Mucking up the beach
Sewage sent to sea, legally
When Kristina Nappi and a group of neighborhood volunteers set out to clean the area's private beach a week after last month's rain storms, they were surprised by the amount of brown muck that had accumulated on the shore.
Then, she said, they were appalled.
Nappi and the other members of the Point of Pines Beach Association were told that the substance on the beach included sewage that had been released into the ocean by Lynn, Revere, and Saugus with permission from the state. The news upset residents, who feared that the bacteria count would reach the levels found last summer after a broken sewer line in Lynn spilled millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Saugus River, which flows into the ocean.
``In a storm surge like that, I understand this happens," said Nappi, president of the association. ``When we did the cleanup after the Mother's Day storm, the debris was severe -- brown, mucky-type stuff."
After the historic rainfall and floods last month, the three communities were allowed by the state Department of Environmental Protection to discharge into the ocean because there was no relief in sight for their severely backed-up sewage treatment systems, said Revere Mayor Thomas G. Ambrosino .
Ambrosino said it was the first time in his four terms as mayor that the city was allowed to discharge sewage into the ocean. However, Lynn and Saugus have standing agreements with the Department of Environmental Protection allowing them to discharge sewage into the ocean during severe wet weather events, said agency spokesman Joseph Ferson .
Lynn is one of 24 communities in the state that has ``combined sewage overflow ," which is a discharge system that handles both sewage and storm water, Ferson said. During ``water-related weather," such systems can become overwhelmed and their contents must be discharged into a body of water rather than to a treatment center, he said.
Permits for such systems require compliance with the state's Surface Water Quality Standards and the federal Clean Waters Act . Ferson said Lynn has been making repairs to its system in order to reduce the amount of discharge and decrease the possible environmental impact .
``Lynn has been under decree since the early 1990s and has made $80 million in repairs, improvements, and upgrades to address" the combined sewage overflow , Ferson said. ``They proposed an additional $55 million in work, and the DEP and the [federal Environmental Protection Agency] are reviewing this proposal from the city."
Although Saugus does not have a combined sewage overflow, ``during wet weather events, they have problems with infiltration that gets into the cracks" in the pipes, Ferson said. ``This causes overflows."
Last year, Saugus entered into a consent order with the Department of Environmental Protection to make improvements to its system to reduce infiltration and inflow, Ferson said.
``To address chronic overflows during wet weather events, that's where improvements make a difference," he said.
But some Revere city councilors were up in arms about the discharge permits, saying that this was the first they'd heard of them.
They questioned why the state would allow something that affects local residents and beaches.
``How can they just dump raw sewage like that?" said Councilor at Large John R. Correggio , who asked Ambrosino to look into possibly bringing legal action against Lynn. ``We got complaints from the Pines people saying there was raw sew age coming into the Pines area."
``They shouldn't be dumping anything into the ocean," said Councilor at Large George V. Colella . ``I believe the city should develop a strategy to petition the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to not allow this. . . . We foot the bill with our water and sewer rates, [which] are abnormal and continue to grow."
Colella said he would support a lawsuit against the communities discharging sewage. But Ambrosino said the city has no such plan.
``A lawsuit would be unproductive, given we'd have to sue the DEP," Ambrosino said. ``The Lynn Water and Sewer Commission operates under a consent [decree] with the DEP, and they can discharge into the waterways in certain heavy rain events, provided they give adequate notice to the DEP, the Revere Board of Health, and surrounding entities."
The city helped Point of Pines residents get rid of the sewage, Ambrosino said.
``We're concerned, but there's not a whole lot we can do about it," Ambrosino said, adding that the city will perform weekly tests of the water at Revere Beach throughout the summer , including in the Point of Pines area.
Council president Arthur F. Guinasso said he is mulling asking the City Council whether the city should seek concessions from the state as a result of the consent orders in Lynn and Saugus.
``It seems so unfair we're paying heavily and dearly through our water rates to clean up the sewage other people are dumping," Guinasso said.
Katheleen Conti can be reached at kconti@globe.com. 