By Michael Farrell
Staff Writer
August 07, 2008 05:14 am MANCHESTER — A sewer line must be abandoned and a new one built as part of the Manchester Essex Regional High School project as part of a new agreement with the state Department of Environmental Protection. Since the high school building project ran afoul of the department by disturbing the ground around the nearby Lincoln Street well, part of the town's water supply, the project has stood on unsteady ground. To comply with the department's demands over the year, a number of measures were taken, including hiring a wetlands professional to draw up a restoration plan of the destabilized zone. And for two days in April, construction was brought to a standstill under the pain of a $1,000 a day fine against the town. Now, as part of a consent order that is expected to permanently settle the dispute with the Department of Environmental Protection, the new school's sewer will need to be relocated. The line, which runs under the 400-foot protected zone around the Lincoln Street well, was installed before April 16 when the state agency ordered all construction near the well to halt. According to the administrative consent order, signed by the town and the School Council, the sewer line must be abandoned and sealed before September 2010. The relocation of the sewer line, according to School Building Committee Chairwoman Sarah Hammond Creighton, will not impact the progress of the school's construction, which is expected to open for classes in September 2009. The newly installed line, said Creighton, will be temporarily used by the new school once it opens as it waits for the new one to be built. The replacement line will be built under the old high school after it is demolished sometime next summer or late fall. A playing field will then be built on the site. She added that school leaders have yet to determine how much it will cost to install the new sewage hookup. Additionally, because she does not have access to line-item costs, she could not say how much it cost to construct the system being replaced. Joe Lucido, the school facilities manager, could not be reached for comment on prices. "It's an agreement that we can certainly live with," said Creighton about the consent order, which includes 11 actions that need to be taken for the project to comply with Department of Environmental Protection regulations. Among these actions are the building of a new access roadway for construction vehicles, additional erosion control measures and some changes to the layout of playing fields that were planned on the site. According to Town Administrator Wayne Melville, the order document was received for signatures on July 14. Many of the agreements that are outlined in the document, however, said Melville in June while the document was being finalized, were already being enacted. In fact, said Melville on Tuesday, "the general form and concepts — they were set out in April." The details of the agreement had been confidential until it was finalized. Before the order was signed, according to Melville, the Department of Environmental Protection did not have the jurisdictional authority to deal directly with the school district. The only way the Department of Environmental Protection could control the project was by threatening the town. This came in a series of violation notices, one on Feb. 27, another on April 16, and the last on May 7. This new document, however, is expected to settle all these disputes. According to Melville, the Department of Environmental Protection was technically supposed to review the school's land lease from the town but it did not. The fact that the state agency was confident enough about the consent order's wording to not bother to review the lease, Melville said, illustrated how "iron-clad" the agreement was. "Everyone is ready to move forward," said Selectmen Chairwoman Sue Thorne, one of the signatories of the document along with Creighton and School Council Chairwoman Susan Beckman. Michael Farrell can be reached at gt_reporter@gloucestertimes.com.
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