Mashpee Selectmen Send Sewer Construction Project To Town Meeting | Mashpee News

Mashpee residents will have the opportunity to vote on the start of construction of a sewer system at the city meeting on May 3, as part of the city’s long-term plan to remove nitrogen pollution from local embankments.

The Mashpee Board of Selectmen voted unanimously in its virtual vote on Monday, March 22, Approve and recommend the adoption of a city council article seeking a $ 54 million debt exclusion for the construction of a sewage treatment plant and an adjacent sewer system. Another unanimous vote of the elect carried out the arrest warrant of the city assembly.

“We are finally in a situation where we are ready,” said John J. Cotton, chairman of the Chosen. “We have prepared our financing and our financial structure in such a way that citizens have very low costs.”

In order to survive, the debt exclusion, which is unlikely to result in tax increases, requires a two-thirds majority in the city council and a majority vote on an election question in the annual May 8 election.

The project includes the construction of a sewage treatment plant adjacent to the Mashpee transfer station, a sewage system that extends west along Route 28 to Quinaquisset Avenue and south of Orchard Road and part of Mashpee Neck Road, and two pumping stations.

The wastewater project is the first phase of Mashpee’s five-phase comprehensive nitrogen management plan. The plan, which the city finalized more than five years ago, calls for the use of sewer systems as the primary means of clearing the nitrogen pollution that causes annual algal blooms, ecological damage, and possible recreational closures on the city’s embankments.

The first phase of the project will not include a sewer pipe running the length of Meetinghouse Road towards City Hall, as the comprehensive plan originally intended.

“It was recommended to the Sewage Commission last week by [the project engineers] that this area will be removed from this phase, ”said Selectman Andrew R. Gottlieb. “There are very few service connections per mile of pipeline because there is a lot of open space that includes tribal dwellings and so you travel a long distance to avoid very many service connections.”

Rather than adding another $ 12 million to the cost of the first phase to reach the service area near City Hall, “we’ll likely take a different route into the area in a later phase of sewers,” Gottlieb said.

The first phase of the wastewater project is funded from various sources to reduce the need for further tax increases. The city has a special sewage infrastructure investment fund that was set up at the Town Meeting last fall, as well as funds from a local short-term rental tax.

In January, the state gave the project prominence in a draft allocation plan for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, a program that provides 2 percent interest loans on total project costs and 3.3 percent principal forgiveness on those loans.

To qualify for the soft loans, Mashpee voters must approve construction of the project at the town meeting. By qualifying for the loans through the state revolving fund, the project will also qualify for major forgiveness through the Cape and Islands Water Conservation Fund.

The interest rate on the state revolving fund loans could be further reduced from 2 percent to 0 percent if city assembly voters also approve flow-neutral regulations, a move taken by several other Cape Cod cities, including Falmouth and the city Would save millions of dollars.

The flow neutral regulations would mandate that land in sewage service areas should be removed and connected to the sewage system, which is the main source of nitrogen pollution, of all sewage systems.

The flow-neutral regulations would also limit the amount of flow permitted by a certain property. Four bedrooms would be legally permitted for existing and new development of single family homes on plots of 40,000 square feet or less.

The Mashpee elect voted to recommend that city council voters pass an article to establish flow-neutral regulations.

The elect also unanimously voted on Monday to authorize city administrator Rodney C. Collins to send a letter to US Representative William R. Keating (D-Bourne) urging the Congressman to provide funding in an upcoming infrastructure bill apply for the city’s sewage projects.

A third article from the Town Meeting, relating to the sewage project that will appear before Mashpee voters in May, aims to enable the city to use a protected property on Mashpee Neck Road for a pumping station.

Years of inaction to combat nitrogen pollution, mainly caused by septic tanks, prompted the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental law firm, to threaten a possible lawsuit against the city of Mashpee last fall.

The proposed lawsuit, seeking a court order to shut down septic tank inspections and facilities in Mashpee, alleges that the city violates Title V of the Massachusetts Environmental Code every time a septic tank system discharges nitrogen-laden sewage, is approved or the inspection passes.

Mr. Cotton, the Chair of the Chosen, previously cited the upcoming city assembly vote on the sewage project as evidence that the city remains committed to tackling nitrogen pollution. The town meeting takes place in Mashpee Middle-High School with indoor and outdoor seating areas connected by video and audio.