SWAMPSCOTT, MA — As grassroots efforts like those of the Facebook group Save King’s Beach and the new town Water & Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee work to inform area residents about the water quality of King’s and Fisherman’s beaches in Swampscott and Lynn, the eyes of those who have advocated for a long-elusive solution to fixing the beach water quality issue remain fixed on finding a solution to the ongoing pollution that plagues the shorelines.
“This is something that the town as a whole has to realize that we need to invest our time, our intellectual resources and our money into getting this fixed,” Andrea Amour of Save King’s Beach told Patch on Wednesday. “We still have a ways to go. I would like to see the Steering Committee (of regional and state stakeholders and officials) really buckle down and fast forward this process of finding a parallel solution (to sleeving the sewer pipes that lead to the outfalls).
“Swampscott has gotten more serious. Lynn has gotten more serious. But the Steering Committee has to start making more progress. It’s not fast enough. The Steering Committee started their work three years ago and we are only marginally further along than we were then.”
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In those three years, ideas for that parallel solution have included a 4,500-foot outfall pipe leading from Stacey’s Brook into the ocean to dilute the water, a UV light treatment to clean the water and an oxidation program that recently showed promising results.
Amour said she and others passionate about fixing the beaches are urging the Steering Committee to settle on one plan of action in the upcoming months so that federal funding can be obtained in the next grant cycle and an actionable plan can be put in place on a timeline to implement that solution.
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“People need to feel like there is an end in sight,” she told Patch. “People want to see that we are doing this phase of the project, then moving on to this phase, and then the next phase. Government officials need to do a better job communicating the process and progress involved.
“People want to feel like there is hope.”
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In the meantime, Amour and other advocates have made progress this summer in at least making sure those who use King’s Beach are aware of the existing issues with the addition of large signs at the Stacey’s Brook outfall informing them that they are a source of potentially partially treated, and occasionally even untreated, sewage with bacterial levels that far exceed healthy levels.
Amour told Patch the signs were developed in collaboration with the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which oversees the joint beach area at King’s, and with the help of State Rep. Jenny Armini and her office.
“We really felt like there were not enough warnings,” Amour said. “It wasn’t as much about the quantity of the signs, but more about the clarity of why (people should stay out of the Stacey’s Brook area). People generally want to be told the “why not” of things. They don’t want to just be told not to do something.
“The other signs didn’t make it clear that there was no swimming there because of the water quality. People might have thought it was because there was no lifeguard on duty or some other reason.”
Amour said that DCR officials were “very thoughtful” about the signs, which caused some delays in getting them put up in time for this year’s swimming season, but that she is happy they were finally installed within the past couple of weeks.
“The signs really stand out — which is important,” she said. “They don’t look like any old sign that people would ignore. And they are on both the Lynn and Swampscott sides (of the outfall) so if anyone is walking through Stacey’s Brook, which is the behavior we are trying to get people to avoid, they are going to see the signs.”
The signs are metal and bolted in with metal screws so they “look really sturdy and look to be permanent.”
She said she is hoping that advocacy groups like Save King’s Beach and the persistent voice that Swampscott residents have given to the issue in the town at Select Board meetings and through reaching out to state agencies will keep the focus on the issue both in Swampscott and Lynn, and beyond where other cities and towns are dealing with beach water pollution.
“I definitely think that we’ve made some very strong positive progress,” she said. “The government’s job is to inform and protect and the government needs to be held accountable. If Gov. (Maura) Healey (and her administration) doesn’t see this as a wake-up call, they have to be woken up.
“Every person who sets their eyes on this issue is one more person who is not going to just let it go for another generation.”
(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.)
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