Sustainability and Infrastructure Committee

Good evening, everyone. This is the Sustainability Infrastructure Committee. It is 6 p.m. on the dot. I am Chair Jesse Clingan. And before I get started, I'm going to read this blurb that allows us to do this meeting remotely. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of a City Council Committee will be conducted via remote participation. We will post an audio recording audio video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Somerville website and local cable access government channels. This evening we have Clerk Delaney. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll to establish quorum?

Yes, I can. Councilor Scott.

Present.

Hardt. Present. Chair Clingan.

Present.

All right with that we have all members present so we do have questions.

Okay great. So I am going to go in order sort of. Well do we have Who do we have from city staff here? I don't see anybody. I thought that Louisa was going to come speak about the port-a-potty. All right, so Madam Clerk, item number one, approval of the minutes of the Sustainability Infrastructure Committee meeting of April 29, 2026. We'll lay it on a table for a vote with adjournment at the end. Item number two, that the Director of Water and Sewer provide an overview of the water and sewer metering and billing practices. Director Raish is basically acting as the Director of Water and Sewer. So there's a number of items that relate to water and sewer that I'm going to have to keep in committee because Director Raish

is double booked at the CSO open house. And I would have, you know, I want to still hold this meeting because, well, let me just get through, then I'll explain what we're going to do. So item number three. I thought they were going to sell a memo. All right. Well, item number three, that the director of public works place a portable restroom at Hoyt Sullivan Playground. I was, that came from a constituent to Naeema and myself. I kind of know the answer, but we wanted to give it its due diligence. As far as getting a port-a-potty into that park, I believe it's... Thank you for joining us.

Something must have got crossed in the wire, so we're going to keep that one in committee as well. That brings us to item number four. That the director of Infrastructure and Asset Management appeared before this council to discuss the decision to implement a tiered residential base rate structure that differentiates between properties served by a 5-8 inch pipe and one served by a 1-inch pipe. That was my order. I'm going to keep that one in committee as well. And then item number five by myself that the Director of Water and Sewer appear before the Committee on Sustainability and Infrastructure to discuss the process by which it's determined whether Either requires a one-inch meter or a five-eighths-inch meter. This is kind of nuanced, but if the discussion wants to take place, it would make sense. I explained it a little bit at the big meeting that

Sometimes the installer was given the person the option and what it amounts to, five-eighths versus one-inch, is like $500 a year. And not everybody, you only need a one-inch most likely without the adapter. If you maybe have a sprinkler system, but you want to maintain your water pressure for your showers, it's a decision to be made there. But some people aren't given that option, so they don't know. So they're paying an extra $500 for no reason. But we're going to keep that one in committee. and so that brings us to our main event and the reason why I kept this meeting on As some of you may know, the friends of the Owl Wife Brooke have been working diligently and doing a lot of hard work on an alternative CSO plan. The city has its CSO plan that is presented. and CSO, meaning combined sewer water, sewer overflow. The comment period is open on that.

So I met with these folks and I wanted to give them a platform to publicly on record, recorded, be able to give their presentation so that people can then Watch that presentation and make comments, make public comment. I think the public comment option is open until September. I think it's sometime in September or maybe early October. I'm sure the folks from the Alway book could actually fill us in on that. It's hard to remember everything. So yeah, they've worked hard on this plan and this presentation. I wanted to make sure that they had this platform and so yeah we were able to squeak this meeting in before the break so I'm really happy to be able to do that I'm not sure so I know we have in the audience clerk Delaney I'm gonna have you

Elevate Michael Linetto first, and we'll see if he can explain to us who else might need to be elevated to participate in this event. Michael, I think you can unmute now. Can you hear us?

I can hear you and I can speak. I don't see you. Oh, there you are. Okay. So, Michael. Good. Thank you.

Michael, who else should we elevate to a panelist?

We're going to need Kristen Anderson. Okay.

Online.

Okay.

So the two of you are both elevated to panelists. I did have the presentation was emailed over earlier this afternoon. Madam Clerk, did you have that presentation? Okay, great. Look at that. Okay, so I don't have to run it. You don't have to run it, but you'll just have to say next slide and that stuff. So I'm going to hand it over to you in a minute. I just want to first... Yeah, finish setting the table. So yeah, so once I turn over to you, just say who you are, where you're from, for the record. And yeah, any questions before we get started from colleagues? Or anything so far on the agenda that I've kept in committee or otherwise? Okay. All right, so... Sorry, Save the Owl Wife. So folks from Save the Owl Wife, Michael or Kristen, whoever,

The floor is yours to head over and walk us through your presentation through your CSO alternative plan to the cities and hopefully we'll have a Good discussion and educate everybody to what other alternatives there might be.

Okay, hi, so I'm Mike Linetto. I am a Teal Square resident since 2012. I have been... I've been aware of the LOI for a while and had noticed in recent years that it was degrading and then only discovered about a year and a half ago the fact that there are combine sewer overflows on a regular basis into the air life and that is responsible for some of its degradation. I would say for a large portion of it. And about a year ago, I joined Save the Airwife Brook as a member of their steering committee, having attended some of the public meetings on it before that. and I've been involved with them in reviewing, commenting on and working with the team that did the planning.

And I just want to let you know that along with me, the other members of Save the Allied Broke have been at this a lot longer. They go way back to some of the Boston Harbor case in some cases. And Kristen's been a founding member of the group. doing this for a number of years and has been really the driving force behind the plan that she'll Present here, but with a lot of input from elsewhere, including from planning partners, the watershed associations, and others, and our coalition to end sewage pollution. And with that, I'd let it go to Kristen and let you say when you want the slides advanced.

