Water Dept.*

Households on town water will see another double-digit increase in fiscal 2027 to continue funding big-ticket projects including the Lincoln Road water main replacement and installation of new “smart meters” at residences.

Rates will go up by 13% in the budget being presented at Town Meeting on March 29, Water Department Superintendent Rick Nolli said at a Water Commission public hearing on March 3. Rates went up by 10% both this year and last year.

Lincoln residents who use 70,000 gallons of water per year (a benchmark slightly higher than the actual figure) are now paying $744 a year. With the increase, that would rise to $841 a year, Nolli said. This is less than that residents of Concord and Wayland pay, but more than Lexington and Sudbury. Compared to some other Massachusetts towns with populations close to that of Lincoln, the town will be paying less than Topsfield ($1,716 a year), Rowley, Mendon, Rockport, Dover, and Merrimac ($928 a year), he said.

The $2.82 million overall operating budget represents a 34% increase over the current year’s. The biggest increases are for debt service ($873,925 in FY27 vs. $398,400 in FY26) and $284,574 in a one-time accounts-receivable adjustment. The latter expense arose because the department discovered that The Commons in Lincoln was being charged 10 times that they should have been since they installed a new primary water meter in 2024 and it was “incorrectly configured in our billing system,” Nolli said.

The total overcharge was more than $500,000; in addition to the refund, the matter is being corrected by not charging for more recent items such as the new connections for the new units now under construction, and not billing The Commons for their water use since the error was discovered.

The matter may have gone undiscovered for much longer if the Commons hadn’t noticed the sudden reduction in the first bill they got after the billing system was corrected. ”They were so used to paying the [artificially high] bill that they were surprised when it was so low,” Nolli said.

The Water Department is also seeking $457,350 for capital items including year three of the four-year smart meter replacement project, a generator for the Tower Road well, and repairs to several buildings. This is substantially less than the capital requests approved at Town Meeting in March 2025 ($6.79 million) and 2024 ($2.41 million) for the water main project, smart meters and other smaller capital expenses. Most of those expenses are being paid for by bond sales.

More road excavation is in Lincoln’s future, even for Bedford Road residents who already suffered through the water line replacement last year. There will be an information session to explain the work and answer questions on Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 6:30pm in Town Hall and via Zoom.

Phase 2 of the water main project set to begin in May will extend further down Lincoln Road from Ballfield Road to either Codman Road or Route 117 (“we’ll see how our bids come in,” Director of Public Works Steve Olson in a Feb. 9 presentation to the Select Board).

This phase is budgeted at $5.83 million on top of the $3.0 million for Phase 1. The $8.83 million total is being funded by an $8.4 million bond plus an MBTA Community Catalyst grant of $430,000 made possible by the town’s passage of the Housing Choice Act in 2024.

Bedford Road

Meanwhile, Bedford Road from the top of the hill to Five Corners will be closed to traffic from March to May as workers replace stormwater drainage pipes that were found to be in poor condition when the water main work was happening. The main line, lateral lines, and catch basins are all in “pretty rough shape… it turned into a pretty good-sized project,” Olson said, though subsequent camera inspections have shown that the lines from Five Corners down to Codman Road are mostly OK.

The drainage project will cost about $630,000, which will come from state-funded Chapter 90 road work grants. The town receives $250,000–$300,000 in Chapter 90 funds each year and will budget $400,000 from the current balance of about $1 million, Town Administrator Tim Higgins said.

The town has set up a dedicated web page at LincolnBigDig.com to keep residents informed about both the drainage and water main work, including expected detours. One lane will remain open “except when conditions dictate a closing,” though the segment running under the railroad tracks at the mall will almost certainly require total closure for some period of time, Olson said. Reverse 911 calls will be made for “unforeseen, last-minute changes only.”

In addition to the water main, Phase 2 will also involve replacing lateral lines, fire hydrants, and main gates or shutoff valves found in numerous locations under Lincoln Road. Workers normally shut the valves on either side of a water main break to limit the number of homes whose water is shut off while repairs are ongoing, but many of the gates on Lincoln Road aren’t working. In 2022, workers tried to isolate the area around a break near Todd Pond Road but had to go all the way from Codman Road to Weston Road to find working gates that could be shut. 

