Several city councilors last night said they are unhappy over a request from a developer of a Lexington subdivision to connect to a sewer line that runs through Waltham.
Lexington August Realty Trust is asking to reconnect and reactivate a sewer line from the Lexington Hills subdivision, located on Walnut Street in Lexington, to a manhole which discharges into a main sewer trunk line which runs through both communities.
Phillip McCourt, an attorney representing the developer, said the sewer line used to serve the Middlesex County Hospital and later the Olympus Hospital on that property. He said the line would provide service to 19-single family homes in the Lexington Hills subdivision. Each of the homes will have four bedrooms.
Charles Lombardi, speaking on behalf of the developer, said that the subdivision would produce about 8,360 gallons of discharge a day, compared to the some 75,000 gallons that was produced when the hospitals were on the property.
However, Ward 9 Councilor Robert Logan said more development has come into Waltham since the hospitals used the sewer line.
Logan said he was concerned that the developer did not obtain written "sign-offs" from Waltham's water and sewer and engineering departments about the proposed connection before coming to the council with the request.
Logan and others on the council questioned what the benefit of the connection would be to Waltham.
Councilor at-large Kathleen McMenimen said the developer should have come to the city earlier, before Lexington officials approved plans for the subdivision.
"We're last in the food chain here," McMenimen said. "We should have been the first."
Gary Larson, a landscape architect for the subdivision, said the two choices to provide sewer to the homes were either through a gravity flow line or by installing a pump station. He said the gravity flow line was more environmentally friendly.
Several councilors though intimated that the developer chose the connection to the Waltham line simply because it was cheaper.
However, Lombardi said whether the gravity flow sewer line was less expensive really did not matter since the developer would pay fees to Waltham for the connection and for removing any water that leaks into the line.
"This is not a cost issue, it's an environmental issue," Lombardi said.
The developer's request was sent to the council's Public Works Committee, which will meet again on June 2.
Richard Conn can be contacted at 781-398-8004 or rconn@cnc.com.