All right. Thank you, Michael. And you can go to the next slide. Thanks, Mike. And thank you to Chair Clingan, Councilors Hardt and Scott for having saved the Elwhaif Brook here. Tonight to present, I've got about a 10 minute presentation. So my name is Kristen Anderson.

Kristen, I'm sorry, before I get started, Madam Clerk, can you just go full screen with the PDF that you're able to make it bigger? or status that we're all wearing. Is there...

I'll be honest, I use a second screen, so I can't tell what is full screen on your end. That's okay.

You know what? It's fine. Just use the Zoom feature. I think that looks like everything's in there, but we can see it better.

Great, great. Thank you for that. Yeah, so my name is Kristen Anderson and I'm here today representing Save the Elwife Brooke. Elwife Brooke flooded into my home and into my neighbor's homes. We got sick from exposure to the sewage in the water. It was terrible but there is an opportunity now to end sewage pollution at Illwife Brook. When heavy rain falls, sewage contaminated flood water overtops the banks of the brook and flows into homes, yards, and parks of very densely populated neighborhoods. This map shows the six active combined sewer overflow outfalls which discharge untreated sewage into Illwife Brook. One is from MWRA, four from Cambridge, and one is from Somerville.

Somerville's Tannery Brook outfall, which is known as Psalm 001A, discharges raw sewage from Davis Square and is in violation of the Boston Harbor court case. Next slide, please. So nowhere in the greater Boston area is the problem worse than it is at Alewife Brook. In 2023, 29 million gallons of untreated sewage was discharged into Elwife Brook. That same year, the brook flooded five times. After these storms, children rode bikes through untreated sewage-contaminated floodwater, joggers ran through it, and parents pushed baby strollers through it. Raw Sewage In the Alewife area, CSOs significantly worsen water pollution and increase health risks. for Environmental Justice Communities.

More than 5,000 people live in the Alewife Brooks 100-year floodplain, and when it floods, it floods with raw sewage. This photograph of a child riding her bike through sewage flood water is from the DCR Elwife Path in September 2023. In the Elwife area, yeah, CSO's... are very bad health risks for environmental justice communities. Next slide, please. Residents have testified that exposure to Illwife Brook sewage flood water has made them sick, and MWRA's own testing shows that during storms when the outfalls are discharging raw sewage, E. coli levels in Alewife Brook are roughly 950 times the standard EPA considers safe for swimming and nearly 300 times the standard for recreational contact. But this isn't only E. coli.

Although E. coli could kill you, E. coli is only the marker. These discharges expose people to live bacteria, viruses, and parasites, some much worse than E. coli, including norovirus and intestinal worms. A recent Boston University School of Public Health study found that just living near CSOs can increase the risk of illness serious enough to require an emergency room visit, possibly through aerosolized particulates. Next slide, please. Climate change is expected to make things much worse. Cambridge hired... Climate scientists to look at how climate would be changing in the next 30 years. And those scientists...

that were hired are Dr. Degutano from Cornell and Dr. Ghosh from Weston & Sampson. and they found the average rainfall will rise from 47.1 inches to 49.5 inches by 2050 and that a single two-year storm will grow from 3.2 inches to 4 inches. That is a 25% jump. The consequence is on this slide. It's from MWRA's February board meeting. L-Wife discharges are projected to nearly triple from 7.29 million gallons to 20.9 million gallons and in rainy years it's much worse tanks and tunnels Aboff,

and we all wonder why are we paying to treat stormwater at Deer Island? Next slide, please. Sewer separation removes stormwater from MWRA's regional system, which increases capacity locally and regionally. It reduces sanitary sewer overflows, reduces basement backups, reduces localized flooding and reduces secondary treatment bypasses at Deer Island. and crucially complete sewer separation leads to CSO elimination. So sewer separation is really the gold standard and it has a lot of benefits. Next slide, please. Last November, MassDEP wrote to ask for a plan that satisfies federal...

federal and state standards by quote, achieving the highest feasible level of CSO control, end quote. Our position at Save the Alewife Brook is simple, and that is that community health and environmental impacts mandate that any plan for Alewife Brook must end CSO sewage pollution while reducing flooding and improving water quality. The draft plan that is before us now fails to do this. The draft plan does not achieve the highest feasible level of CSO control. Next slide please. And I want to look for a minute at the draft plan that is currently on the table. And I do so respectfully because a lot of work has gone into it. The current draft plan is described as achieving zero CSOs in a 2050 typical year at an estimated cost of $340 million.

And here's our concern. A typical year is roughly an average year, and many years have more rain than average. Therefore, in at least half of all years, this plan at $340 million still sends raw sewage into a densely populated flood-prone area. A single five-year storm would result in 15 million gallons of untreated sewage into Elwife Brook. That's after this plan is built. Once the tanks and the tunnel are built, they are not easily expandable at a reasonable cost, which means that this plan is not resilient to climate change. 99.9% of the CSO control in the alewife draft plan is storage and only 0.1% is sewer separation. And I just want to say that again.

99.9% of the CSO control in the Alewife draft plan is storage and only 0.1% is sewer separation. And in fact, 0% is sewer separation in Somerville. There is no sewer separation planned for Somerville at Alewife Brook. This draft plan commits to decades of sewage discharges and it does not scale with an increase in rainfall from climate change. Next slide please. I want to talk a minute about cost. And this slide actually came from the Charles River Watershed Association and the Mystic River Watershed Association and Mystic River Watershed Association was disappointed that they were not able to be here tonight. By the way, I wanted to say that.

