Accord reached on river dumping
Town must pay $300,000 total
When state ecologists visited the Concord River in 2002 to check on a tip about pollution coming from Billerica's water-treatment plant, they discovered a suspicious 20,000-square-foot plume covering two-thirds of the width of the river near the Boston Road treatment plant.
"When we stirred it with a paddle, it upwelled black clouds with a strong hydrogen sulfur odor," wrote Joan Kimball, director of the state Riverways Program, in an Aug. 25, 2002, letter to other state and federal environmental officials. She said the plume was 4 1/2 feet deep in some areas: "It was [ viscous] to the point that it offered resistance to our kayak paddles."
Those observations triggered a nearly five-year process of inspections, attempted enforcement, remediation, and settlement negotiations between Billerica officials and state and federal environmental agencies. Last week, state and federal officials filed complaints in federal court alleging nearly three decades of environmental violations by the town's water and waste-water treatment plants. At the same time, they filed a consent decree signed by town officials that settled the matter, at a cost of more than $300,000 to the town.
Billerica agreed to pay a $250,000 penalty, to be split by the state and federal government, and to spend at least $50,000 on environmental-study projects in the community. Among other settlement terms, the town will also hire auditors to review practices at its waste-water treatment plant.
Town Manager Rocco J. Longo said he believes town officials tried to do the best job they could at the time, and did not knowingly break environmental laws.
"It's good that we reached a resolution," said Longo, who has been town manager since 2005; the alleged violations largely occurred between 1976 and 2003. "Really, we want to have a partnership" with the US Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection . "We want to do what's right -- we want to do what's right for everyone, and hopefully we'll do that going forward."
Kathleen E. Woodward, a senior enforcement lawyer for the EPA, called the settlement negotiations "a challenging process." But in the end, "I think Billerica came around and decided they wanted to be more proactive on the environmental front, and so we ultimately came up with a settlement that was mutually beneficial to the parties" and the public, she said.
According to environmental officials, Billerica regularly discharged backwash water and water-treatment sludge from its now-closed Boston Road water-treatment plant into a Concord River tributary and into the river itself without a permit, starting in 1976. (Billerica replaced its Boston Road water-treatment plant with a $36 million Treble Cove Road plant that began operating last year.) The discharge continued unchecked until 2002, when a volunteer organization called the Concord River Environmental Stream Team contacted the state about suspected river pollution near the treatment plant, triggering the first of a series of inspections, officials said. The EPA shared selected inspection documents with the Globe after the settlement was finalized.
Although environmental officials worked with the town after the 2002 discovery, a federal inspection the following summer revealed that Billerica's water-treatment plant was continuing to discharge backwash and sludge from the treatment process into a stream that feeds the river and into the river itself. A September 2003 report by an EPA environmental engineer described an odorous 250-foot-long cloud of particles and sediment in the water. While the EPA official was examining the Concord River, a "brown, cloudy plume" drifted toward the larger mass from a nearby lagoon used by the town's treatment plant.
The thick plume noted in the documents contained alum, an aluminum salt used for pulling solids from untreated water in the treatment process, said Douglas Koopman, an environmental engineer for the EPA. In addition to bringing solids from the treatment process with it, the alum continued to gather more solids once it was in the river, Koopman said. The resulting cloud blocked photosynthesis for aquatic plants, depressed oxygen levels, and damaged the river bed, creating a harsh environment for aquatic life, Koopman and Woodward said.
The sludge and backwater from the water-treatment process were supposed to be piped to the town's waste-water plant for processing starting in 1976, but the town apparently ran into early problems and directed the sludge and backwater toward the river instead, said Edith Goldman, a senior enforcement lawyer for the EPA.
"They did not either figure out how to fix it so it would work right or alternatively figure out how to treat the sludge at the site or ship it off," Goldman said. "They just discharged it, and they didn't have a permit for it."
At the same time they were working with the town on the water-treatment issues, environmental officials discovered that the town's waste-water treatment plant was exceeding permitted discharge levels for phosphorus, fecal coliform bacteria, and ammonia nitrogen, according to monthly monitoring reports submitted by the town; the discharge's pH levels were also in violation of federal standards.
The town also failed to submit some monitoring reports, according to the complaints filed. The phosphorus contributed to excessive aquatic plant growth in the river system, environmental officials said.
The EPA issued its enforcement order on Sept. 30, 2003. The town has increasingly cooperated in the years since, EPA officials said.
Longo, the town manager, said he believes Billerica water and waste-water officials did not knowingly violate regulations. "I can tell you one thing for sure: The town never hid anything. They did the best they could at the time," he said. But "I'm looking forward, not backward, and my knowledge of what happened 30 years ago and 20 years ago and 10 years ago is very limited."
John McGovern, longtime water superintendent for the town, declined to comment and deferred to Longo and the town counsel.
As part of the consent decree, Billerica will develop a pair of environmental monitoring projects -- one to examine the drinking water at town schools for the presence of lead, and one to evaluate whether a disinfectant byproduct known as NDMA is present in the town's drinking-water supply.
The second study will add to the body of knowledge about NDMA, a probable carcinogen that is not currently regulated, environmental officials said. The lead study will go above and beyond the requirements of the law, which calls for monitoring only the outgoing water at the treatment plant.
Federal law allowed the EPA to seek a maximum of $27,500 a day for the violations. Though short of that level, the resulting settlement represents a relatively large sum for a community of Billerica's size, Goldman said. Settlements vary from community to community and between public and private offenders, Goldman said, but "this was a very strong statement that this conduct was unacceptable," Goldman said.
Among other conditions, the 56-page settlement agreement also includes a sort of scarlet-letter provision. Any time a Billerica official makes an oral or written public statement about the lead or NDMA study projects, he or she must also include the following sentence: "This project was undertaken in connection with the settlement of an enforcement action taken by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in which the agencies alleged violations of the Federal Clean Water Act and the Massachusetts Clean Waters Act."
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com. 