Board of Selectmen talk hospital, sewer outflow and roads

The Norwood Board of Selectmen met on Tuesday for a packed agenda.

First up, the Board took a victory lap for all the work done for Norwood Hospital, as Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed the legislation to allow the state to take the property by eminent domain, hopefully ensuring a new operator will go in and start treating patients by 2028.

“They said we couldn’t do it, but we got it done,” Selectman Saad said.

“To be able to swing this back around and do all the persistent lobbying and petitioning that it takes to just move the needle on this, it’s just very impressive work by everybody on the task force, our delegation and our residents,” said Selectman Amanda Grow.

“Kudos to Congressman Lynch, (State) Rep. John Rogers and (State) Sen. Michael Rush who got that law through,” said Selectman Bob Donnelly.

In perhaps more expensive news – at least for Norwood residents – Donnelly reported from the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA) on a proposed capital project to be paid for by the entire MWRA system, of which Norwood is a member. The project, he said, is to upgrade the system’s combined sewer overflow systems (CSO) to reduce sewer outflow into waterways during heavy storms.

Basically, it’s old infrastructure that combines stormwater outflow with sewer outflow if the stormwater gets too much for the system to handle. This keeps sewage from backing up into streets and homes, but it does represent ecological issues and goes into public beaches, presenting health hazards.

Donnelly said there are currently two proposals to upgrade these facilities and reduce the number of days sewer overflow goes into rivers and public beaches. The plan calls for the costs to be shared, 60 percent by the entire MWRA district and 40 percent by Cambridge and Somerville, where the upgrades will mostly happen.

The project details can be found at https://gvimes.link/swrovrflw, but it’s basically a lot of new pipes and storage systems. They’re estimated to cost about $1.3 billion borrowed out from 2029 to 2070.

Donnelly said Norwood’s share of that money would be about $32 million over the course of the debt service.

“Which we would raise through our ratepayers, which is how we pay for the MWRA,” he said.

Donnelly said the problem is that many organizations around Cambridge and Somerville are lobbying for the project to do more than the $1.3 billion, and that’s what he’s asking residents and advocates to comment against at the MWRA website at https://gvimes.link/csocmmnts

“That particular plan that these advocates are pressing the MWRA Board of Directors to do is many billions more than the $1.3 billion, and based on the analysis from MWRA, if that would be the plan that would be implemented, our share of the debt service over that time would rise to $103 million,” he said. “So these are really big numbers.”

In other news, Norwood Department of Public Works (DPW) Director Mark Ryan came by to give updates on all the recent paving and construction projects being done by the Town. The biggest impact residents may have noticed is the annual road resurfacing project. It’s hit much of the downtown, repaving a good section of Washington Street as well as Nahatan and others around the Common.

“As of today we’ve done four streets, and we’re going to do four more next week,” he said. “Our next area is Railroad Avenue and Howard Street, in that area.”

The other big disruption was the repair work on the Washington Street Bridge over the Hawes Brook in South Norwood, which has been completed. Ryan said the street had to be closed and many of the businesses there were disrupted, but he said it was less of a disruption than if the bridge needed to be fully replaced.

“That bridge was built in 1967 and had some repairs that needed to be made and now was the time to do it rather than wait until it’s too late and have to do a full bridge replacement,” he said. “We finished that work in three-and-a-half-days.”

Ryan said the water main and sewer main relining project is also continuing, and they just finished up Nichols Street, Fisher Street, Franklin Street, the area around the Willett School, Hillside Avenue and Pleasant Street.

Advertisement

The other project is the downtown signal replacement project, which he said was almost finished. Ryan said the project just needs some “fine tuning” on the signals and it’s complete.

“There are some signals that need to be adjusted for sensitivity and timing, but overall we think it was a good project,” he said. “We had signals that were 40 years old, and the Light Department had a tough time maintaining them and finding parts.”

Ryan said the Old Parish Cemetery Improvement Project is moving along as well, with the new entrances being installed now.

Ryan also touched on the lead pipe service replacement project the Town is undertaking as required by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He said the main thing they’re doing now is inventorying all water service pipes in the Town.

“We’ve been at this since 2021,” he said.

Ryan said the Town has about 10,000 water services and 5,000 of those are of unknown make and materials. He said the DPW is going into basements and checking each service, as well as checking the services owned and maintained by the Town. The MWRA, he said, also has a loan program to replace such services with no-interest loans and, if you qualify, up to 25 percent loan forgiveness.

Lastly the Board approved a request from resident Laura Messina to join the Norwood Cultural Council (NCC), which was recommended by NCC co-chair Kristin Bassett. Messina is a cellist and Director at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and said she wants to bring that perspective to the council.

She is also opening a new bookstore in Town at the former site of Charles River Running, and said she’s hoping to open in October.