If there is another opportunity to speak before the council, They would certainly love to be there. So elimination, sewage elimination is not expensive on a per household basis. in the MWRA's system. The difference in household sewer bills between the least expensive plan and the plans that would virtually eliminate sewage in all three rivers, the Charles, Mystic, and Alewife, is only $99 per year per household in the MWRA system. For only $99 per household per year, which is roughly a cup of coffee and a donut Every month or something like that, we can stop dumping raw sewage into our rivers. This is an absolute no brainer. We should do this. Next slide, please.

So Save the Old Wife Brook has created a community plan and after receiving some feedback from Somerville and its consultants at Dewberry as well as from MWRA and Cambridge we modified our community plan to make it even better. and four things basically make up the Somerville component of the community plan. 1. There's 126 acres of sewer separation paired with green stormwater infrastructure 2. It requires diverting untreated CSO to an existing treatment facility 3. There's engineered elimination of the Tannery Brook CSO regulator. The regulator is basically the thing that allows the sewage to go into the brook. and four and most importantly it is fully funded by the MWRA. This is not aspirational.

The preliminary cost is $229 million and it can be built in 15 years or less. It actually finishes the job of eliminating sewage pollution from Davis Square and West Somerville at Alewife Brook. And just to be clear, this $229 million, this is for projects in Somerville. We are asking... for MWRA to commit to funding $229 million in infrastructure upgrades in Somerville. Next slide please. This map gives you a better sense of where the sewer separation would be. It is 126 acres, which would cost $126 million.

We included in our costing the Dewberry Sewer Shed CA alternative projects. which costs $92 million and 10% green stormwater infrastructure costs about $11 million for a total of $229 million fully funded by MWRA. Next slide, please. Save the Elwhife Brooks Community Plan has a lot of... Positive outcomes and it has been met with positive feedback from the community. It eliminates sewage pollution in the brook, reduces flooding, improves water quality and increases sewer system capacity in Somerville and in the MWRA's system regionally. And next slide, please.

And I want to talk for a minute about MWRA and why we need to use their funding. So using MWRA's funding is fair and it lowers the total cost. MWRA was created in 1984 out of the Boston Harbor cleanup court case. specifically to solve this kind of regional problem and it was given a dedicated funding mechanism to do it. MWRA was able to raise $5 billion by issuing bonds and with that money they built Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant which delivered around $100 billion return in investment. It is one of the great Clean Water Act successes in the country. The bonds that were originally issued to do that work. are now expiring.

Over the next 10 years, MWRA has the capacity to issue $2.1 billion in new bonds with no shock to ratepayers. because MWRA's budget already exists to cover the debt service on new bonds. Furthermore, under the Boston Harbor Court case's second stipulation, MWRA is legally and financially responsible for the CSOs that are in violation of the court case, including the Tannery Brooks CSO. Psalm 001a For that outfall, the city is not responsible for the cost up to the point of bringing it into compliance with the court. So let's take this opportunity to have MWRA fund the responsible and climate resilient strategy. which is sewer separation. By using MWRA, we are funding this regional solution to lower the total cost. It will never be cheaper to do this work than it is now

And frankly, it would be financially irresponsible for the city of Somerville not to take advantage of MWRA funding to solve the problem now. And I want to just cover a few points here about the funding. First of all, former MWRA Executive Director Fred Lasky told a Cambridge City Councilor, at the Charles River Watershed Association's award ceremony this spring that MWRA has money to fund elimination of sewage in our rivers Second, we confirmed the available bonding capacity with a former MWRA chief financial officer. The funding capacity is there. And third, per the MWRA's draft plan, the cost of complete elimination in all rivers is only $99 annually to MWRA households.

that is the the cost um that is the the cost difference between let me rephrase that the cost difference between the worst plan which is what we see before us now is absolute bare minimum Lemon Plan, and complete elimination of sewage in our rivers is only $99 annually to households in the MWRA system. Next slide, please. So our ask of the sustainability and infrastructure committee is to support 126 acres of sewer separation, which is the area that drains to the Tannery Brook conduit. Redirection of remaining CSO flows to an existing CSO treatment facility Removal of the Tannery Brook CSO regulator My voice is going

Excuse me. Get some water. There's no rush. Get some water.

and full MWRA funding of these projects to remove the burden from the city's budget. And this would end sewage pollution at Illwife Brook. And that's the end of our presentation.

Great. Well, we really appreciate it. I'm sure we have some questions from colleagues. I have a couple myself. I'll open it up to questions. All right, well, while other people are thinking of their questions. So, Kristen, when you say fully funded by MWI, but then you say $99 to households, so you're talking about like, these would be like loans?

um well the MWRA um Their budget is close to a billion dollars annually and it is nearly completely funded by the rate payers. So the MWRA bills municipalities for water and sewer. and um then the municipalities so then Somerville turns around they they will pay MWRA but then they pat some the city will pass along the bill to um to their residents, to the households. And what MWRA has been trying to do is MWRA has been trying to charge the cities of Cambridge and Somerville

Hundreds of millions of dollars for these plans to control CSO. in the cities of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. Meanwhile, MWRA is charging Boston nothing. And so what MWRA wants to do is they want to charge all of their municipalities for this. And then they want to double bill the city of Somerville. charge the city of Somerville hundreds of millions of dollars and it's not fair and not only is it not fair but we we question whether or not it's legal we have two um lawyers on our steering committee. And we've looked at the second stipulation, which is part of the Boston Harbor Court case. And it's very clear that MWRA has the responsibility to pay for these projects to bring the CSOs into compliance with the court case.

