Relief Sewer Will Invade River Banks

Students who have already begun to dream of sunny spring days lounging on the banks of the Charles should prepare themselves for a mud bath or worse.

The Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) has commenced the second stage of construction on a $4 million relief sewer project designed to cut down pollution in the Charles Basin. The current segment of pipeline will run from Pleasant St. to the Weeks Memorial Bridge, paralleling the Charles River.

Construction of the second segment of the North Charles Relief Sewer officially began October 7, but fences marking the construction site by Weeks Bridge appeared only this week. Construction is expected to take two-and-one-half years.

Diverting

Norman Gray, a spokesman for the MDC, said yesterday that the function of the relief line would be to divert storm and sewer drainage from the Charles down to a new water treatment plant in Boston.

"What the pipeline will do is interrupt the overfall of the old sewers into the river during heavy rains." Dennis Holly of the J.F. White Contracting Company, the firm in charge of construction, said yesterday.

"About 1000 feet of the grassy lot from the Weeks Bridge to River Street will probably be under construction next spring. It's a matter of sacrificing that area in order to clean up the water in the Charles," Holly said.

Total cost for the 4055 foot pipeline will be $3,969,182. The first 1710 foot segment from the B. U. Bridge to Pleasant St. was completed last year. Eventually the sewage line will stretch to the Mt. Auburn Hospital area.

The pipeline is a joint project of the MDC, the Massachusetts Division of Water Pollution Control, and the Water Quality Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The federal government will carry 55 per cent of the cost, the state will pay 25 per cent and the remainder will come from Boston construction bonds