Residents urged city councilors Monday to forge ahead with the second phase of the Southwest Area Sewer Project.
AGAWAM – The City Council Monday indefinitely tabled the controversial $12 million second phase of the Southwest sewer project despite the urging of nine residents to forge ahead and build the system.
On a motion by City Councilor Donald Rheault, the council voted 10-1 to table the matter with City Councilor Cecilia P. Calabrese casting the sole 'no' vote.
“It seems like there is an effort to just make this go away,” Douglas E. Reed of 10 Shelley Lane told the councilors during the speak-out session. “There’s got to be a middle ground. We should spend our time finding a way to get it done...We need compromise. We need to get this done. If you haven’t experienced it, you don’t know how bad it can be.”
“We have an epidemic out there,” said John A. Cappuccilli Jr. of 50 Red Fox Drive.
According to him, 72 homes’ septic systems in the Southwest neighborhood have failed over the last five years.
“Do us a favor. Buy our homes, and we’ll move out,” Cappuccilli said.
The system has been proposed to make city sewers available to the 120 homes in the southwest section, where many private septic systems have failed. However, how or whether to bring them relief is a conundrum city officials have wrestled with for years.
City Council President Christopher C. Johnson said at a projected cost of about $12 million, the venture would cost the city about $100,000 per home. Johnson has expressed reservations about how the project could push up sewer rates for such local businesses as HP Hood, Six Flags New England and Berkshire Power.
The council president has calculated that over a five-year period ending in 2015 Hood could pay an additional $139,292 in sewer fees, Six Flags $156,422 and Berkshire Power $49,722 because of rate increases needed to fund the first and second phases of the project. He based his figures on a sewer rate of $2.40 per hundred cubic feet in 2011 and a projected $4.34 per hundred cubic feet in 2015.
Johnson proposed the city offer a low-interest loan program that would help affected homeowners replace their failing septic systems.
“What I’m proposing is a compromise,” Johnson said.
City Councilor Gina M. Letellier said she was confused by a plethora of contradictory information that has been released about the project and doesn’t want to vote until she can sort it all out.