OLD SAYBROOK - Five contracts and more than 120 septic system upgrades or replacements under contract or already installed-that is the scorecard so far for the Water Pollution Control Authority's (WPCA) multi-year program to upgrade systems to address groundwater pollution on 1,900-plus properties in the wastewater management district.

This month marked another milestone in the program as the WPCA contractors' work now shifts from Saybrook Acres (the SA-1, SA-2, SA-3, SA-4 contracts) to properties in the Oyster River area (the OR-1, OR-2, OR-3 contracts).

This is the fifth contract award in the WPCA series and the second requiring licensed septic installers winning the bids to be responsible for both the design and installation of the new systems. For the first three septic system contracts the WPCA awarded, the town's consulting engineer Fuss & O'Neil designed the installations and the contractors installed them.

The goal of the new approach is to rely on the expertise of licensed septic installers to design the septic system upgrades and thereby avoid the higher design costs and extra time needed to use the consulting engineers. The WPCA expects the new approach to maintain installation quality while reducing the cost per septic upgrade. That's a benefit both to the homeowners who pay 50 percent of the installation cost and to the town's WPCA, which bears the cost of project oversight and management.

The newest award went to JTR Associates of Haddam for $265,425. The work is on 23 septic systems on properties located on Bayside Road and Sunset Road.

In commenting on the progress of the WPCA work, Site Manager Mike Evangelisti offered a reminder to homeowners about its value.

"We've had at least five cave-ins on properties where we've gone to prepare them for new system installations; the tops of the 50-year old [underground] septic tanks deteriorate over time and these tops just collapsed," said Evangelisti.

"The older tanks are at the end of their life and not made as strong as the new ones are. The old ones are 2 to 2 ½ inches thick [while] the new ones are 3 to

3½ inches thick. Higher-strength cement in the concrete of the new tanks also will keep the new ones more water-tight than the old ones," he continued.

The septic system replacement program both reduces ground-water pollution and addresses potential safety issues posed by aging septic tanks, explained Evangelisti.

The WPCA's septic system upgrade program is targeted at more 1,900 properties in 15 neighborhoods of concern that encompass the town's wastewater management district. The program was authorized by a July 2009 town referendum vote approving a decentralized wastewater treatment program to settle a court order requiring town clean-up of groundwater pollution from septic systems.

By agreement with the state, and through the town's program design, homeowners in the WWMD pay 50 percent of the cost to replace or upgrade their systems to meet modern health code standards. Each homeowner can choose in turn to finance their cost-share with a long-term low interest loan by tapping federal Clean Water grant funds.

WPCA Work Status Report

So how far has the WPCA's program to replace and upgrade systems in the wastewater management district progressed? Here's a report.

Work under the first WPCA septic system installation contract, SA-1, was awarded to Lombardi Sand and Gravel and is now complete. The SA-1 contract included 19 properties on Farview Drive in Saybrook Acres and plus four emergency septic system replacements for ones that had failed in other areas. Installation under this initial installation contract began in October of 2011.

The septic system work on 23 properties in the SA-2 contract, awarded to MDC Construction for $252,505, is also almost done. Two of the systems included in this contract were again emergency septic system replacements. What remains to be done for these properties' installations is clean-up work including lawn restoration.

For 24 properties in the WPCA's third installation contract, SA-3, the work went to Lombardi Sand and Gravel for $349,662. Work for the SA-3 contract were on properties along South View Terrace, South View Circle and part of Crowley Drive and is fifty percent completed.

Five of the properties in the SA-3 contract required pumps, an added feature that increased the cost of those systems compared to that of a typical upgrade. Also, all but one of the septic systems in the SA-3 bundle required system replacement rather than a system upgrade. This, too, increased the cost compared to the unit costs of other contracts.

For the SA-4 contract, also won by Lombardi, work to install septic system upgrades and replacements on properties on Ruth and Crowley Drives started two weeks ago.

"All of the Saybrook Acres projects will be finished in the fall of 2012," said WPCA Site Manager Mike Evangelisti.

The next septic upgrade contract going out for bid will be system upgrades in the Saybrook Point/Thompson Road area. The bid documents for the 25 properties in this contract group are complete and the project is out to bid.

The WPCA team is both providing oversight and inspection services for the ongoing contracts and working to map properties in the next neighborhoods that will get septic system upgrades. The WPCA site team uses ground-penetrating radar (GPR) equipment it owns to map and locate sub-surface installations that exist on each property.

Mapping of properties in the OR-2 and OR-3 contracts and on the 75 properties in three Cornfield Park area contracts is now completed. The bidders rely on the GPR-mapped features to more accurately design and calculate the cost to install each site-specific system.

The three upcoming Cornfield Park area contracts should be bid out this fall and contracts signed by the end of the year.

Contract Positions Open

Evangelisti said the pace of the WPCA septic system installations also means that the WPCA site teams are stretched thin and that they may need some extra help.

The WPCA hopes to employ, on a contract basis, one more full-time qualified septic inspector soon; the successful applicant must hold a Class A CDLA Driver's License and have a minimum of 10 years of excavating experience. Also needed by the WPCA, also on a contract basis, is a part-time meeter and greeter to interact with the homeowners and collect preliminary information in advance of each septic system installation.

Interested and qualified applicants should contact the WPCA offices at Town Hall for more information.