improved before being discharged into the river,” says Mayor Joshua Garcia. “But that's under normal circumstances. Heavy rains or extraordinary snowmelt would occasionally overwhelm the capacity of the system and result in untreated discharge known as ‘CSOs’ - combined sewer overflows.”
As Garcia points out, Holyoke has not been the only the community dumping sewage mixed with storm water into the Connecticut River– Springfield has also released millions of gallons of the mixture in the wake of storms in the past.
But for the Paper City, past discharges ended up violating federal and state wastewater discharge permits, according to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The practice would lead to a partial consent decree in 2019 and a full one in 2023 with the EPA and Justice Department – one in which Holyoke finalized a plan to reduce such discharges and separate combined sewers.
Still under that decree, Monday morning marked the latest step as Garcia and other leaders celebrated the start of the River Terrace CSO Sewer Separation project.
“It's a big project involving thousands of feet of mainline sewer, thousands of feet of storm drains, plus manholes, catch basins and old pipeline abandonment and pavement restoration,” Garcia said during a press conference on George Street, one of at least six roads to be affected. “It's going to take more than a year, probably much, much longer than that.”
Phase A, a $10.5 million venture, will involve sewer lines and manholes off of Route 5, near the Edward Nelson White School – little more than a stone’s throw from the river itself.
As Interim Director of Public Works Mary Monahan tells WAMC, the city’s taking advantage of a 0 percent State Revolving Fund loan with 9 percent debt forgiveness as it’s paid back over 20 years.
She adds that this work has been under development for at least 15 years – and building off past work like the recent Jackson Street Sewer Separation project, the city’s made significant progress separating storm water from wastewater.
“We're at a point where we're more than 50 percent - in fact, we're probably closer to 75 percent removal [that] has been achieved, and these remaining projects are wrapping it up,” she explained. “This one will be followed by Phase B and then there's two more projects right after that, and… by 2029, the final construction project, with respect to separation, would have been started.”
Assistant City Engineer Victoria Houle estimates the work will take about two years to complete, during which designs for Phase B will continue.
That phase is expected to cost around $12 million, with $2 million in federal funds supporting the effort – dollars earmarked by U.S. Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Richard Neal.
Monahan tells WAMC that while it might be hard to perceive - what with the final product being underground - the work is vital and ever-present in a number of ways.
“We have a lot of infrastructure that people don't see and it's hard to convince people to spend their dollars, either through rates and/or taxes, on things that they don't see, but in this case here, what they do see and will see is continued cleanup in the Connecticut River; that didn't happen by accident,” the interim DPW head said. “That happened because ratepayers and taxpayers in these cities have been committing to these cleanups. They may not see the actual project itself, except during the construction phase, but they definitely see the benefits of it.”