The court case is not over yet. It's, I think, the longest running court case that's ongoing at the moment. But yeah, so what we would love to see the city council take a stand and demand that MWRA funds this because if MWRA does not fund this, then we are not going to have a solution to the problem. They have to fund it.

A couple things. I'm not an engineer and I'm not a lawyer. We kind of rely on city staff to sort of help us work through these things, direct us. So we're trusting in our city staff. Obviously, as Councilors, and actually I saw the Mayor did like an op-ed about the burden on us, especially where we're not, you know, we're not Cambridge, we're not Boston, and we're really being asked to shoulder quite the burden, and we don't really have all kinds of money. But the council has expressed disappointment and, quite frankly, anger at what we're being asked to do as a municipality. I'm still trying to figure out the $99. As you know, we're already increasing our water rates so that we can increase the enterprise fund to fund...

This project and other projects that will contribute to our infrastructure needs. So I'm just trying to figure out what exactly the $99 means. Like where...

That $99 comes from the MWRA's draft plan under financial capability. So that comes from MWRA's own... That comes from MWRA.

A couple things, and you don't have to know everything. Even though I'm asking these questions, if you don't know, these are questions that can also be directed towards... Director Raish. Yes. I'm also going to allow for a little free flow conversation. So we're just going to use the raise hand feature for anyone that wants to speak. So in other words, Michael, if you want to have something to say. or I'll even allow some audience members I see that George is here my friend George from Nage so I will allow we'll go in order but first I'm going to Defer to my colleagues. So I'm going to call upon Councilor Hardt. Go right ahead.

Thank you. And I'm happy to I'm happy to let Mike go first and happy to hear from more more people before I Ask my questions.

Okay. Well, I saw Michael raise his hand. Michael, you have the floor. Just speak through the chair if you can, please.

Thank you, Jesse, Chairman. I just wanted to refer back. So the way that we got to that $99 figure was by looking at the overall cost of the most ambitious plan that MWRI put out there, which included the full sewer separation. and the proposed plan. And that $99 per household per year is the... The difference in cost divided by a million households and spread over 20 years, I believe. So it's not cheap. We're not saying that this is an easy... Win. What we're saying is that it's doable. It's within reason and it's within the NWRA's capability to do this and that the actual impact on individual Households is a lot less to go from the half plan to the full plan.

That's the argument I believe we're making, and Kristen could correct me on that.

Yeah, I mean, we think that it's unfair that MWRA is trying to double charge the city of Somerville and the city of Cambridge for this. This is a regional problem. And yesterday's sewer systems, these combined sewer systems were not built for tomorrow's storms. and it's really MWRA's regional sewer system that is failing to send flows to the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant and that's because they need to remove the stormwater from the sewer system and it's expensive work it's why MWRA exists And we are really impressed by the good financial work that...

MWRA has, their finances have been great over the years and they should be commended for that. We greatly appreciate that and now we want to see them Finish the job because they're using the Elwife Brook as an open sewer. So, yeah, so we're hoping that the city council will take a stand on this. We think that if enough legislators take a stand on this, It'll help to push MWRA in the right direction because we think this is political. It's just not right that they're trying to double charge Somerville. And George Leight might like to speak to this. I think George has quite a lot to say about it.

I don't see his hand up right now, but I do see Beth Clark. Madam Clark, can you unmute Beth?

Hello. Can you hear me?

Yeah, we can hear you.

All right. Chairman Clingan, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'd like to thank Save Alewife Brooke for their presentation. I'm a resident of Arlington and I am a town meeting member. I think the presentation and the community plan that Save Alewife Brook members worked so hard on It's very important and what we're asking for is Vision and leadership from the Somerville City Council to support this community plan. They did their homework at Save Alewife Brook. They figured all this stuff out. And it's simply incomprehensible to me as a resident of Arlington.

My neighbors in East Arlington, those 5,000 people that live in the floodplain for Alewife Brook, are essentially exposed, as you saw from the 2023 photos, and the Millions of raw sewage, raw sewage or CSOs or combined sewer overflows during a storm. Those are all euphemisms for tampons, prophylactics, and poo coming from Davis Square area, coming from Somerville. So... I think it's incomprehensible Arlington is utilized in this manner, essentially that Somerville is emptying their chamber pots over the border into our community. Save Our Wife Brooke has done a lot of work.

They've figured out that MWRA created to clean up this mess is responsible for paying for it. They should not be double billing Somerville, certainly. So I ask the members of the council and Chairman Clingan To review again the plan that Kristen's presented, talk to her, talk to the other members. and to please support this community plan this is democracy they figured it out we're citizens we figured it out the bureaucrats were not doing a good enough job and they were given us the shaft. So please, you have the power. Support this democratic initiative.

In the very best, brought before you in the very best manner in this 250th year of the anniversary of The founding of our nation. I mean, this is what it's all about. We don't even have representation among the partners. Alewife has no representation, yet we're the site for the chamber pot receptacle. So I've spoken enough. Thank you again, Chairman Clingan, for the opportunity. And we are looking to you, to Somerville, to the council for the vision and the leadership to make this a success. and allow the sewer separation, demand sewer separation from MWRA. Thank you very much and make them pay for it. Thank you.

