June 29, 2026

Items Recommended for Full Council

No items were recommended to the full council at this meeting. The committee voted 3-0 (Scott, Hardt, Clingan) to approve the minutes of April 29, 2026 and adjourn. A communication from Michael Lenotto regarding the draft Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) plan was recommended to be marked work completed following his group's presentation.

Items Referred to Committee

Water and Sewer Items – Kept in Committee

Four related items were kept in committee because the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management (acting as director of water and sewer) was double-booked at the city's CSO open house:

• Discussion of the tiered residential water base rate structure differentiating 5/8-inch and 1-inch pipes

• Overview of water and sewer metering and billing practices

• Discussion of how it's determined whether a unit requires a 1-inch or 5/8-inch water meter

On the meter sizing item, Chair Clingan noted the difference between a 5/8-inch and 1-inch meter amounts to roughly $500 per year, and that some residents were never given the choice—meaning some may be paying extra unnecessarily.

Portable Restroom at Hoyt-Sullivan Playground – Kept in Committee

An item requesting a portable restroom at Hoyt-Sullivan Playground (from a constituent request to Councilors Sait and Clingan) was kept in committee. Clingan noted placement at that park appears challenging and suggested Junction Park across Central Street as a possible alternative; an expected update from DPW staff did not arrive.

Committee Discussion

Save the Alewife Brook: Alternative CSO Community Plan

The meeting's main event was a presentation by Save the Alewife Brook—Kristen Anderson and Michael Lenotto—on their community alternative to the city's draft CSO control plan, scheduled before the summer break so residents could watch and comment during the open public comment period (open through roughly late September).

Key points from the presentation:

• Six active CSO outfalls discharge untreated sewage into Alewife Brook, including Somerville's Tannery Brook outfall (SOM001A), which the group says is in violation of the Boston Harbor court case. In 2023, 29 million gallons of untreated sewage were discharged and the brook flooded five times, exposing densely populated environmental justice neighborhoods (over 5,000 people live in the 100-year floodplain).

• Climate projections cited (from Cambridge-hired scientists) show a 25% increase in two-year storm rainfall by 2050; MWRA projections show average-year Alewife discharges nearly tripling.

• The group criticized the current draft plan ($340 million) as achieving zero CSOs only in a "typical" year, meaning wetter years would still see discharges—a single five-year storm would send an estimated 15 million gallons into the brook. They said 99.9% of the plan relies on storage (tanks/tunnels that can't be expanded later) and 0% sewer separation is planned in Somerville.

• Their community plan ($229 million) calls for 126 acres of sewer separation paired with green stormwater infrastructure, diverting remaining CSO flows to an existing treatment facility, eliminating the Tannery Brook regulator, and full MWRA funding.

• On funding, the group argued MWRA has $2.1 billion in bonding capacity over the next decade as original Boston Harbor cleanup bonds expire, and that under the court case's second stipulation, MWRA—not Somerville—is legally responsible for costs to bring the outfall into compliance. They said the difference between the minimum plan and full elimination across the Charles, Mystic, and Alewife is about $99 per household per year across MWRA's million-household system.

Committee questions and concerns:

• Chair Clingan pressed on what the $99 figure meant and voiced skepticism about the council's leverage over a state agency, noting the mayor recently wrote a Boston Globe op-ed about the unfair financial burden on Somerville and that rate payers already face double-digit water rate increases. He suggested the state delegation is the most effective channel and cautioned against the council sending messages at odds with the city's own engineering staff.

• Councilor Hardt asked whether the group had received feedback from the director since the plan was submitted; presenters said they had asked for months with no response. She also raised the director's earlier statement to the council that Somerville lacks underground capacity for separation—a claim Anderson disputed, pointing to the 95 acres of separation planned in Winter Hill for the Mystic River.

• Councilor Scott questioned how priorities are being balanced, noting the director is also chair of the MWRA Advisory Board, and asked about MWRA's competing priority of building water supply redundancy. He said he left with more questions than he started with and plans further digging with both the city and MWRA.

• Anderson raised a potential conflict-of-interest question about the director chairing the MWRA Advisory Board, whose mission is keeping costs low for all member municipalities.

• Public commenters from Arlington (Beth, a town meeting member, and George, a longtime former elected official) urged the council to use its political power to demand MWRA-funded sewer separation, with George recounting a decades-old MWRA board promise to close the remaining CSOs including Alewife Brook.

The advocates' specific asks: council support for the 126-acre separation plan, a policy order or letters (to the mayor, the director, MWRA, and the governor) demanding full MWRA funding, and a possible appearance by MWRA's interim director or CFO before the committee.

What's Next

• Save the Alewife Brook will send the committee a draft policy order for possible introduction at the full council.

• Chair Clingan offered to work with Councilor Scott after the summer break to put together an item bringing the Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management—and possibly MWRA officials—before the committee.

• The public comment period on the draft CSO plan remains open through approximately late September/early October; the committee held this meeting specifically so residents could view the presentation and comment.

• All four water/sewer items and the Hoyt-Sullivan restroom item remain in committee pending staff availability.