Public Utilities and Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. This is the Sustainability Infrastructure Committee. It is 6 p.m. on the dot. I am Chair Jesse Klingin. 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. Councillor Scott.

Present.

Councillor Hart. Present. Chair Klingon.

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. um all right so madam clerk item number one approval of the minutes of the sustainability infrastructure committee meeting of april 29 2026 uh we'll lay it out laid on a table for a vote with the german at the end item number two uh that the director of water and sewer provide an overview of the water and sewer metering and billing practices um so Director Raish is acting, he's 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 them all right well item number three that the director of public works place a portable restroom at white sullivan playground i was uh that came from a constituent to to naima and myself i um i kind of know the answer but we wanted to do it give it its due diligence um as far as getting a party into that park i believe it's really challenging. So we thought maybe there's an alternative across the street at Junction Park. I know it's not ideal to have people crossing Central Street, but it still might work. I guess there's even a more extensive answer. So I was looking for that update, but I guess 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 appear before this council to discuss the decision to implement a tiered residential base rate structure that differentiates between properties served by a five-eighth inch pipe and one served by a one-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 It requires a one inch meter or a five eighths inch meter. This is kind of nuanced, but it, you know, if the discussion wants to take place, it would make sense. I explained it a little bit at the big meeting, um, that sometimes the installer was given the person, the option and what it amounts to five eights versus one inch is like $500 a year. Um, 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 Brook 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 plan. 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 that white book could, could actually fill us in on that. It's hard to remember everything, but so, yeah, so I, they've worked hard on this, this plan and this presentation. I wanted to make sure that they had this platform. And so, yeah, we, we were able to squeak this meeting and 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 going to have you, you know, elevate Michael Lineto first, and we'll see. He can explain to us who else might need to be elevated to participate in this. 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. Let me get your screen. Good. Thank you.

Michael, who else should we elevate to a panelist?

We're going to need Kristen Anderson. Okay, online.

Okay, well, 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 do you have that presentation? Okay, great.

Look at that.

Okay, so I don't have to run it. Okay, 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 we want to 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, but 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 yeah, walk us through your presentation, through your CSO alternative plan to the cities and let's 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 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 combined sewer overflows on a regular basis into the Elwhaife, 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 Elwhaife 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 Brook 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 uh has been really the the driving force behind the the plan that she'll present here uh but with a lot of input from elsewhere uh including from uh planning partners the watershed associations and others and our coalition to end sewage pollution and with that i'd let it go to kristin 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 Klingin, Counselors Hart, and Scott for having saved the Elwha Brooke here tonight to present. I've got about a 10-minute presentation. So my name is Kristen Anderson. Kristen, I'm sorry.

Before we get started, Madam Clerk, can you just go full screen with the PDF? Are you able to make it bigger?

Or is that all right?

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

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 Wife Brook. Wife Brook 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 Wife 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 El Wife 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. This is 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 floodwater is from the DCR Alewife Path in September 2023. In the Alewife area, yeah, CSOs are very bad health risks for environmental justice communities. Next slide, please. Residents have testified that exposure to Alewife 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. This is... 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. Degatano from Cornell and Dr. Ghosh from Weston and 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 four inches. That is a 25% jump. The consequence is on this slide. It's from MWRA's February board meeting. Um, average year alewife discharges are projected to nearly triple from 7.29 million gallons to 20.9 million gallons. And in rainy years, it's much worse. Um, tanks and tunnels cannot be expanded once they are built. So the answer to more precipitation is modernization of the sewer system through sewer separation. Um, 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 Elwhife 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 wanna 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's 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 in Cambridge, we modified our community plan to make it even better. And four things basically make up the Somerville component of the community plan. One, there's 126 acres of sewer separation paired with green stormwater infrastructure. Two, it requires diverting untreated CSO to an existing treatment facility. Three, 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 cost $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, 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, SOM 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. Um, 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 is, it would be financially irresponsible for the city of Somerville not to take advantage of MWRA funding to solve the problem now. Um, and I want to, uh, just cover a few, um, points here about the funding, um, 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 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 cost. 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. All right. 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 Ilweif 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 MWRA, but then you say $99 to households. So you're talking about like, these would be like loans?

Well, the MWRA... Their budget is close to a billion dollars annually, and it is nearly completely funded by the ratepayers. So the MWRA bills municipalities for water and sewer. and then the municipalities, so then Somerville turns around, they will pay MWRA, but then the city will pass along the bill 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 question whether or not it's legal. We have two lawyers here. 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.

Okay, a couple things. So you know, I'm not an engineer and I'm not a lawyer. We kind of rely on, you know, city staff to sort of like help us work through these things, direct us on. So, you know, we're trusting in our city staff, obviously as counselors. 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 and 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, you know, disappointment and, you know, quite frankly, anger at what we're being asked to do as a municipality. I'm still trying to figure out the $99. Because, like, you know, like, 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, you know, 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 fund. That comes from MWRA. Okay.

