Sewer Project Set in Tisbury

Leaders Release Four-Phase Plan for $10.2 Million Sewering, but
Frigid Weather Puts Start Date in Question

By CHRIS BURRELL

The construction crew hired to build Tisbury's $10.2 million
sewer system was supposed to break ground next Monday, but now
there's one more problem and another likely delay: The ground
might well break their shovels if they tried.

After more than a week of polar temperatures that sent Island
thermometers plunging, the roads in Vineyard Haven might just be too
frozen, the frost too deeply embedded, for backhoes to make a dent,
according to Tisbury town administrator Dennis Luttrell.

Meanwhile, the town also released a schedule yesterday, detailing a
four-phase timeline for finishing the project over an 11-month period
while trying to minimize the impact on the Island's biggest
year-round business district.

Mr. Luttrell is expected to find out today whether work crews can
actually commence digging Monday or push the schedule back two weeks and
try again in mid-February.

"This would be doable if we didn't have such cold
weather. Any other winter, we wouldn't have this," said the
town administrator. "Once every 10 years, we get this, and we just
have to work around it."

The project has already been thrown off-schedule by a variety of
developments: delays at the state permitting level and troubles with the
engineer that led selectmen to switch firms last fall. The town had
hoped to start construction last October.

But Mr. Luttrell said construction managers have assured him they
can make up two weeks lost time and still clear out of Main street by
mid-May. According to the four-phase construction schedule, work crews
plan to take one block of Main street at a time, starting first with a
middle chunk between Spring and Centre streets.

During all of the next four months, motorists can expect delays and
detours as crews shut down parts of Main street to do the work of
excavation and laying of both sewer and water pipes.

Here's how the official schedule looks as of yesterday's
press release: After installing pipes on Evelyn Way and Pinetree Road
for a three-week period, work crews will start digging up that middle
block on Main street.

That move alone will completely upend motorists' understanding
of traffic flow and one-way streets. Detours will send them the wrong
way on a one-way street, driving up Spring street all the way to
Franklin street and back down Church street, then turning right on Main
street.

In all three turns, drivers will be going against the grain of usual
traffic flow on those streets. That maze of detours - dubbed phase
one - will last three weeks.

In phase two, the entry to Main street will be closed for two weeks
while crews dig up the first block as far as Spring street. During this
phase, drivers will be routed all the way to Pinetree Road along the
cemetery, down Spring street, over Franklin and onto Centre street. That
phase will also send drivers the opposite direction down Centre street,
which normally flows away from Main street.

Phase three is expected to last three weeks as construction takes
over the block between Center and Church streets. The detour will be
much shorter, guiding drivers up Centre street, over Franklin and back
down Church street.

Finally, in phase four, the work will focus for about three weeks on
Church street and the upper reaches of the Main street business district
up to The Bagel Authority.

"The town will endeavor to minimize the inconvenience to the
public and the business community during construction, but delays should
be expected and planned for," Mr. Luttrell wrote in his statement
released yesterday.

The town also urges people to use the town Park & Ride parking
lot and public transit system. Some parking spaces in the town lot next
to the A&P will also be taken during the construction period,
according to the press release.

Mr. Luttrell said Tisbury officials have watched the Oak Bluffs
sewer project closely and learned a few things. That project was
completed in the spring of last year after numerous delays, cost
overruns and some controversy.

"There will be no green boxes all over the place," said
the town administrator, referring to the flap in Oak Bluffs over
electrical panel boxes placed all over downtown, infuriating residents
of historic neighborhoods.

A pump facility will be housed in a wood frame building near the
police station. The town, Mr. Luttrell said, is trying its best to hide
the visual impact of the new wastewater system.