TIVERTON -- Quell the smell.
That's what sewer commissioners want to do along Bay Street in North Tiverton. If the area's soil contamination worries weren't enough, trouble with a recently installed sewer line could bring the odor of rotten eggs if August gets hot and stagnant water remains in the line.
So officials want steps taken to prevent the stink.
The problem is a section of pipe along Bay Street that was apparently not installed correctly where it runs from a manhole at Canonicus Street to a manhole at Foote Street, according to Raul Fernandes, director of the Waste Water Management Commission. Some of the pipe is above and below grade level, leading to some stagnant water, he said.
Bay Street and some adjoining streets have been in the news after workers in fall 2002 found signs of suspected soil contamination -- and area residents began noticing blue-stained soil. New England Gas Co., town and state officials, and the neighbors are in the midst of figuring out how much additional soil testing should be done and, then, what to clean up.
The question, then, will be how to repair the line in an area that can seem like a big chemistry set these days.
" We don't want to dig up the contaminated soil," Fernandes said last week. The Waster Water Management Commission, according to its agenda, may talk about options for the area at its 3 p.m. meeting today at the community center. Time is of the essence.
"It is on a fast track," Fernandes said. "We want to get it done ASAP."
Still, Fernandes said it's conceivable that carefully monitored digging could be involved in some solution. "They do have a way of doing it. [The state Department of Environmental Management] has protocols that you have to follow. Of course, that adds cost," he said.
Fernandes said it's been years since odor complaints about the Fall River wastewater treatment plant.
Odor isn't the only potential concern. Fernandes said that because of sitting sewage, a gas called hydrogen sulfide can build up -- a gas that can chew through concrete over an extended period of time.
"That could harm the treatment plant," Fernandes said, referring to the wastewater treatment plant in Fall River.
The town will not pay for the repairs, Fernandes said. Starwood Capital Group, which has built the 290-unit Village at Mount Hope Bay in town, would pay a contractor to do repairs, Fernandes said. He estimated that would cost about $150,000.
The assisted-living Sakonnet Bay Manor sends wastewater through the line, but Fernandes said that flow is not enough to solve the stagnant-water issue. One idea is to put a pump station at Bay and Judson streets -- a move that would need approval from state environmental officials.
"So far, we've been lucky," Fernandes said of the Bay Street situation. "It hasn't been all that hot."
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