By Thomas Grillo
LYNN — The executive director of the city’s Water & Sewer Commission wants his governing board to stop micromanaging the agency.
At issue is a vote the five-member panel took last summer that required the department to replace chlorine gas that purifies the city’s drinking water with chemicals. The issue caught the attention of the city council two years ago who took a rare step of sending a letter to the commission noting safety hazard concerns around gas use at the waste water treatment facility.
David Ellis, one of the commissioners, introduced the idea without consulting the nine-member staff and managed to convince the other commissioners of the idea, according to Daniel O’Neill, executive director.
“It’s insane,” he said. “Dave Ellis just created more work for us by changing our drinking water. He shouldn’t be making motions to change the chemical composition of the water.”
Ellis did not return a call seeking comment.
O’Neill insists no change was needed, that in 24 years the department never faced a safety violation. In addition, he said the state Department of Environmental Protection has praised its operation with awards in eight of the last 10 years.
Under the new program that is expected to be implemented next year at a cost of nearly $2 million, the gas will be replaced with liquid sodium hypochlorite, the main ingredient in laundry bleach.
“The gas was safe and doing the job,” O’Neill said. “Now we’re worried about acids and PH balances under the new configuration. We have great water that we have been using more than 27 years. Now, we will have to add more acids and they aren’t the safest thing to handle either.”
Walter Proodian, a commissioner member, agreed.
While he did not recall his 2015 vote to switch from gas to chemicals in the drinking water, Proodian said decisions about such things should be up to the staff.
“We should leave everything up to the professionals that are running the plant, not Dave Ellis,” he said. “He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. In my estimation, Mr. Ellis is not a professional and I will not go against staff recommendations.”
Wayne Lozzi, a former commissioner and Ward 1 city councilor, said he’s not surprised that Ellis is micromanaging the Water & Sewer Commission.
“It’s not David Ellis’ role as a commissioner to dictate what type of chemicals should be added to the city’s drinking water supply,” he said. “That’s meddling into staff affairs. When I was a commissioner, there were complaints that he was looking over the shoulder of employees and telling them he was their boss.”
The role of the commission, he said, is to have broad oversight, not day-to-day management of the operation. The commission’s role is to review staff reports and act on them, he added, not make policy.
“While they have broad power does not mean they should be setting policy on technical matters,” Lozzi said. “They can ask the engineers to examine the possibility of using chemicals and report back to us, not to bamboozle the other commissioners to do his bidding. I support Dan O’Neil as the executive director knowing what to do and how to do it. This is outrageous.”
Commissioners William Trahant and Richard Colucci were unavailable for comment.
Peter Capano, a commissioner and Ward 6 councilor, said it was news to him that O’Neill thought the commission was meddling.
“I have never been told we were micromanaging,” he said. “Over the last year we have been working well together especially with the staff.”
Ellis initially raised concerns about chlorine gas use in Water & Sewer facilities during an October 2013 commission meeting.
Chlorine gas used at the Commercial Street waste treatment plant poses “potential dangers,” including domestic terrorism, to plant workers and residents in surrounding neighborhoods, according to city councilors who wanted its use phased out.
At the time, Council President Daniel Cahill and Capano said chlorine gas not only poses a danger to plant workers but also to “significant portions of Lynn and Nahant” in the event of an accident.
Thomas Grillo can be reached at [email protected].