In March 2024, the town approved bonding $2.2 million for Phase 1 when it was thought that the project could be done over the course of four consecutive summers, though it was later decided that this would be too disruptive and more costly in the long run.

Looking down the road, so to speak, the town is working with a consultant on a townwide assessment of pavement, since it’s been at least 16 years since town roads were last repaved, Higgins said.

The water main replacement project is proceeding on schedule and on budget, though workers have encountered some blocked drainpipes that will have to be cleared or replaced.

Two of the three piping components of the water main project’s Phase 1 are complete: Bedford Road from the hilltop well down to the five-way intersection, and Lincoln Road from Tower Road to Ballfield Road, Water Superintendent Rick Nolli told the Select Board on September 8. Coming up:

• Week of September 15 — valves will be installed at Weston and Trapelo Roads, which will remain open to traffic.
• Mid- to late September — pipe installation for the section from the five-way intersection from Lincoln Road to Tower Road piping will take place.
• October — workers will do sample and pressure tests and start making connections.
• First week of November — temporary bypasses will be removed and water service through the new mains will start.

Over the summer, there were complaints about water quality in some homes served by a longer temporary above-ground pipe exposed to the heat, but flushing the pipe plus cooler weather mitigated the problem, Nolli said.

However, during the course of excavation on Bedford Road, workers discovered that the roadway/stormwater drains that connect the catch basins to the main drain line that runs down the center of the road were disintegrating. The contractor was told to replace those cross drains since they’re located above the new water main. This raised the question of whether the main drainage line and not just the smaller cross drains also need to be replaced, DPW Superintendent Steve Olson said.

The town has hired a consultant to do camera inspections on the main line, which thus far have shown two blockages. The hope is that cleaning and internally relining the affected pipe segments will solve the problem. Doing that work on the Bedford Road section will cost about $300,000, but if the pipes actually need to be replaced, the cost would be four to five times that amount, Town Administrator Tim Higgins said.

Unless the pipes are in imminent danger of collapse, the town will crate a capital planning request for the next budget cycle. “We are not currently anticipating some type of emergency procurement/change order to have the water main contractor do the stormwater drain repair/replacement,” Higgins wrote in a memo to other town officials.

If immediate repairs are in fact required, they could be funded by the town’s Chapter 90 funds, and/or a reserve fund transfer. “This scenario is certainly not ideal as the current plan is to use our Chapter 90 funds to keep the roads in reasonable condition until we can get bonds approved for the next major pavement project. Draining the Reserve Fund so early in the fiscal year is also problematic,” he wrote.

Phase 2 from Ballfield Road to Codman Road is still in the design phase and will go out to bid in February, Nolli said. Workers will try to maintain one lane open at all times. “We’re hoping we don’t have to redirect traffic because it’s along detour to get around that section of Lincoln Road,” Nolli said, adding that the part near the mall “is going to be a tight area” as well.

Voters approved $2.2 million in bonding for Phase 1 in 2023 and another $6.2 million in March 2025 for Phase 2. Water rates are expected to rise by 10% in each of the next four years to pay those debts.

Bedford Road will be again be closed from Monday through Friday, August 4–8 from 7:00am to 3:00pm between the five-way intersection to Canaan Drive to accommodate the water main project. 

Water Department Superintendent Richard Nolli last week answered questions about the project, which was originally supposed to have Bedford Road reduced to on lane at times rather than closed altogether. The work has been complicated by inaccurate records and balky valves.

“To prepare for this project, Water Department staff and consultants performed an extensive review of all existing maps, drawings, and notes to confirm the location of our distribution system lines. But due to historical inaccuracies in these records, and the overall age of the system, we are still occasionally required to make modifications during construction,” he said in an email to the Lincoln Squirrel.

