No Easy Fix: Swampscott To Spend Millions To Help Fix Sewer Pipes, Clean Beaches

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A plan to spend more than $10 million over the next three years will help keep Swampscott in line with its state obligations to fix century-old sewer lines that lead to a contaminated King's Beach and threaten Fisherman's Beach — but, ultimately, may be only a small portion of a maintenance schedule for one of the most polluted ocean beaches in the state — was shared during a 90-minute presentation to the Swampscott Select Board on Wednesday night.

The presentation included the work that has already been done on pipe "sleeving" that feeds into the Stacy's Brook outlet at King's Beach, a schedule of work set to take on more sleeving and repair leading to both Fisherman's Beach and King's Beach over the next few years using both state American Recovery Plan Act and a state enterprise fund supported by residential water rates, and other supplemental efforts being explored aimed at making the beaches safe for swimming.

(Also on Patch: 'Aggressive' Swampscott Beach Cleanup Efforts To Be Detailed)

"What I can say with some certainty is that your dry weather sources from human (waste) are going to be substantially mitigated after the end of these three (years) for the King's Beach area," Kleinfelder Project Manager Dave Peterson said. "But that's not the same thing as saying that the beach is going to be open all the time.

"The other thing that we have no control over is what Lynn is doing. So if Swampscott took care of all of its bacteria and Lynn three years from now is where it is today It's still going to be closed quite frequently."

Peterson said that's why a regional approach has been ongoing to address the collective issues leading to the contamination of King's Beach — which was closed about 90 percent of last summer because of high bacteria levels.

Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald has advocated for a multi-faceted approach to beach cleanup that includes the sewer pipe repair along with supplemental strategies that could include a long outfall pipe into Nahant Bay, and potential uses of chlorine, UV light or even ozone to treat the water coming out of Swampscott and Lynn.

"Everybody is looking at anything that could help protect human health," Fitzgerald said. "I think we've spent years just putting together alternative analysis. We've looked at relocating pipes, moving pipes. We've looked at everything up and down and, frankly, if anybody's got an idea I'll look at it.

"I just don't know if the science really deals with the ocean as effectively as some of the items that we're studying right now (do with ponds and lakes). I wish there were a dozen ideas. It's hard because I think everybody wants to believe that there's an easy fix here. There just doesn't seem to be.

"It's just constant vanilla statuses of good repair approaches to fixing pipes and thinking about a supplemental (strategy) that will protect human health from the immediacy of the public health risk."

The full 30-page presentation is on the Swampscott town website.

"Certainly, there is a lot to digest here," Fitzgerald said. "But it has been years of effort. We have actually been working on the asset management plan for the past two years. ... It was something the town never had. We didn't have a map. We didn't know the status of repair for any of these systems.

"Now we do. Now we can take this information and we can start to build a stronger capital plan for that status of good repair. But this is a lot."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)