Commissioner Ricardo Morales says it all begins with a 2010 Environmental Protection Agency permit containing new effluent limits for wastewater output issued to Pittsfield and other communities in the Housatonic River Watershed. Pittsfield chose to not meet the permit for years, and only until Mayor Linda Tyer managed to squeeze a $74 million spending order through a resistant city council in 2018 did the city move to address it.
“The city was placed under an administrative order to get there," explained Morales. "And in my, in the items, there was a phased stipulation to meet the order, and it included the design and then implementation of that design so that we could meet the limits imposed in that permit.”
The limits included specific amounts of nutrients including phosphorus and nitrogen, which the wastewater plant upgrades would address.
Ward 6 councilor Dina Lampiasi noted that the perception that the EPA would be more compliant about relaxing limits under a Trump White House – which made slashing federal regulations a major policy point – contributed to the delays in meeting the federal standards.
“Under the prior presidential administration, there was some conversation up here on the council about seeing what we could get away with in not investing in those changes at the time,” she said.
Conservative Pittsfield city councilors like Melissa Mazzeo, Kevin Morandi, and Christopher Connell even surprised Tyer by signing on to a letter along with perennial city hall critic and political candidate Craig Gaetani asking then-Region 1 EPA Director Alexandra Dunn to come to Pittsfield to discuss the issue.
Morales agreed with Lampiasi’s assessment, and said his professional appraisal had been that the city had held off for too long.
“In 2015, we started execution of the design contract," he continued. "We completed the contract, we completed the design by 2018, we went into construction in 2019, and through ups and downs in the construction, with some changes, change orders, they happen in the construction. So, the award went to – under the $74 million that we have to complete this project for design and construction – the award went to Methuen [Construction] with about $8.3 million under the budgeted amount for that, for the construction part.”
Morales said the change orders over the course of the construction added $5.2 million to the overall final cost of $56.6 million- which still came in under the initial estimate of almost $60 million. Construction was mostly completed by January 2022.
However, design changes ended up coming in $3.5 million over the estimated amount of $7.2 million. Pittsfield secured a zero-interest loan to cover all construction and engineering costs through a state program in 2020.
“We still have, in the $74 million allocated by the city council money, I believe, at this moment, we have $3 million," said Morales. "And we are hoping to continue using the 0% loan for other things that I've presented to the to the council. But we still need more money, like a new laboratory building to replace the oldest building in that facility that is in no real shape to house lab equipment and the lab technicians that work there under those conditions.”
As far as the impact of the work on the plant, the commissioner said Pittsfield had come into compliance with the federal standards as of July 2022.
“We are currently in optimization phase, it's part of the process," said the commissioner. "And once we are finalized with the optimization, with all the seasonality effects which draws the different types of flow, we're going to request the lifting of the administrative order.”
Morales says new federal limits on nitrogen were implemented after work to address the 2010 permit began, adding to overall costs.
“This permit comes from, the new permit comes from a lawsuit from the state of Connecticut to the EPA for the Long Island Sound issues. We eventually reach the Long Island Sound," he explained. "And that's why- We're actually the largest point source, the wastewater treatment plant of the Housatonic River, reaching the Long Island Sound. So that's why we're involved in this.”
At the meeting, the council approved an almost $942,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that uses federal funding to help with the goal of meeting nitrogen limits at the city plant.
