Shining A Light On Possible Swampscott King's Beach Cleanup
SWAMPSCOTT, MA — The long and meandering road leading to the hopeful, eventual cleanup on King’s Beach in Swampscott and Lynn — annually ranked one of the most polluted beaches in Greater Boston — may be gaining a focus with State Sen. Brendan Crighton telling the Select Board on Tuesday that the state is leaning toward embracing a proposed UV light treatment solution, while a permanent long outfall pipe into the Atlantic Ocean still faces opposition.
“We have a commitment now of support from the administration to move forward and to further look into UV treatment, along with other alternatives as well,” Crighton said. “For a while, I think there was reluctance there to fully embrace it. At this point now, they’re helping us coordinate with the EPA and some of our federal agencies to make sure we’re seeing what dollars are available there.
“Obviously, there are still things we need to work out. There are still differences of opinion in terms of what’s achievable and what’s not.”
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That caution includes hopes for a proposed 4,500 outfall pipe that would carry sewage from the Swampscott and Lynn shorelines into the ocean where it would presumably be diluted away from where people swim and have contact with the water.
The cost and time it would take to build the pipe — given substantial regulations — were always cited as one issue with that as a primary solution, with Crighton alluding to neighboring communities also opposing having the Lynn and Swampscott waste carried into the ocean where it could potentially affect their shorelines.
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“I express caution in terms of the outfall in terms of the outfall and the opposition I’ve received from environmental groups as well as other communities I represent,” Crighton said, “as well as just the overall timeline and the expense.
“It is a permanent solution. And I respect that. But I do think that if we want to achieve this for my kids in their lifetime, or the near future — we want beaches as clean as we can — then we really should really go down this path of pursuing UV and working together to make some big decisions.”
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Crighton said the testing on the UV treatments, which are modeled after similar plants such as one in Newport, RI that use the light to eliminate bacteria in the water before it reaches the shoreline, has been “promising” for their effectiveness.
“I don’t think this was ever intended to be 100 percent effective,” he said. “I think it’s 85 to 90 percent to eliminate (the bacteria) combined with the great work Swampscott’s been doing (on illicit discharge detection and elimination).”
Crighton said having the Healey administration behind those efforts will help unlock the federal grant funding that may allow the project to move forward.
Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald expressed some skepticism about how to fit a UV treatment plant into the dense shoreline of Swampscott and Lynn, and continued to push the long outfall pipe as potentially the best solution to solve the problem instead of at least temporarily mitigate it.
“We still have our work to do,” Crighton said. “Even under the best circumstances, we are looking at a number of years away (before the beach is safe for swimming most of the time). … I think progress has been made. And there are no good answers on this.
“All of these scenarios require more patience, more money, and a lot of headaches for both municipalities.”
Select Board member Katie Phelan advocated for additional state or coordinated testing of the water at beaches beyond the state Department of Conservation and Recreation weekly testing that can produce untimely and, therefore, inconsequential results.
She pointed to the daily testing that Swampscott conducted this summer at Fisherman’s Beach and suggested that should be implemented on a wider basis up and down the North Shore.
Crighton acknowledged the “system is greatly flawed” and that monitoring beach water quality “is a much bigger issue that the state needs to grapple with.”
“Maybe there should be some real money put toward these issues instead of leaving the corner of the coastline to deal with on their own,” Phelan said before being reminded of the $2.5 million in state funding for Swampscott to help fix its sewer lines.
“It’s not enough,” she responded. “We need more. We need our beaches clean.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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