“For example, some old valves are difficult to close and can cause delays when shutting down the system. In another instance, the contractor encountered a pipe that was previously thought to be disconnected but was still connected and pressurized, requiring additional time and effort to close. Events like this are not uncommon when working on old water systems.  Town staff, engineers, and the contractor worked together to address them quickly, so some delays caused longer work shifts than anticipated, but this hasn’t delayed the project overall.

“For the past three years, we have been electronically updating and adding photographic documentation for every portion of the distribution system to ensure our records are accurate and up to date for future work,” Nolli said.

The Bedford Road phase of the work will be completed in late August, and once it moves down Lincoln Road in the fall, one travel lane will remain open at all times, he said.

The Lincoln Squirrel emailed town officials with questions about the progress of the water main replacement project and what residents can expect going forward. Here are the answers (lightly edited) from Water Department Superintendent Richard Nolli.

Q. Were the daytime road closures in fact not planned at the outset? If so, what necessitated them?

A. Initially, we planned to keep one lane open to minimize disruption. However, as a result of preconstruction meetings with the contractor and Lincoln Police Department it was determined that full closures were necessary. The nature of the work, the equipment being used, and the proximity of traffic can create hazardous conditions for the construction crews, the officers responsible for traffic control, and the traveling public.

Q. How many more days of daytime closures can we expect, and when?

A. The Bedford Road phase of the work will be completed on or about last week of August.  We do not anticipate needing to fully close roadways once this phase is completed and the contractor moves on to the Lincoln Road phase of work.

Q. What is the latest project schedule?

A. The Bedford Road phase will be completed on or about last week of August. Work on the Lincoln Road phase (Five Corners to Ballfield Road) will begin around late August and be completed on or about late October/early November.

The Water Department will solicit bids to extend the main from Ballfield Road to Codman Road in the winter, but this is contingent on MBTA and wetlands permitting. We anticipate awarding a contract in the spring so that work can begin in early summer [2026]. This phase of work is expected to be completed in 2027.

Q. Will there be daytime disruptions once school starts?

A. Work will be ongoing into early November, including in the area of Ballfield Road. One travel lane will remain open at all times. We are coordinating with school administration to minimize disruption during dropoff and pickup times. Traffic detail officers will be on site at all times to ensure the safety of students, parents, and school staff commuting to and from the campus.

Q. Is the project going to require more money than budgeted?

A. Funds for the project were provided through a combination of water revenues and state grants. With any significant construction project, there is always risk of unforeseen conditions and associated costs; however, thus far, none have been encountered. 

Lincoln water rates are expected to rise by 10% in each of the next four years as the town embarks on a project to replace aging water mains. Voters will also be asked to approve an additional $6.79 million in capital spending in fiscal 2026.

This summer, the town will start a multi-year project to replace the water main that runs from the top of the hill on Bedford Road just south of Hilliard Road down to Five Corners and then under Lincoln Road to Route 117, although water flow rates south of Codman Road are currently acceptable, Water Superintendent Darin LaFalam said in the March 4 public hearing on water rates (video here; passcode is s+=p.5&u).

The existing cast-iron main under Lincoln Road dating from 1927 has significant mineral deposits inside it, with the result that water flow through the center of town is “greatly reduced,” and booster pumps had to be installed as part of the Lincoln School renovation project to achieve acceptable fire protection, he said. The new pipes will be made of cement-lined ductile iron, which will not accumulate deposits.

Most of the $6.79 million will have to come from bonding, assuming that two-thirds of residents approve at Town Meeting on March 29. The town recently learned it will get $430,000 for the project through a state Catalyst Communities grant for which Lincoln qualified by rezoning last year to comply with the Housing Choice Act. The town will apply for another grant in FY2026.

A year ago, voters approved $2.2 million in borrowing for the first pipe segment down to Five Corners, which is out to bid now. The original plan was to spread the work over four years, but the Water Department reconsidered and now hopes to do all the work in the summers of 2025 and 2026 (the least disruptive time of year since school is out and traffic is lighter overall).

“We were going to break down the project into what I guess at the time I found were emotionally tolerable bite-size pieces of $2.2 million, but we realized we would continue to interfere with the towns’ traffic right up Lincoln Road for four summers in a row,” LaFalam said.

