After complaints from residents and questions from Selectmen, town officials asked who is responsible to clean up sand in the streets after winter.

“It’s two separate entities,” said Pollution Control Facility Director Guy Campinha.

The sanitary sewer system falls under the domain of the Water Pollution Control District while the storm water drains fall under municipal maintenance.

He said storm water is collected in catch basins and is sent off to marshes, ponds, and the ocean. The sand on the street is picked up by this water and flushed into the basins.

“We don’t have anything to do with it,” said Campinha, referring to Water Pollution Control.

“Today, a bunch went into the storm drain. Is our goal, other than beautification, to just let it go down the traps?” asked Selectman Stephen Holmes.

Campinha answered yes. “The basin is there to catch the sand and debris, that’s what it’s designed to do,” he said.

Town Administrator Derek Sullivan said the town is equipped to clean out the sand in the catch basins, which he added can’t be used for other purposes since it’s considered contaminated.

He said the street sweeper does primary roads first for safety, then secondary roads, and by the time they’re done, it’s winter.

“The problem is we don’t have the labor to do that,” said Holmes. He asked if workers from another department or contractors could do this work.

Previously, a $10-15,000 line item in the budget paid for someone to come and do the primary roads, then Municipal Maintenance would do the rest with their own equipment.

Holmes said aside from those nine workers, taxpayers support staff in the sewer department, the school department, and in two fire districts. “We’re already paying them, they’re just under different control and we need them under a single control,” said Holmes.

Tropeano first said town government has no control over the districts and that while there can be places for overlap, the three town maintenance crews are busy doing their own work.

“Proposition 2 1/2 is phased in bankruptcy, like it or not,” Tropeano said.  “Until we resolve those financial issues these things are going to stay there, things are going to get done based on whatever emergency thing comes up--they’re going to put a band aid on it.  So we either have to get used to it or do something else to help our government.  It’s a simple as that.”