Power Plan Has Neighborhood Stunned
December 23, 2024
• At their last meeting, the Select Board approved two connected projects by Eversource that will have major impacts on Grant Street and Webster Street. The move left residents looking for better communication and consideration moving forward.
It will be a long haul for Needham as the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority seeks to build redundancy into its water delivery infrastructure. The plan to build a new water tunnel was first brought in front of the Select Board in November 2022, when the MWRA rolled out the project to the affected communities. The groundwork preparing for this undertaking began this past summer, with field work being conducted near Mills Field, but the endeavor will have impacts that reach beyond the St. Mary’s neighborhood and the section of Route 95/128 that lie directly in the future pipeline’s path.
At the Dec. 17th meeting of the Select Board, Eversource began the process needed to prepare for the project, which is expected to run for 11 years, starting in 2027. The MWRA will require additional power in order to proceed, and to supply sufficient power, Eversource will be adding underground conduit to sections of Grant Street — running from Junction Street to School Street — and Webster Street, running from Highland Avenue to Homestead Park. Notice was sent to abutters of the proposed work, and residents from each neighborhood aired concerns during the Select Board public hearings.
Shannon O’Mara of Grant Street questioned the selection of their road for the work. Because the neighborhood is densely populated, she fears that the work may have a larger adverse impact on that area than other possible routes. “It’s right next to the Needham Junction train station. It’s a route to lots of areas in town, to schools… and it’s also a street that has massive drainage issues.”
Eversource representative Jason Kaminsky argued that the selection of Grant Street was a deliberate choice. “It was chosen because of its location adjacent to all of the existing infrastructure we have around which we plan to utilize to run the cable up to the MWRA site.”
Further than that, DPW Director Carys Lustig suggested that the town’s stormwater management project was looking to piggyback off of the work to improve the drainage concerns of the neighborhood. She had no specifics to offer, however, as the overall plan was not yet complete. They also expect that to be ready by the late spring or early summer.
“But, again, knowing that this area is being dug up… it gives it more of an incentive to work on this particular location first,” Lustig said, “because we’re gonna have a plan that’s going to have 20-30 locations identified. We then have to decide which is the one we start at.”
Both Grant and Webster street residents expressed concern over the inconvenience and timing of the projects, which would limit access to and from individual driveways for times when work is being done. On Webster Street, there would be added frustration, as a section of road that was just redesigned and rebuilt would once again be dug up. Normally, when a stretch of road has been replaced, there is a five-year moratorium on work that would dig up the new road.
While the Eversource project would necessitate the breaking of that tradition, Lustig assured neighbors that the MWRA would be responsible for returning the road to the new standard.
“There are often reasons where someone might have to dig up a road,” Lustig said. “The requirement is that they are going to have to return it to pre-construction conditions.”
Accountability for achieving that standard would fall to two quality control teams: one managed by Eversource and one contracted by the town. When asked whether other benefits for the affected neighborhoods could be negotiated, such as the elimination of telephone poles, representatives answered that running neighborhood utilities underground was a major undertaking and not possible with this project.
Lustig added that while the bill for this work is being paid for through MWRA funds, those funds are generated through member communities, of which Needham is one.
“We talked about the same thing, about bringing a full restoration on this work,” she said. “And because they are the ones covering the cost, Eversource said ‘Sure!’ MWRA will pay for the cost, and that will then get trickled down to all the member communities including the town of Needham.”
The Eversource projects are expected to be bid over the next few months with work expected to begin in the middle of 2025 and conclude by the middle of 2027. The MWRA will return to update the Select Board on Jan. 28, and a community meeting on the redundancy project is being coordinated for Feb. 5, 2025.
