Special Town Meeting Guide: Wastewater Management Plan, Pipe Easement, and Dismissed Article

This week, we'll take a look at each article in the Special Town Meeting Warrant. The Special Town Meeting is scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m. at the Oliver Ames High School auditorium. Earlier this week, we took a look at Articles 1-7. Today we'll take a look at the final three articles.

The Easton Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee have recommended that the residents of Easton approve Articles 7 and 8 in the Special Town Meeting Warrant. The last article, Article 9, will be dismissed on the floor because it will not require a Town Meeting Vote.

In Article 7, the Town is continuing a project that was started when the Town voted in May of 2010 to develop a Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan.

State law requires that a plan is submitted before a wastewater sewer system is developed in town or the town acts on regional solutions. To continue the process, the Town is looking to borrow $110,100.

"We’re required to complete the Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan before we can sewer the town," Town Administrator David Colton said. "There will be more investigation into sites for disposal of wastewater."

The town was granted one special waiver to develop a sewer system for parts of North Easton Village as part of Easton's Shovelshops project and subsequent on-site wastewater treatment plan. For the rest of the town, the study must be completed; a process that Colton said is making progress.

"We’ve done all of the initial analysis so far, and the good news is, there’s enough there to warrant looking deeper," he said.

Areas in Governor Ames Estate and Marshall Farm require further analysis, Joseph Shea, the Senior Vice President of the Consulting Firm Woodward and Curran, said at the Jan. 9 Board of Selectmen meeting. He also said the town needs to further study regional options such as partnering with Mansfield, Foxborough and Norton for a Regional Sewer District.

"We're about two thirds done," Shea said. "Through that process we have screened a number of towns and had discussions with many neighboring communities."

In Article 8 of the Special Town Meeting Warrant, the Town is looking to grant Beacon Communities LLC an easement for drainage piping under Mechanic Street.

"This is an easement for a drain pipe," Colton said. "There’s a drain pipe that’s already in the ground that crosses Sullivan Avenue and drains into the pond. In order for Beacon to get it’s financing, they need to show that they have control over their drainage so they need an easement."

The pipe has been in existence for over 100 years when the Shovel Shops were in operation. New laws, however, required the Town to grant the easement to the new owners of the site.

Article 9 of the Special Town Meeting Warrant, Colton said, will be dismissed on the floor because it does not require a Town Meeting vote.

The vote would have been to accept the donation of a dam in Shovel Shop Pond from the Ames Family.

"The land is being donated to the Conservation Commission and that doesn’t require a Town Meeting vote," Colton said.

"It was a donation of land and normally a donation of land has to be approved by Town Meeting, except when it’s donated to the Conservation Commission. We weren’t sure where it would be donated initially but they told us that they wanted to donate to the Conservation Commission."