The public hearing will conclude at the next Water Commission meeting on Tuesday, March 11 at 8:00am. Click here to join via Zoom.

While the annual rate increases will undoubtedly make many customers unhappy, LaFalam noted that other towns in the area have it even worse. Rates are also going up this year by 10% in Bedford and Maynard, 10.6% in Littleton, and 12.5% in Concord. Lincoln was required by the state DEP to raise rates by 3% last year, but rates did not go up in the three years before that.

A fairer comparison would be to towns that are the same size as Lincoln, since the larger the town, the greater the economy of scale, he said. By that measure, a Lincoln household water bill for using 70,000 gallons per year ($676 now vs. $744 proposed) is on the lower end of the list, whereas it’s $1,058 in Dover and a whopping $1,536 in Topsfield.

Water costs are rising everywhere due to “ever-tightening regulations,” especially with the recent issue of PFAS in drinking water, as well as “the challenge of unaddressed or deferred maintenance,” he said.

Almost 14% of Lincoln’s water distribution system is past its expected useful life; in 10 years that figure will be 36%, according to LaFalam. “We really need to get started,” he said. “It might be 10 years before can afford another water main project. If we do 2.5 miles every 10 years, we’re looking at over 200 years to replace all the water mains in town.”

Residents in dozens of homes in southwest Lincoln woke up to dry taps on Tuesday morning after a water line ruptured.

The Water Department received a call about water running down the side of Lincoln Road at about 5:30 a.m. on October 22, according to Water Department Superintendent Darin LaFalam. The town sent out text messages and calls to all Lincoln residents at about 7:15 a.m., and water service wasn’t restored until shortly before 4 p.m.

The break occurred along Concord Road south of Route 117 where one water main feeds that entire corner of town and affected about 200 water service connections. The water main itself — which is not near the top of the list for replacement in the coming years — was intact; it was a one-inch device connection that failed, LaFalam said.

He advised residents in the affected area whose water is rusty to flush until clear from an exterior faucet. If there is air in the plumbing, flush from only the cold water faucet located at the highest point of the home. 

The Lincoln Water Department will be performing water main flushing on Thursday, September 12 from noon–7 p.m. at the following locations:

• Lincoln Road, including Lincoln Woods
• Mackintosh Lane
• SPNEA Lane
• Meadowdam Road
• Woodbrook Road
• Ridge Road
• Todd Pond Road
• Short Hill Road
• Far Meadow Lane

Flushing improves water quality, but there can be short term rusty water conditions as a result of the flushing. If you experience rusty, discolored water, please avoid doing laundry or using hot water until it clears. Flush an outside faucet for about 10 minutes or until the water runs clear.

The Water Department and Water Commissioners will hold the second of two public hearings on proposed water rate increases on Tuesday, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

The department needs to raise rates for two reasons, Water Department Superintendent Darin LaFalam said. The last fiscal year saw greater than average rainfall, resulting in less demand for water (especially water used for irrigation) and therefore revenue that was about $200,000 less than expected.

In addition, the Department of Revenue requires that the town’s real estate tax bills cannot be processed until the Water Department budget is balanced and shows no possibility of a deficit. This directive has been in place for decades, but in prior years, the town was able to submit an analysis comparing several fiscal years showing water consumption and revenue collected to support the fact that varying weather patterns affect water consumption in any given year, and that on average, most fiscal year revenue remains somewhat consistent.

“This year, they are not accepting that analysis. We must prove where the additional revenue will come from, and the only way to do that is through a rate increase,” said Finance Director and Town Accountant Colleen Wilkins. “Since projected revenues for the FY2025 budget are based on prior year amounts, and those revenue amounts came in lower than anticipated, the FY2025 budget is now out of balance.” She added that this issue affects only the FY2025 budget, and that FY2024 results (revenues compared to expenditures) from water operations were positive.

Details of the budget shortfall and proposed rate increases will be revealed at the hearings (the first was on August 27). Click here for the Zoom link for the September 3 hearing.