Water issues at Westover and Willett

The Norwood Conservation Commission (ConCom) met recently and voted unanimously to approve a plan from the Norwood Department of Public Works (DPW) to put a new water main in over at Westover Parkway.

DPW Director and Town Engineer Mark Ryan said the issue is that the Willett sits at what essentially is a dead end for the water system.

“The Willett School is in a dead end, as they say, in the water system,” he said. “So the water doesn’t flow as freely as it would like in a loop system. The water tends to get stagnant and [this system] reduces the amount of disinfection. Doing nothing, this could cause some water quality issues for the school.”

Ryan said the plan came about because the water around the Willett School has not been testing up to the Town’s standards.

“Levels of disinfection that we really don’t like to see are at the Willett School,” he said. “So the water department has, particularly during the warmer months, May through October, been flushing water mains multiple times a week to maintain the freshness of the water and make disinfection levels acceptable. This is really a band-aid, a short-term solution.”

Ryan said the long-term solution is a multiple-step plan, the first step of which is relining and cleaning the water mains in the area – which is a Townwide initiative the DPW has been steadily making progress on the last few years. Ryan said the plan started when school closed.

The big lift, however, is to put in a brand new water main to create a flowing loop. Ryan said this main would go from the Willett parking lot, behind the school, through the woods and connect at the Highland Cemetery.

The emergency request is needed so that they can do the portion of the work near the school when school is not in session, and the ConCom’s jurisdiction actually starts in the woods, as there are delineated wetland resources there (the ConCom’s main mission is to protect wetlands from harmful practices) in the form of an intermittent stream.

“It is imperative this emergency certification is granted so we can get this water main work done while school is out of session,” Ryan said.

The request is to install 150 feet of water main through the school property and then connect the main to the cemetery. The Town has partnered with Stantec on this project, and Stantec Engineer Nick Bouthilette went through the details, and said that the entire link from the Willett to Highland would be about 700 feet. He also added that if they didn’t get the work done during the summer, the cost and disruption to the school would not be desirable.

Bouthilette said while they haven’t gone out to bid just yet, they would be ready to start as soon as possible with the first 150 feet around the Willett. He said they would use erosion controls and groundwater sedimentation controls. He said also they would have to take down a few trees to perform the work.

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“The alignment of this path was very specifically chosen by DPW because it’s pretty rocky and has a lot of topographical changes out there,” he said. “The ground presumably has ledge and rocks there. The route we took is the flattest route possible, which is why it goes somewhat northbound, seemingly towards resource areas, but realistically it has resource areas on both sides (aka directions).”

Bouthilette said the whole project is estimated to take about two or three months, with the 150-foot portion near the wetland resources taking about 30 days. The emergency approval is just for the first 150 feet, and the rest of the piping will go through the ConCom’s regular Notice of Intent process.

The ConCom had no issues with the plan, which is designed to keep the work as far away from the stream as possible. Conservation Agent Carly Rocklen said, however, she would recommend a special condition be added to the request that would make the approval contingent on the Notification of Intent for the whole project being filed by July 8. The new condition would also require restoration of both the riverfront area, as well as the buffer zone.

The ConCom approved the measure unanimously.