A couple things. And you don't have to know everything. Like, you know, even though I'm asking these questions, if you don't know, like, these are questions that can also be, you know, directed towards Director Raish.

Yes.

I'm also going to, you know, 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 NAEH. So I will allow, we'll go in order, but first I'm gonna defer to my colleagues. So I'm gonna call upon Councilor Hart, go right ahead.

Thank you. And I'm happy to let Mike go first and happy to hear from 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, the I just wanted to refer back to the way that we got to that $99 figure was by looking at the cost, 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 NWR'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, uh, work that, um, MWRA has. They, their, their finances have been great over the years. Um, and they should be commended for that. Uh, we, we greatly appreciate that. And, and now we want to see them finish the job, uh, because, um, they're using, they're using the L wife Brooke as an open sewer. Um, So, yeah, so we're hoping that the city council will will take a stand on this. We think that if enough legislators take a stand on this, it'll help to put push MWRA in the right direction because we think this is political. It's just not right that they're trying to charge 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 Klingin, 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 Brooke 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 that 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, Davis Square area, coming from Somerville. So I think it's incomprehensible that 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. And they should not be double billing Somerville, certainly. So I ask the members of the council and Chairman Klingin 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 giving 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 Klingin, 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 don't, you know, usually with the state stuff, it's peer to peer in the sense that The state delegation has a lot more leverage than the squawky city council. 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?

Yeah, well, am I still on?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. So, yeah, if Councilor Hart wishes to speak, I would step back, but I wanted to just ask actually a sort of separate question or another question in terms of what are the options, like 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, you know, as part of the public comment to the regulatory bodies that are reviewing this plan would be one way and or willing, 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 ourself if our city isn't, if our mayor and our engineering department aren't you know, in the fight with us then essentially. Um, so yeah, I mean, there's certainly some sort of, um, communication that we could make, um, with, you know, with hopefully the state delegation as well. Uh, but if, but if there's no buy-in from, I know you all have met with, if there's no buy-in from the, from the city and the administration, I think it's really just becomes difficult. Uh, at least that's my sense. I don't know. Um, but more on that in a sec. So we'll just go to council. Yeah, no problem.

Thank you, Chair Klingin. 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, you know, 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 from straight from that into the city's budget process. So I am not expecting this to have happened yet, but I did wonder Kristen and Mike, if you have been able to get feedback from director Rache in the most recent, you know, in the past month or so. We have, 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 planning group, that he could not attend. And then, of course, he couldn't make it here tonight either. So, you know, while we've been trying, we have not gotten direct contact with Mr. Raish. 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. Like, I know all of the work that you've put into this. And I, you know, I absolutely appreciate 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 time climate change and and just you know that it's not not going far enough. In terms of public health like you 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. Could you repeat what you said?

I was actually there, so I can say this as an eyewitness. And so I'm the person who told Chris this. So what he said to, is it Kathy Zuse? Zuse. Counselor?

Counselor Zuse, yeah.

Yeah. She asked about, you know, this sounds like it's going to be tremendously expensive. And he said, well, you know, the money is there, but what do you want to spend it on? And they want to spend, the 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 Brook, those bonds must be issued from retiring bonds on suicide. So the money is there. The funding is there. I shouldn't say the money is there, but the funding capacity is there. MWRA has very good rating. They can issue these bonds at very low interest rates, much lower than Somerville can. That is my understanding.

And if I may add in, the way that they fund these bonds and the way that they 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 Klingin, 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 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. Um, and you can see information about the second stipulation there and the, those court documents, um, they're of public record. Uh, 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 Brooke. 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, um, to ask for help because, um, 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 fine. 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. And a lot, the storage tanks and the tunnel on public parkland, 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 about this issue. I think that the governor should 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? Yeah. Thank you.

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, 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 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? that anybody 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 sewer 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. So 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 the sewage separation or sewer separation. 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 that they want to produce. They want to add a parallel pipe.

All right. Well, I mean, I guess, Mr. Chair, this definitely does sound like it comes to a question of priorities, of spending priorities, that 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 you know put something in after the break and and um

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've got a new... We have an acting director now. Oh, okay. Well, then...

