Wareham’s municipal sewer system will need to process around 3 million gallons of wastewater flow per day by 2045. However, the town has a lot of options it can consider when deciding how to reach that goal. 

Those were the broad takeaways from a draft Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan presented at a Thursday, May 9 meeting of the Sewer Commission. 

Federal law requires the town to prepare a Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan every 20 years. The last plan was completed in 2002. The Sewer Commission worked with consulting firm GHD to draft the updated plan. 

In addition to its current sewer flow and the amount the sewer department has already committed to future development projects, the town needs to expand its sewer system in the near future for reasons of public health and the health of the environment, said Anastasia Rudenko, an environmental engineer with GHD. 

She added the town will need to continue expanding its sewer system further in the future to account for a growing population and for its economic development needs. 

All told, the town will need to expand its sewer system to process 3 million gallons per day by 2045, according to GHD’s projections. 

The town’s sewer plan currently can process 1.56 million gallons per day. This will increase to approximately 2 million gallons per day once the $36 million improvements approved at Fall 2023 Town Meeting are completed. 

The comprehensive plan drafted by GHD offers the town flexibility in how it makes its expansions. 

The town could increase its treatment capacity by expanding its current, centralized facility, by building smaller treatment plants in places that are relatively remote and by partnering with other regional treatment plants, such as a plant operated by A.D. Makepeace. 

The town also needs to increase how much treated wastewater it can discharge. Currently, the wastewater plant’s permit limits how much it can discharge into the Agawam River, to protect the health of that ecosystem. 

The town could increase its disposal capacity by applying for an increase to the limit in that permit, by creating a new discharge pipe that feeds more directly into the ocean, or by constructing facilities such as sandbeds to feed its discharge directly into the groundwater, according to the draft comprehensive plan. 

“There’s a multiplicity of solutions,” said Sewer Commission Chair Bernie Pigeon. “Finding the right one that fits our needs is what the difficulty is going to be.”

The plan is not yet finalized. GHD consultants emphasized that public involvement will be crucial for completing the plan. 

The next steps consultants proposed included a request for funds at an upcoming Town Meeting to study the options for expanding the sewer system.