Construction awaits an engineering plan and state money
The bill to create a sewer district in the center of Harvard is now law, completing one of two key steps necessary to put shovels into the ground to build the system later this year. After a meandering journey through the Massachusetts legislature, the bill reached the desk of Governor Deval Patrick last week and was signed into law by him on Feb. 26.
The new law—Chapter 37 of the Acts of 2010—sets boundaries for the new district, establishes a commission to govern it, and describes how the commissioners are to manage the system.
The boundaries are fixed for now by the map attached to the sewer district bylaws that Annual Town Meeting approved last spring by a near-unanimous vote. While those lines can be redrawn or expanded, it would require an affirmative vote by a future town meeting to make it happen. The current district will serve an estimated 72 properties, including residences, businesses, churches, municipal buildings, and the schools, and is seen as a crucial step toward the revitalized town center envisioned by Harvard’s Master Plan. The houses being constructed just beyond the Common on Littleton Road, however, are not part of the district, nor are several houses along Mass. Ave. west of the town center near the existing treatment facility.
The new Harvard Wastewater District, whose boundaries will overlap the existing Town Center Water District, will be managed by three unpaid commissioners, one of whom must be a district resident. Unlike the elected members of the Water Commission, which is responsible for the Town Center Water District, the sewer commissioners will be appointed to their three-year terms by the Board of Selectmen (BOS). The commissioners, however, will not take up their duties until the system is complete. Meantime, a seven-member selectman-appointed Sewer Policy Committee, chaired by Scott Hayward, is devising recommendations for the new commissioners on how to allocate capacity and the costs of construction and operations among district users once the system is complete. Those recommendations will go to the BOS for approval.
How the town will finance the estimated $2 million needed to lay pipes, connect users, and upgrade the treatment plant on Mass. Ave. remains up in the air. The town has applied for a loan from a Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revolving fund, but the agency has not released the list of projects it will support in 2010. So far the Town Center Sewer Building Committee (TCSBC), a selectmen-appointed committee responsible for design and construction of the system, has spent $16,500 on engineering studies, according to Finance Director Lorraine Leonard. The work includes roughly 300 test borings to hunt for ledge along the proposed path of the sewer and will lead to a final design, which the TCSBC expects to receive at its next meeting on March 22.