April 16, 2010
- City-State Groundwater Working Group - The Working Group met on April 15. Details are under the organizations below.
- MBTA - The MBTA is changing its approach to the long term solution for the area around St. Charles and Cazenove Street. Rather than recycle the water pumped at Follen Street, they now believe that they can repair the leak near Back Bay Station. They have issued an RFP for a consultant to design tunnel repairs at multiple locations in the system and will include the potential repair of the leaks near Back bay Station. Working Group members as well as other interested parties at the session were encouraged by this change of approach. Construction is likely a year away, and the existing recharge will remain during that period.
- BWSC - BWSC has awarded a contract for the repairs in the area around Commercial and Richmond Streets in the North End, with work scheduled to begin around the end of May. They are nearly complete on the sewer separation project in the Bulfinch Triangle area. They have done a television inspection of the sewers in the Chinatown/Leather District area, and have not found any leaks; additional investigation will take place. They have found leaks in the CSO on Dartmouth Street, but still feel they need to do more investigation prior to repair; I emphasized the need to resolve this now two year old problem ASAP.
- MWRA - MWRA will complete the East Boston sewer replacement project this summer. At that point, the possibly leaking old sewer pipe along Porter Street will be discontinued and filled in. They have discovered a leak in the siphon under the Blue Line at Breman Street. They will be lining the two pipes as an add to the sewer project, with completion of this expected this summer as well.
- MassDOT - They are continuing with design work for modifications to the drainage system from the Central Artery. The decision on whether and where to introduce recharge awaits completion of some of BWSC’s repair projects and a determination of whether the recharge would be a benefit in the areas into which it can be introduced. Decisions should be made in the summer. As part of the repaving project scheduled for the Prudential tunnel, the drain lines around the tunnel will be video inspected and any necessary repairs made.
- GCOD - GCOD compliance continues to be excellent. The Board of Appeals has ruled on over 160 applications, with only two not being able to completely comply with recharge requirements. We anticipate another variance on a project in Chinatown that cannot physically comply shortly. Over 80 recharge systems are installed and operating. We received no reports of problems with recharge systems during the recent heavy rains.
- Website - Traffic to the website continues high. We have experienced some lack of reliability in the availability of the interactive map, apparently caused by inadequacies of the shared server arrangement. We are working with our consultant to remedy this, probably by moving the map to a different server. We have also added a recharge section to the website with information on different ways to infiltrate rainwater.
- Meetings - I had a meeting with the Boston Architectural College to discuss their plans for recharge as part of a potential Green Alley project behind their building on Newbury Street. I also met with the engineer for a project on Milford Street and the representative of the Castle Square Tenants Association to discuss recharge requirements. I am scheduled to meet with the new General Manager of the MBTA later this month to discuss groundwater issues.
- Vacations - I will be on vacation next week. I will be accessible by cell phone and probably by email. I’ll be back in the office on April 26.
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