Burrillville officials say they’ll talk wastewater with N.S.

BURRILLVILLE — The prospect of transporting North Smithfield’s wastewater discharge to Burrillville’s wastewater treatment is in all likelihood just a pipe dream, but Burrillville town officials say they’re at least willing to sit down and listen to what their neighbors across the border in Slaters-ville have to say.

At a meeting of the Burrillville Town Council last week, council President John F. Pacheco III said he received a phone call from North Smithfield Town Council President Robert Paul Boucher requesting a meeting with the Burrillville council to discuss the idea.

“Their contract with Woonsocket is up in November 2016 and basically he wants to know if we have any interest in just sitting down and talking about it,” Pacheco told his colleagues on the panel Wednesday. “I told him I couldn’t make that decision without polling the board first.”

North Smithfield, Blackstone and Bellingham all use the Woonsocket Regional Wastewater Treatment plant off Cumberland Hill Road. The three towns are part of an inter-jurisdictional agreement that splits costs between the three communities, but only North Smithfield has declined to finalize a proposed agreement with the city regarding higher fees related to an ongoing $40 million upgrade at the plant.

Now, it appears the town is looking to go out on its own and seek connections to services in Burrillville or with the Narragansett Bay Commission through connections in the Lincoln-Cumberland area.

“There’s a significant concern about whether or not we have the ability to handle it.”

If early comments from the Burrillville council are any indication, it appears highly doubtful that such an arrangement would work in Burrillville. Not only would it be a huge and costly undertaking, council members say, but there is a question as to whether the Burrillville treatment plant on Clear River Drive in Harrisville has the capacity to handle another community’s effluent.

“There’s a significant concern about whether or not we have the ability to handle it,” said Town Councilwoman Nancy F. Binns. “Just the piping alone to bring the sewage to Burrillville would be an enormous undertaking.”

Despite its initial hesitation, the council unanimously voted to authorize Pacheco and Sewer Commission Chairman William Andrews to sit down with North Smithfield town officials and at least hear their pitch.

Town Manager Michael C. Wood said Andrews has agreed to represent the council at the discussion table, but advised the council to take a proactive role if the idea goes beyond the discussion phase.

The Burrillville Sewer Commission is independent of the town’s municipal government and is empowered by special state legislation. The commission has the power and authority to supervise the planning, construction, operation, maintenance, extension and improvement of the sewage disposal system.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong sitting down with them, but the details of doing something like this are going to be tough,” Wood said. “I think at some point you would need to take a role in this because there could be an impact on the town in terms of capacity if you have additional effluent coming in.”

Wood says the impasse between North Smithfield and Woonsocket over costs has driven North Smithfield to consider alternatives to the Woonsocket Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“They’ve got a huge problem over there,” he said. “They feel Woonsocket is not friendly toward them and that the city is turning the screws on them so they are looking for relief.”

The biggest stumbling block to an agreement for North Smithfield appears to be Woonsocket’s imposition of a host fee in the proposed reworking of Inter Jurisdiction Agreements (IJAs) with the participating communities. Woonsocket has already worked out those agreements with the other participants, Bellingham and Blackstone, and only North Smithfield’s agreement remains unresolved.

For North Smithfield, the agreement would represent a commit- ment to pay a $194,000 host fee to Woonsocket in addition to the annual 12 percent share of operating expenses based on the treatment reservation the town has through its membership, according to Hamilton.

The host fee is collected by Woonsocket for its costs of running the plant and the location of treatment facility with its borders, but North Smithfield has concerns over how the fee was established and also how it might be used by Woonsocket. . North Smithfield has wanted to see a more specific application of that funding to the operation and upgrade of the plant or have it eliminated from the agreement as an alternative.

As the matter stands now the town could be in line to receive a deadline from Woonsocket for making a decision on its future participation in the regional plant.

From Woonsocket’s perspective on the issue, Michael Annarummo, the city’s former Public Works director and special advisor to Mayor Baldelli-Hunt on the city’s ongoing sewer and water system improvements, says the time has come for a decision on North Smithfield’s continued use of the treatment plant facilities.

Although there is no single valve that would be turned to block off the town’s flows down into the Woonsocket plant, Annarummo said the lack of a finalized IJA could force the city to begin legal and regulatory steps that would end North Smithfield’s use of regional facility in the future.

To that end, Annarummo said the city is working on a letter to North Smithfield that would detail the city’s position on that process as the start up of the new treatment processes approach.

“We are under a year away and we are getting pressure from the (state) Department of Environmental Management and it is simply time for discussions to end,” Annarummo said back in December.

As for whether or not Burrillville could conceivably take over North Smithfield’s sewer services, that’s seems doubtful, council members say.

“The only way it would be feasible is if North Smithfield pays for it and you’re talking about a tremendous cost to pump that sewage up to Burrillville,” said Councilman Stephen N. Rawson. “One of the concerns I have, and I’m sure the state will have, is that we just got done redoing Route 102.”

Rawson was referring to a project that state Department of Transportation completed in 2014 to improve safety on Route 102 (Broncos Highway), which included repaving, rumble strips and new striping and signage.

“What are we going to do now, tear that all up and put a sewage pipe through there?” Rawson said.