Town Meeting's decision almost two years ago to create an elected Board of Sewer Commissioners is now effectively "dead" due to inaction.

"It's dead, we have to start from scratch now," said Selectman Alan Slavin during the Board of Selectmen's meeting on Tuesday. "We need to go back to Town Meeting. We need to go through the whole process again."

In October of 2010, Town Meeting voters approved changing the Town Charter to create an elected board of five sewer commissioners to oversee the sewer system and its finances. Currently, the Board of Selectmen serves as Sewer Commissioners.

Voters argued that the dual role of Selectman and Sewer Commissioner was too much work for Selectmen. Sewer issues are among the hottest topics in Wareham: Expansion of the system and the $20,000+ "betterment fees" that are being imposed, and the annual sewer feeds paid by existing sewer users.

Because creating the Board of Sewer Commissioners requires a change to Town Charter, the article must be filed with the Massachusetts State Legislature for approval, said current Selectman Alan Slavin, who was chair of the Charter Review Committee which made the recommendation to to create the Board in Fall of 2010.

The approved Town Meeting article was not given to the state Senate until early 2011, said Senator Marc Pacheco, whose district covers parts of Plymouth County and Wareham.

The article went back and forth between Senate lawyers and town lawyers due to concerns about the language of the petition, however.

"That kept on going back and forth for over a year," said Pacheco, adding that "We've got a long email trail here, of waiting for the appropriate language to come back to my office."

At the July 11 Selectmen's meeting, Town Counsel Richard Bowen said in response to a citizen's question about the issue that the language issue had been resolved.

The Board then asked Slavin, who was elected a Selectman in April of this year, to look into the matter.

Slavin, who was elected to the board in April of this year, discovered that the article was never formally filed with the State Senate.

In a letter to state Senator Marc Pacheco, whose district covers parts of Plymouth County and Wareham, Senate Clerk William Welch explained why it was too late for the Senate to act on the bill.

"We ask that the local approval be as fresh as possible at the time of filing," Welch wrote in the letter. "Townspeople do change their mind on issues and we want to be clear that the city or town still requests the piece of legislation in the form sought by the municipality."

Selectman Ellen Begley, who was elected in April of 2011 after the article was passed, said that she knew about the language issue but she was not sure what the delay was in passing the article.

"I don't know where the ball was dropped, I really don't know," she said.

Pacheco added that perhaps the town did not prioritize the article.

"Because it was such a simple article, it probably slipped through the cracks of being a priority for the town. I'm not sure," Pacheco said.

Mark Andrews, the former Town Administrator for Wareham, could not be reached for comment before Wareham Week went to press.

Selectmen voted Tuesday to draft a new article dealing with the issue of the Sewer Commissioners for upcoming Fall Town Meeting.

Slavin pointed out after the meeting that Fall Town Meeting is in October. If the article passes once again, he said, the process to create a Board of Sewer Commissioners could be started in as little as three months.