BY JENNIFER MCDOWELL

According to the Hooksett Sewer Commission, the state Wetlands Bureau is holding out on making a decision on whether the town can redirect a tiny brook next to the sewer plant to install a second clarifier.

Upon discussion of the problem at a Town Council meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 22, the council decided to have  Town Administrator David Jodoin write a letter to the head of the Department of Environmental Services to try and work through the problem.

At the meeting, Bruce Kudrick of the sewer commission explained the findings of a study done in 1974, which called for major sewer modifications for future developments in the town.

For the Cabela’s development, Kudrick said, the sewer pipe in front of the Fire Department must be enlarged to compensate for the 40,000 extra gallons of sewage Cabela’s will pump into the town’s system.

Kudrick said they pipe’s diameter needs to increase from 8 inches to 10 inches, and that the pump station on Merrimack Street will also need some work.

These modifications for Cabela’s, he said, will cost about $500,000.

But if the town expects future developers to come in to the town, the sewer plant will need to improve the sewage capacity in the areas west of I-93 and around University Heights and Head’s Pond.

There is no estimate for the amount of money it will cost for those additional improvements, he said.

According to Kudrick, the plant will handle the extra sewage from Cabela’s, but, in order to handle that of future developments, the plant will need to install a second clarifier, a state and EPA requirement.

A small brook, no more than 2 feet wide and just inches deep, stands in their way.

In June, the sewer commission put in an application to the Wetlands Bureau asking permission to culvert the brook.  

According to Kudrick, the bureau wants them to completely re-route the brook, digging a ditch to take the water in another direction.

“It’s an open stream. They want us to move that stream over,” Kudrick said.

Kudrick said this option is much more disruptive than a simple culvert pipe would be.

“We’re going to disturb more land, plus we’re going to run over onto our neighbor’s property,” he said.

The town’s sewage plant sits right next to Brox Sand and Gravel.

Kudrick said he is not sure, specifically, why the Wetlands Bureau will not let them culvert the stream.

“We’ve got streams all over the place that are culverted, and that same stream has been culverted before,” Kudrick claims, referring to the culvert installed into the stream in 1969 when the plant opened and another that went in for the plant’s expansion in 1974.

Jocelyn Degler, the Wetlands Bureau inspector in charge of handling the case, was not available for comment on the issue.