Well, that's the only way it's going to get done because we're, we don't, you know, as a city, we're struggling financially. We're pushing our community members with rate increases. To the tune of, you know, double digits every budget cycle. So that's why the mayor, I think, wrote that op-ed. And that's why, I don't know... if you all how in touch you've been you know usually with the state stuff it's peer-to-peer in the sense that the state delegation um has a lot more leverage than the squawky city council um State agencies don't tend to care much what we have to say. And like I said, the mayor has been trying to use the media with this article. Michael?

Am I still on? Oh, okay. So, yeah, if Councilor Hardt wishes to speak, I would step back. But I wanted to just ask actually a sort of separate or another question in terms of What are the options? What can we do with the committee and the council here? For instance, would the full council get behind submitting a public comment? in support of sewer separation and MWRA responsibility to the regulatory bodies that are reviewing this issue. As part of the public comment to the regulatory bodies that are reviewing this plan would be one way and or would be willing to put together a public statement.

I mean, I'll put you on the spot, JT. Anything come to mind in terms of... I mean, my instinct would be that we would be signing on to something that our city's, you know, director of asset and infrastructure management... would be asking. Otherwise, we're just kind of fighting against ourselves. If our city isn't, if our mayor and our engineering department aren't In the fight with us, then essentially. So yeah, I mean, there's certainly some sort of communication that we could make with, you know, with hopefully the state delegation as well. But if there's no buy-in from, I know you all have met with, if there's no buy-in from the city and the administration, I think it's really just becomes difficult. At least that's my sense. I don't know.

but more on that in a sec so we'll just go to thank you yeah no problem

Thank you, Chair Clingan. My question was, well, I have a couple of questions. One related to that point. I just wanted to ask, I know that when Director Raish made the presentation to the City Council, of the Somerville plan right before it was submitted. I raised the question of the community plan proposal and Excuse me. I know he's been very, very busy because I think, you know, went straight from that into the city's budget process. So I'm not expecting this to have happened yet, but I did wonder... Kristen and Mike, if you have been able to get feedback from Director Raish in the past month or so. We have not.

Okay, so I think for me that's... Yeah, and actually we've been asking for feedback from him for months. And it's just been nothing but crickets.

Yeah, so I would second that we asked him at a meeting with the mayor specifically and then followed up after that. And that was before the plan was submitted. He said he would get back to us after the plan was submitted. We've had a meeting with the rest of the organizing group of the city. Planning Group that he could not attend and then of course and he couldn't make it here tonight either so you know while we've been trying we have not gotten direct contact with uh

Yeah, we've been open to it. We've been asking for it and it's just, he doesn't seem to have time for us.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I should have started my comments by thanking you so much. I know all of the work that you've put into this, and I absolutely... agree that, you know, going forward with the current plans doesn't really make sense given the, you know, what we know is going to be happening from climate change and just, you know, that it's not not going far enough in terms of public health like all of the things that you said so I'm I definitely want to, you know, help figure out how we can move this forward. The other question I had was about, you said that Fred Lasky, that sounded like quite a development if Fred Lasky, like, could you repeat what you said?

Yeah. I was actually there, so I can say this as an eyewitness. And so I'm the person who told Christmas. So what he said to, is it Kathy Zuse? Zuse. Counselor? Counselor Zuse, yeah. Yeah. She asked about, you know, you know, Yeah, this sounds like it's going to be tremendously expensive. And you said, well, you know, the money is there, but what do you want to spend it on? And they want to spend, MWA wants to spend it on other things. That is my understanding. They want to, they need, in the long run, they need a... Additional redundancy in the freshwater delivery system. That's what they want to spend it on, which will be very, very expensive.

But the money that is available to fund the CSO control plans for Charles, Mystic, and Elwife-Brooke, those bonds must be issued immediately. from retiring bonds on suicide. So they... MWRA has very good rating. They can issue these bonds at very low interest rates. Much lower than Somerville can. That is my understanding. So...

And yeah, and if I may add in, the way that they fund these bonds and the way that they have have been able to maintain solvency according to them is they have a long-term 3% a year increase in rates built in. And I believe that's 3% on top of inflation, but I could be wrong.

Thank you. Chair Clingan, could I ask one more question? Yeah, sure. I wanted to ask about the Boston Harbor court case and the legal issues and what How much faith or promise is in that, pursuing that route? Have you spoken to MWRA or gotten a statement about what their How they understand the second stipulation?

They refuse to address it. They will not discuss it.

Yeah, they're still in court over this with the other parties, including the plaintiffs, the Conservation Law Foundation.

And we have met with Conservation Law Foundation. So... But, I mean, we can share with you... Actually, this information... The funding information is in the community plan. And you can see information about the second stipulation there. And those court documents, they're of public record. So you can... download them from Pacer uh and review them or have you know the city's council review them uh but uh we really we really we all we see really is solutions at ill wife brook um but it is the financing of it that always gets in the way But there's money now. So...

We need a political solution, really, to the problem because the money is there. It's no longer a financial problem. It's a political problem. And that's why we come to you to ask for help because You could pass a policy order asking for MWRA to properly fund this and to stop trying to make the city pay. Hundreds of millions of dollars, which that's That's what they're trying to do right now for a plan that will continue to dump sewage in the Brook in the future. The storage tanks and the tunnel on public park land which nobody wants. Nobody wants that public parkland to be used for a tunnel.

But the public would like to see large green stormwater infrastructure on DCR parkland. They'd like to see another stormwater wetland to receive stormwater flows there. because that's an amenity and it's a great use of the parkland and it's great infrastructure to boot. Yeah, so other ideas that we have is we have seen Cambridge City Council pass policy orders that involve sending letters to the governor. I think that the governor should be made aware of this very unjust situation where MWRA is trying to bill

The city of Somerville hundreds of millions of dollars to essentially subsidize sewer separation in The city of Boston. There are hundreds of acres of sewer separation in Boston and Boston's paying nothing. Why is Cambridge and Somerville paying for that?