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 officer to come in and explain some of these financial details. Yeah. Because the MWRA Advisory Board is supposed to be a separate entity. It's supposed to be independent of MWRA. And 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. And so Rich Raich'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 Illwife 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. And 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 at Old Wife Brook would also, um, increase sewer system capacity. And, you know, um, Rich Rache is planning, uh, 95 acres of sewer separation as part of these CSO control plans at the Mystic River. Um, so we don't think we're, we've been very, um, 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, and 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, Councillor. 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 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 what, 40 or 50 years, I guess. I'm quite familiar with those kind of issues and how they can come up on you when you're in elected office. But I want to just emphasize that we are arguing here that the MWRA has not only the capacity to raise the money, to raise the rates, but secondly, they have the legal authority to do so. And for them to fail to do that at this point in time, I think is somewhat... 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 if 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, you know the Council is being told that you know 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 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 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 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, you know, that would be great if we were promised something. But as far as everybody's concerned now, some of them in 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. 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 um christine barber and um and her staff and we meet regularly with um we've met regularly with senator jalen um and with other area legislators um including Rep Rogers, who represents Cambridge and- I got you, I got you, yeah.

Arlington, yeah, Garvelli.

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 the city is trying to do. 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 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 what, how about a letter from the city of Somerville, the city counselors and the mayor, um, asking MWRA, uh, to fund this, to fund a solution at ill wife, Brooke, um, at the very least bring the Tannery Brooks CSO into compliance with federal, the federal court case. It's kind of ridiculous that it's so far out of compliance. It's really bad. Um, And 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 park land? That doesn't make any sense. You should, you should be pushing for sewer separation. And so we would ask that you write a letter to the, um, 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 Alewife Brook.

Sure. Voice. Sure. Absolutely. It's just, I want to do something effective. That's actually going to get them to, to move, um, concert heart.

Thank you. Just on this topic, I believe that when this was brought up at the council meeting, that Director Raich said that the capacity did not exist. That because Somerville has borne the brunt of 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 like that we just don't have like the space underground and like the capacity. So I'm just curious, I raised that now because I'm wondering what you think about that through you chair to Kristin and Mike.

Oh, well, I don't understand what the claim is. The claim is they can't, that sewer separation is impossible. Is that what is being stated, that there's no room underground to do sewer separation? That makes no, that's not true. Okay. 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 Alewife Brook. Okay.

I think 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. So we're just struggling to find an avenue that's going to be like really effective. Like I said, the mayor took to the media. I mean, clearly, like 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 get to the governor. But I'm happy to do whatever you think would be helpful. I'm just struggling to find a path that Um, and I really, I'm going to, we're going to wrap things up in a minute because we could go in circles all day long here. I just want, 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. Um, how we get there I think is, is the, is the channel. Um, go ahead, Michael.

Yeah, this is the last piece, is that 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 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, I mean, yeah, we're, You know, I still find it unbelievable that Summerville is, is being, you know, we're not, we don't have the money Cambridge has. Maybe we can borrow some money from Arlington or something, but, um, we're, you know, we're, we're, we're struggling over here. And, um, you know, this is a pretty, this is a really big job and we have other major jobs. I mean, we, we, we have like the, you know, the infrastructure work that we're doing across the city beyond this. Um, so, you know, we have a lot of challenges as a, as a 4.3 square mile city. So we just have to keep that at the forefront. 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 Klingin. 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 the night with, but that's happy to carry these conversations over the summer. I appreciate your offer, Mr. Chair, and I'd be happy to work with you on putting something together.

Yeah, just for, so Kristen, just before we go, so when is the comment period? It closes on Tuesday. Because I know that's tonight. So we wanted to make sure we got this meeting on the books. I promise you guys, 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 Counselor Hart 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, you know, for the Al 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 anyway, we have to come up with more, you know, like definitely courts. I mean, anything you lean on with the courts. I mean, that is like we need something that we can grab onto. We can't just make a plea. I mean, that's just, you know.

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. And 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. If we were sending one message and then our engineer was like, yeah, I'm not signing off on that for these reasons. We'd have to be all on the same page or else it's just...

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

He's actually at a listening session. CSO open house, yeah. Like I said, I would have tried to reschedule if it wasn't right up against the break, the budget season really affects all of our abilities to get these committee meetings going. So, but I, but I did want to make sure we got this one on. So 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 counselors that are involved in state rep and Senate races. I mean, it's, you know, Election time is prime time.

Well, we would love to share with you a rough draft of a policy order that you might consider looking at and thinking about bringing to city council.

Sure. Send it along.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you. That's not a problem at all. All right. Last thoughts, colleagues? I don't want to cut anybody off.

Just want to say thank you again to the advocates. Really appreciate all of the work that you've done. And I, yeah, I feel very committed to figuring out how we can move things forward.

Yeah.

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.

No. Okay, well, I'm going to work complete this one matter 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, Councilor Scott moves to adjourn and approve the minutes.

All right. On approval of the minutes and adjournment, Councillor Scott?

Yes.

Councillor Hart? Yes. Chair Klingin?

Yes.

All right. With that, that is all votes in favor of approval of the minutes and adjournment in 7.19 p.m. Good night, everybody.

Thank you.

Good night.