NANTUCKET – Nantucket officials gave an update on the Sea Street 3rd Sewer Force Main Project at a recent select board meeting.
Town Manager Libby Gibson said the project has been in the works for the last four years and was a result of the catastrophic sewer break the town experienced in January 2018.
“It’s going to be a very disruptive project. We are trying our best to get outreach out ahead of time and address concerns along the way, but people are going to have to use their patience during this project, which is not going to be short,” Gibson said.
The project will install a new sewer force main to connect the Sea Street Pump Station to the Surfside Wastewater Treatment Facility since officials determined the old main should no longer be relied on after the break.
Sewer Director David Gray echoed Gibson’s message that the project would be challenging and disruptive.
For the initial construction phases, Gray said efforts will be focused on Sea Street, Step Lane, Centre Street, and Lily Street.
With work slated to resume Monday, September 19, Gray and other project officials performed outreach with residents along the route.
Gray said he met with several homeowners and spoke at an informational meeting held at the First Congregational Church last week.
The sewer director mentioned other potential challenges like the grade of Step Lane and how narrow Lily Street is.
He said some innovative planning work was required in order to figure out how to do the work on narrow streets.
“They’ve done interesting planning to do the excavation to use a mobile conveyor belt that actually will be able to drive in front of the excavator and dump it into a dump truck, so they don’t have to swing around and drive around,” he said.
Operations Administrator Erika Mooney also noted that parking downtown would be severely impacted by the project.
The work will continue through June 2023 before a pause for the summer.
More information on the project can be found through the town’s website.
By Brian Engles, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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