Doesn't make any sense.

Yep. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. So to go back to the question you had asked a while back, obviously, you know, the City Council can submit a communication to the MWRA. to the governor and to various entities making them aware of the problem here. But as you said, without the mayor and the director of infrastructure and asset management's buy-in, But it doesn't go very far. That said, I guess I'm just confused because, you know, director Raish, he's a Somerville resident. and longtime city employee and also I believe the chair of the MWRA's advisory board. So, you know, who would seem to be well positioned to both understand the issue and to advocate for the MWRA.

Taking a more proactive and expansive approach here, I guess I'm just at a loss as to what other priorities are being balanced here. I do not believe that Director Raich is out to stick it to the town he lives in necessarily. I heard mention of Another priority being the redundancy in freshwater supply. Obviously, having freshwater is pretty important, but I didn't catch all that. Can somebody elaborate a little bit more for me about what that piece of it is? I think we are able to prioritize instead of investing in the CSO control plan.

Well, I can take a stab at that. So I brought it up, so I should fix it. So the way that the bonding is written, there are separate sewerage and... Water Supply Budgets. But overall, the MWRA has its own priority setting. And when they've spoken in the board meetings, they've spoken about whether having to spend the money on sewage control would preclude them spending it on other things. Since if this is done as part of the court settlement, which is if this plan is accepted that's what it would become then they would lose the flexibility to They would be forced to spend the money, say, if there are cost overruns or whatever. They would have to stay on this.

My impression from listening to the board was that their concerns were... that they would lose flexibility but that flexibility comes to me at the expense of making any commitment to ending the sewage pollution.

Okay. So I didn't hear the... Freshwater redundancy, an explanation of what that was.

That was one of the things that was brought up, say that we had to spend the money on on the sewage separation or sewer separation or sewage mitigation and what would happen then if our Budget became constrained. We would have to cut other things out, basically what they're saying. And one of the examples they gave was that secondary pipe for water supply. These are the big pipes coming from Quabbin Reservoir.

Right.

that they want to, you know, produce. They want to add a parallel pipe.

All right. Well, I mean, I guess, Mr. Chair, this... It definitely does sound like it comes to a question of priorities, of spending priorities. Those are policy decisions made by the MWRA. I feel like I've got more questions tonight than I did before and I already had a lot of questions before. So, you know, it sounds like I've got some more digging in to do. Both with our director to understand Somerville's priorities here, but also to understand the MWRA's priorities and his perspective on it.

Yeah, I'm happy to work with you. I'll put something in after the break and and You'll have him come in. And if Cambridge was able to get this Lasky guy in, then maybe we can try to get him to the table as well. Too late.

He just retired. So we have an acting director now. Oh, yeah.

You can get you could probably talk to the interim director to see if he could come in and speak with you. And I'd also recommend asking someone, you know, like the chief financial advisor. Officer to come in and explain some of these financial details. Because the MWRA Advisory Board is supposed to be a separate entity. It's supposed to be independent of MWRA. The director of asset management and infrastructure, Rich Raich, is the chair of the MWRA advisory board, and they are tasked with trying to keep costs low. for all of the municipalities in the MWRA's system.

Rich Raish's job for MWRA Advisory Board is to make sure that other cities and towns besides Somerville do not have to pay very much money. And I would question whether or not there is a conflict of interest there. This is a regional problem. It requires a regional solution. MWRA was created to address this problem regionally and at Elwife Brook where you've got the brook is literally the municipality's line. It's the line between Cambridge... and Arlington and Somerville and Arlington.

That brook is right on the edge of all of these cities and towns. Everything that comes out of the Brook ends up in the Mystic River, which impacts Medford and East Somerville. um so it's it's beneficial for everybody and it would also doing more sewer separation I know wife Brooke would also um increase sewer system capacity. And, you know, Rich Raich is planning 95 acres of sewer separation as part of these CSO control plans. at the Mystic River. So we don't think we've been very fair here. We're not asking for full sewer separation. We're just asking for 126 acres that are Tributary to the Tannery Brook Conduit.

But I have a great deal of respect for Director Raish. And so we would love to talk to him some more about this.

I lost audio for a minute there. I thought we lost your audio. I was talking to myself for a minute there. Oh, I see George has had his hand up for a while, waiting patiently there. Madam Clerk, if you could just allow George to speak. We'll just get some final comments and then we'll figure out next steps.

Very good. Thank you. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Very good. Thank you very much, Councilor. I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words before you tonight. And thank you to the other members of the Council for having asked us to be here tonight and be willing to look into the matter and help in any way possible. I just want to say one a couple of things actually from the point of view of cost obviously cost is extremely important we don't deny that I certainly don't deny that having been a working politician myself for the last and many more. and many more. Thank you. Somewhat irresponsible, quite frankly. I mean, I go back over 30 years when the Boston Harbor cleanup occurred. And I, at the time, met with a member of the board of directors of the Mass Water Resources Authority, who happened to be a select board member from the town of Arlington.

