SOUTHWICK – Work began this week that will help Tighe and Bond complete the design of the second phase of the town’s sewer connection.
Department of Public Works Director Randy Brown said Tighe and Bond hired a subcontractor to take soil borings and perform a site survey in the area of Powdermill Road.
“The town appropriated funds for the design at the annual Town Meeting last spring,” said Brown. “Once Tighe and Bond has this information, they will incorporate into the design of the sewer system.”
Brown expects the design will be complete over the winter and hopes to go to the 2015 Town Meeting for the next appropriation to go to bid and begin construction of the sewer connection in that area.
“One of the main reasons we are doing this is to connect the schools to the sewer system,” Brown said.
The borings will identify what materials lie beneath the surface of the area, whether it’s sand, rock, gravel or silt. Brown said this knowledge is crucial not only to the design, but to the budget.
“If there’s a lot of rock that needs to be excavated, that needs to be built into the design and be part of the bid,” said Brown.
Soil boring work is expected to take several weeks, followed by a few weeks of site surveying. Brown said all work should be done before the cold weather sets in.
Las April, members of the Southwick Finance Committee met with the Board of Selectmen and School Superintendent Dr. John Barry to discuss connecting the sewer to the schools.
Selectboard Chairman Russell Fox asked Barry to explain to the group what the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) mandated regarding the connection of the renovated high school to the town sewers. Currently, there is no sewer line that runs past the school campus.
Barry said negotiations took about a year, but the school department and DEP came to an agreement.
“We can continue to use the septic with additional monitoring,” said Barry. “We have to install more equipment in the fields – that’s what we do going forward until there’s a connection.”
The renovation project includes a pipe from the school to Powder Mill Road. It does not include a pipe that runs by Woodland and Powder Mill schools.
Members of the board wondered if that would be a cost to taxpayers.
“We see that as a district cost,” Barry said. “We think we could use unexpended CIP (capital improvement) funds to get that connection done so that there’s no cost to the taxpayers.”
Barry said the DEP agreement buys the town time to get the school connected to the sewer. Once that connection is made, the neighborhood can be connected.
“They know what this costs,” said Barry. “There isn’t a strict deadline for when this will happen, just the expectation that it will.”
As long as the septic system holds up, the school can remain using that system until the sewer connection is made but Brown said that the septic system is failing and the connection must be made.
