Swampscott's Polluted King's Beach Problems Aired On Capitol Hill

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — As Swampscott and Lynn officials continue to seek out solutions to the ongoing pollution at King's Beach that made it unsuitable for swimming more than 90 percent of this past summer, the challenges of funding those solutions got an audience on Capitol Hill Thursday when U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Salem) pressed the issue during the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing.

"It's the most polluted beach in Massachusetts," Moulton said. "Lynn is a majority-minority community and you will often see families out there even when the beach is closed because it's the only beach they have access to at all. So it's a major issue for the community."

Moulton noted that the majority of the water cleanup funding available through the Infrastructure Bill and other federal programs is in the form of loans that a city like Lynn and a small town like Swampscott would have little chance to ever pay back without crippling taxpayers.

"Massachusetts doesn't have a county system anymore so it's hard to coordinate different cities and towns working together — although Lynn and Swampscott are working in that direction," he noted.

National Resources Deputy Director Rebecca Hammer advocated for more grants and forgivable loans — which do not have to be paid back — to be available for these situations, as well as federal technical assistance to help local government offices navigate the cumbersome application process.

Adding to the ongoing issues of bacterial contamination of the Stacey's Brook outflow at King's Beach that occur mostly around larger rain events each year — which traditionally make the greater beach areas swimmable about two-thirds of the time in a normal summer — this summer's torrential rains led to multiple sewage releases from the town of Lynn that resulted in more than a million gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage being released directly into the ocean.

Moulton has introduced the Sewage Treatment Overflow Prevention through the Community Sanitation Outreach Act that would mandate local governments alert residents within four
hours of a sewer overflow. While public awareness is critical, he said, Moulton issued a statement saying that he is also eager to see an increase in BIL funding dedicated to combating CSOs in financially distressed communities.

King's Beach advocates expressed great frustration during the first of the sewage outflow events in June that residents and potential beachgoers were not informed of them until hours or days after they occurred.

"King's Beach is a truly beautiful place – fit for a king," Moulton said in a statement. "It's unacceptable that it is so polluted that it stays closed almost all year, especially at the height of summer, when families often still swim in dangerously polluted water.

"I will continue to call attention to this issue and work with the appropriate stakeholders to ensure that we find better solutions in the future so that Lynn and Swampscott can enjoy the beach once again."

Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald has repeatedly called on more state and federal funding to help the neighboring communities fix the King's Beach problems to make it a productive recreational area once again as advocates have pressed the town of Swampscott to double down on its efforts to reduce source elimination from sewer pipes on the Swampscott side of the border and better inform citizens when the water is not suitable for exposure throughout the outdoor season beyond just the summer months.

Swampscott and Lynn officials have been working on a dual approach that would include a UV Light system to treat the bacterial and fecal contamination of the water coming out of Stacey's Brook, while Fitzgerald said he has received some promising feedback on the state's willingness to facilitate a long outflow pipe that would carry any contaminants that remain in the water from sewage or other environmental concerns out beyond King's Beach itself farther into the ocean.

(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.)