A guy by the name of Charlie Lyons, some of you may remember him, but Charlie in fact told me at that time in one of the board meetings, I went to the board meeting and he told me and other people that They were promising to finish the job. Phase one would take place. The cleanup would occur to the degree that it has. But then phase two, the remaining CSOs would be closed as well, including Al Weifbrook. It was a very specific statement made at that time. and I think people in not only Arlington but Cambridge and Somerville who boarded the Brook, who use the Brook for recreational purposes have been waiting long enough to get this thing straightened away and taken care of. And again, it's something that should be paid for by the MWRA, not the city of Somerville. But it's a matter that has to be addressed. your citizens have waited long enough as I said with everyone else and we were promised something that has yet to materialize so I would certainly ask you in any way possible to Use your influence because you do have influence as counselors. You may not seem that way sometimes, but you do. And any influence you can use to

Come up with a better plan here to eliminate sewers. Dumping into Al Whitebrook would be extremely helpful and beneficial to all the community members. And I think politically, it's not the right thing to do. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, George. I appreciate it. Yeah, just so I can lay out the math as far as the way I see it is. As usual, the council is being told that we're being mandated by the state to do this thing. The city has come up with this plan that at least will address the issue, not perfectly. and you know the city's engineer like you know that kind of leaves us basically being like well okay so like you know it's not We don't have very much. I mean, the mayor is he was trying to use the media and that tells you like, you know, the bind that we're in. He wrote an op ed that was in the Boston Globe because clearly, you know. The state does not have a lot of sympathy. They actually, you know, we're raising the rates on our rate payers exponentially year by year.

And based on the area median income, they think we could actually squeeze more. and you know we're taking a beating politically over these increases just to pay for the things that we do need paid for so if you have that in writing somewhere George or like if there's a video of that and you know that would be that would be Right, if we were promised something, but as far as everybody's concerned now, Somerville and Cambridge are on the hook for their portion. And, you know, that seems to be the way it is. Again, not trying to sound defeated. I mean, I'll certainly work to, you know, the state delegation is the key. I mean, this is peer to peer. They don't, you know, we have a state senator and, you know, three state reps in the city of Somerville. I don't know if you've all been able to meet with them at all or where they stand on it, but they certainly usually have a lot more traction than some city councilors, especially where, again, our city isn't

you know leading the charge on this so it would look like we were fighting amongst our infighting you know um have you all met with any of the state delegation

Yes, we've been meeting with them regularly and they are very supportive. We asked them for money for the city of Somerville and for the city of Cambridge. To be included in the environmental bond bill, we went in and spoke with, we went into the state house to meet with the chair of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee, Christine Barber and her staff. And we meet regularly with... We've met regularly with Senator Jalen and with other area legislators, including... Rep. Rogers, who represents Cambridge and Belmont.

I got you, I got you. Yeah. Arlington, yeah, Garavaglia.

Yeah, I mean.

No, I understand all that. I'm saying, have they said anything like, what about putting pressure on the MWRA?

Well, there are opportunities to do that. And that's what we're asking you to do as well. And we don't see this as being at odds at all with what. I think that if you put more pressure on the Director of Asset Management and Infrastructure to ask MWRA to properly fund this project at Alewife Brook, That would be extremely helpful. Even writing a letter to the mayor asking for his support to have MWRA fully fund these projects. I don't see how... I don't see why the mayor wouldn't want to do that, honestly. Why wouldn't he want MWRA to pay for this?

Oh, I think he does. I think we all do.

Right. Well... So how about a letter from the city of Somerville, the city councilors, and the mayor saying, asking MWRA to fund this to fund a solution at Ill Wife Brook At the very least, bring the Tannery Brooks CSO into compliance with the federal court case. It's kind of ridiculous that it's so far out of compliance. It's really bad. MWRA should pay for that and they should pay for it you should choose sewer separation why are you choosing why is the city of Somerville choosing the least effective strategy in the face of climate change Storage on public parkland. That doesn't make any sense. You should be pushing for sewer separation. And so we would ask that you write a letter to the...

Director of Asset Management and Infrastructure requesting that since it's a climate resilient solution to the problem and also to the mayor, maybe organize a meeting where this could be discussed or something. It seems like there's a lot. that you could do to use your voice to support ending sewage pollution at Illwife Brook.

Sure, voice, sure, absolutely. It's just I want to do something effective that's actually going to get them to move. Councilor Hartman?

Thank you. Just on this topic, I believe that when this was brought up at the Council meeting that Director Raish said there wasn't the like that the capacity did not exist that because Somerville has borne the brunt of like The sewer infrastructure over the years for the Boston area. I don't quite understand this all, so I really apologize. I do not have a great... Grasp on the infrastructure aspects. But I believe he was saying like because like Somerville really has borne the brunt of a lot of the work including that has benefited Boston that um like that we just don't have like the space underground and like the capacity.

So I'm just curious, I raise that now because I'm wondering what you think about that through you chair to Kristen and Mike.

Oh, well, I don't understand what the claim is. The claim is that sewer separation is impossible. Is that what is being stated? That there's no room underground to do sewer separation? That's not true. Okay, I don't think I have to put words in Director H's mouth. I mean, there's a commitment by the city to do 95 acres of sewer separation in the Winter Hill area. as part of this CSO control plan that is tributary to the Mystic River to reduce CSOs. It's awesome. We love to see that. And we want to see the same thing at Illwife Brook.

I think yeah we're just struggling because we're not engineers and so we're basically telling our head engineer you know We'd be telling our head engineer to do something that he's saying can't be done. We're just struggling to find an avenue that's going to be really effective. Like I said, the mayor took to the media. Clearly, that's desperation. It doesn't sound like we have a lot. We can certainly write letters and hold meetings, but it seems like at the end of the day, the state doesn't bend for us. I think our state delegation would be the best route in terms of being able to you know whatever get to the governor uh and then yeah that would be but but i'm happy to do whatever you think would be helpful i just i'm just struggling to find a path that

and I really I'm gonna we're gonna wrap things up in a minute because we could go in circles all day long here I just um you know we we heard that we have the plan um we understand The better, you know, what would be better would be sewer separation. How we get there, I think, is the challenge. Go ahead, Michael.

