MacMaster Calls On City To Detail Sewer Mains, Backups

MELROSE, MA — Five months after a backup in an ancient sewage pipe caused one of the biggest disasters in recent Melrose memory, the city is being called upon to produce information relating to sewer mains and other backups.

Ward 5 City Councilor Shawn MacMaster, a Brazil Street resident who has aggressively gone to bat for his neighbors who were impacted by the June 20 sewage backup, has presented an order to have city officials provide a list of all Melrose sewer mains and their age; all backups DPW has been notified of since 2017; and all insurance claims (with each's status) related to sewer backups since 2017.

All information would have to be provided to the City Council within 30 days of the order's passage, with a 14-business day extension if department heads request it. Due to the upcoming election, MacMaster may not again be butting heads with Mayor Gail Infurna, though it would then be something an incoming administration would have to deal with.

A July report by Weston & Sampson, a company the city uses for studies and projects for water and sewage infrastructure, blamed the backup on a number of issues, most notably a giant fatberg in severely outdated sewage infrastructure. The report said the Brazil Street sewers were installed in 1906 and are 2 inches smaller in diameter than today's minimum standards.

"I don’t think that the state of the Brazil Street sewer line was an anomaly," MacMaster told Patch. "I think it illuminated a major infrastructural problem in the City that the public has a right to know about. With this information, it’s my hope that the City Council and the next Mayor can work together to find a solution to a difficult problem in a fully transparent way."

Several residents have come out since the Brazil Street backup with their own stories of backups they were awaiting insurance resolutions on.

"Residents also deserve to know if they can count on the City’s liability insurance in the event that their property and possessions are destroyed or damaged at no fault of their own," MacMaster said. "I’m doubtful that they can based on what I’ve seen over the last year, and that concerns me very much."