Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
& Gazette Worcester, MA
Copyright 2001
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
LOCAL NEWS
Clinton sewage payment on way
Karen Nugent
CLINTON -- In spite of the tight state budget, there was no battle
this year for funding the Clinton Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Jonathan Yeo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Water Resources
Authority, said the yearly payment of $500,000 was approved for the
fiscal year that began on July 1.
Mr. Yeo said the actual operating cost of the plant has risen to
approximately $830,000 a year. Clinton users foot the rest of the
bill, he said.
"It's been like that for a few years," he said, noting that the
MWRA's Advisory Board has been pushing for full funding by Clinton
users for some time.
The $500,000 payment comes out of the Metropolitan District
Commission's budget, through a complicated formula, Mr. Yeo said. The
MWRA is a quasi-public authority that was created in 1985. Before
that, the MDC had been operating the Wachusett Reservoir and handling
Clinton's wastewater treatment, for years.
Sean P. Moynihan, a spokesman for state Rep. Harold P. Naughton
Jr., D-Clinton, confirmed that the $500,000 payment is in the state
budget, and was not vetoed by the Legislature or the governor.
Before the creation of the MWRA, an earlier wastewater treatment
plant was operated by the MDC. Ownership was transferred to the MWRA
in 1985. In 1987, a new $36.5 million wastewater treatment plant on
the north end of High Street was built by the MWRA, and the wrangling
over who would pay for its operation started immediately.
The town has a 103-year-old agreement with the state pertaining to
its water and sewer services. The 1898 agreement stems from the
flooding of nearly half of Clinton's land for the construction of the
Wachusett Reservoir. The reservoir provides water for the
metropolitan Boston area; in exchange, Clinton was to receive free
water and sewer services.
The free water service is not in dispute by the state, but the
free sewage treatment is. The original agreement says that the free
sewer service would last only until the town outgrew the normal
capacity of the south branch of the Nashua River, a point reached
several years ago.
In 1995, the MWRA filed a $4 million lawsuit against the town for
the previous years of operation of the treatment plant. The lawsuit
was resolved the same year in the Open Space Bond Act. But the yearly
payment dispute continued.
The state has ended up making the $500,000 payment every year
since 1995, but there usually is a prolonged fight led by the MWRA
Advisory Board and Boston-area legislators.
In the meantime, the plant has received a Peak Performance Award
from the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies. The "silver"
awards were given to 119 agencies nationwide for having five or fewer
pollution permit violations in a calendar year.