Swampscott Commits $300K To King's Beach UV Light Pilot Program

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A three-month UV light treatment pilot program to clean the water of King's Beach in Lynn and Swampscott is on track to move forward this summer after Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson pledged to increase that city's portion of the pilot funding by $100,000 on Thursday night.

The Swampscott Select Board voted to spend $300,000 on the pilot — with Lynn now paying $500,000 — with Swampscott housing the temporary treatment unit on Humphrey Street this summer.

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The vote came after yet another lengthy discussion on improving the water quality at the beach and the cost of any ultimate solution. While Swampscott has pledged to spend millions to line its pipes to help curb source pollution of the Stacey's Brook area, a steering committee made up of Lynn, Swampscott representatives and regional stakeholders have also long pushed for a "complementary solution" — such as a UV treatment or long outfall pipe — because it has said that pipe-fitting alone will not guarantee a clean beach for years, if ever.

"The feedback we've gotten is that even once the pipes are fixed," Mayor Nicholson said, "because of the urban runoff, the topography of their being a natural brook running under an incredibly dense area of Massachusetts, there is still going to be too much contamination for the beach to be open.

"It's not 'either or,' it's an 'and.' And we're not going to get to the 'and' unless we advance the proposal (of the UV treatment), and this is the way to advance the proposal."

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The argument won over a majority of the Select Board amid concerns about what MaryEllen Fletcher called the "What next?" — essentially the concern that even if the pilot program proves successful, at least during dry-weather days, the ultimate cost and impact of a permanent UV treatment plant would be prohibitive.

Select Board members David Grishman and Doug Thompson, as well as Interim Town Administrator Gino Cresta and Nicholson, urged that the potential availability of state and federal funding to help pay for any permanent treatment structure depended on funding the pilot program to show that it would work.

Thompson called the pilot program "a calculated risk" that was akin to the type of feasibility studies the town routinely approves before embarking on greater projects.

"We have to bite the bullet in the interest of so many people and that we're this close," Thompson said.

Select Board member Danielle Leonard said she entered the meeting leaning toward opposing what had been a $400,000 Swampscott commitment to the pilot program with no guarantee of a next step — especially after sharply divided feedback from the town's Water Sewer Advisory Committee that voted 5-3 to support it — but was persuaded both by Nicholson's commitment of another $100,000 and that Swampscott's contributions were coming out of a state earmark specifically designed to clean the beach.

"We do owe it to the spirit of that (funding source) to advance it," Leonard said. "I am of the mindset that we cannot just do nothing anymore. This is really a frustrating, 75-year problem.

"We just can't keep going on like this."

Select Board member Katie Phelan voted in favor of the pilot program but added that her support for the pilot is not part of a guarantee that the town can support what it would cost to build the permanent treatment plant.

"I want to make it clear that going forward with a pilot project does not mean that we fully understand, we fully have the details, and that we fully are committing to anything even if the results are positive," Phelan said. "I believe the results will be positive in some capacity.

"It's really difficult for me to support the pilot because I think it gives a false hope that we are committing to that."

Fletcher was the lone Select Board member to vote against the pilot.

"Because we do not have a thorough plan on where this is going to go and how this will be funded in the future," Fletcher said. "We have a lot of information on how well it would work but I think spending this money on this study is not well-spent money."

(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.)