This is the last piece. What's missing in this current plan as proposed is there's no commitment to end the sewage pollution, and that's what we're looking for. That plan was put together with the idea of coming up with a plan with a commitment that would satisfy the court as opposed to a commitment that would actually solve the problem. and that's where we started from on this and and we're still there we've been pushing that group Long way. We got them to go part of the way and we're stuck. So anything that we can do to move this Plan towards modernizing sewers and actually making it work. And then as everybody has said here, making it work financially, we're all for. So thank you for your time.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And like I said, we are we're I mean. Yeah, you know, I still find it unbelievable that Somerville is being, you know, we don't have the money Cambridge has. Maybe we can borrow some money from Arlington or something. But we're struggling over here. And this is a really big job. And we have other major jobs. I mean, we have the infrastructure work that we're doing across the city. I'm going to let... Beth speak. I see your hand up. If we could just unmute her. She has a burning desire to say something before we part ways. And go ahead, Beth, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Clingan. Absolutely. We're respectfully asking you to pick up your political power, pick it up off the table and use it. I mean, I'm assuming you guys are elected. Director Raish is a civil servant. Tell him what you want him to do. You want solutions. That's what Save Alewife Brooke, that's what the residents of Arlington are asking for. We're asking for solutions. Tampons, prophylactics, and poo being thrown over the border at Alewife Brook into the brook. There are 5,000 people that live in the floodplain for the Alewife Brook. The Tannery Brook CSO cut the crap. Sewer separation. We're asking for what was mandated by the court case.

Say their wife Brooke did the hard work. They peeled the onion. Stipulation number two, MWRA needs to pay for it. tell them that you guys have power pick it up use it tell them what you expect please respectfully democracy we still have it we're in Massachusetts thank you very much all right

Anything else, colleagues, on this?

No, I just want to thank the advocates for coming in for a very helpful conversation. Unfortunately, I am leaving with more questions than I started tonight. That's happy to carry these conversations over the summer. I appreciate your offer, Mr. Chair. I'd be happy to work with you on putting something together.

yeah just for um so Kristen um just before we go so when is the comment period it closes on because I know that's tonight so we wanted to make sure we got this meeting on the books I promise you guys we would you know I wanted to get it done so that people could Tune in or you could share it out and then people could comment because we go on break soon. And I know the comment period, I believe, if you all could refresh my memory, I think it goes until... on our current proposed plan.

Yeah, I believe it's through the month of September.

Right, yeah. I think it's the end of September, beginning of October. So... This is a really great presentation and starting point for if people want to get more involved. Like I said, me and Councilor Hardt and Scott will strategize on what we can do.

Thank you. Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to present. We really appreciate it.

I mean, look, you guys, you did the work and we really appreciate all the advocacy you're doing, especially for the Owl Wife, Brooke. you know I hear you on like we're elected officials but we find ourselves frustrated all the time that we you know the mayor tells rich what to do not you know we can we can try to tell him what to do but he's not you know so so anyway we we have to come up with more uh you know like definitely courts I mean anything you lean on with the courts I mean that is like we need we need something that we can we can We're looking for a political solution to the problem.

We think that it's there and we think that... If the Somerville City Council could make a statement that MWRA should fully fund the end of sewage pollution at Illwife Brook, that would go a long way towards sending a political message. um and uh I don't see how Director Raish or the mayor could be opposed to that. We know there are solutions. Engineering-wise, it's just a matter of money.

Yeah, no, they wouldn't be opposed. Just if we were sending one message and then our engineer was like, yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not signing off on that for these reasons. You know what I mean? Like, we just have to be all on the same page or else it's just...

I mean, you got to talk to him, I guess. Where is he?

He's actually at a listening session. He's at the CSO open house, yeah. Like I said, I would have tried to reschedule if it wasn't right up against the break, you know, the budget season really. affects all of our abilities to get these committee meetings going. But I did want to make sure we got this one on. No, we hear you loud and clear. And we need to go back and strategize and think about I mean I would just say to you in terms of strategy we have like literally we have a state state senator race with like two three city councilors that are involved in state rep and senate races I mean it's you know Election time is prime time.

We would love to share with you a rough draft of a policy order that you might consider. Thank you so much.

Thank you. That's not a problem at all. All right.

last thoughts colleagues I don't want to cut anybody off just say thank you again to the advocates really appreciate all of the work that you've done and I yeah I'm I feel very committed to figuring out how we can move things forward. Thank you.

Thank you all very much. We're in favor of anything that ends the sewage pollution.

Yeah, and thank you so much for your service to the city as well.

Yes. We see it's not an easy job.

Okay, well, I'm going to work complete this one, Madam Clerk. And I think that basically brings us to the end of the agenda. Except we just need to vote on approval of the minutes and adjournment. Let me know when you're ready.

Yep, whenever you are.

Okay, Councillor Scott moves to adjourn and approve the minutes.

All right, on approval of the minutes and adjournment. Councilor Scott? Yes. Councilor Hardt? Yes. Chair Klingan?

Yes.

All right, with that, that is all votes in favor of approval of the minutes and adjournment in 719 p.m.

Good night, everybody.

Thank you.