HAMPTON — State environmental officials will allow the town to forgo replacing two aging force mains under the Hampton marsh for now on the condition it increases monitoring of the pipe's sewage flow.
The state Department of Environmental Services withdrew without prejudice a 2017 order for the pipes to be replaced and filed a new order this month stating the town has the option to increase monitoring of the pipes or remove them from the marsh.
One of the pipes leaked sewage into the marsh two winters ago, repaired with what town officials described as a temporary fix for $180,000. The state issued its original order in January 2017 calling for the pipes to be removed by December of that year, but voters rejected a $4.2 million bond article for the project at the 2017 Town Meeting.
Selectmen have said they want to put off replacing the pipes until after higher priority projects are approved, such as $11.8 million in upgrades to the town's wastewater treatment plant that is up for a vote this coming March.
They have said the marsh pipe replacement project is vital to Hampton Beach's tourist industry but believe it should be up to the town when the project takes place. Town officials have discussed laying replacement pipes along Route 101, making them easier to maintain than the ones submerged underwater.
The new order, handed down Jan. 17, states the town must submit a corrective action plan to DES by April 30. The order states the plan "may propose" installing flow meters and other means necessary for real-time monitoring of flow, "or may propose a plan to decommission the force mains." Hampton Public Works Director Chris Jacobs said the testing should cost less than $100,000.
The town appealed the original order before the state Water Council in February 2017. Parties nearly negotiated an agreement for the original order to be withdrawn without prejudice in December, but they said after those discussions they left the negotiating table with different understandings of that agreement's terms. State officials said they were under the impression the town agreed to ask voters to pass a pipe replacement project in March, but selectmen said they left negotiations without any intent to do so.
Assistant Attorney General Mary Maloney, who represented DES in the town's appeal of the original order, said the department planned to "weigh its options" if the town refused to seek funding for the force main replacement.
"Ultimately the Department (of Environmental Services) decided proceeding with a new (administrative order) was the most appropriate way to address its obligation to protect health and safety," Maloney said via email.
Welch said a discussion is coming as to whether selectmen should appeal the new order, which they have 30 days to do. While the new order gives the town more flexibility in what it does with the pipes, he and Jacobs said the type of monitoring expected could still be problematic because of the layout of the pipes.
They said monitors placed on both ends of the pipe could show uneven flow readings, giving the impression the pipe is leaking. In fact, Jacobs said, one end of the pipe is submerged under water, while the other end is not, meaning flow readings will be different on each end.
Welch said readings could lead the state to believe the town is no longer in compliance and motivate the state to mandate the pipes be replaced after all.
"My concern is if we decided to monitor and two months down the road, the state says, 'Your monitoring is not right, you're not doing this right, there's going to be problems with it, you need to replace the line.' The appeal period (would be) passed, we (would) have no appeal," said Welch.