Jan. 1—WATERTOWN — While the city works on resolving its own issues, the town of Watertown is facing similar scrutiny for purposely discharging untreated wastewater into Beaver Meadows, a large wetland west of the city limits.

Both the town’s and city’s water treatment plant were cited with consent orders by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for discharging untreated water into the wetlands.

The town of Watertown is required to put together its own inflow and infiltration plan for large amounts of water that flow down from outer Washington Street during heavy rain events, said Michael Alteri, civil engineer with BCA Associates.

Alteri gave an update on the discharge issue to the Town Council last week. BCA is handling the town’s investigation.

The city is going through the same issues with discharging untreated water into the Western Outfall Trunk Sewer basin, which is primarily on the western and southwestern sides of the city.

However, Town Supervisor Joel R. Bartlett blames the city for the town’s Beaver Meadow issue.

“The town shouldn’t have to pay for what the city should have done years ago,” he said.

The DEC established moratoriums on both the city and the town for issuing sewer permits for new development until the inflow and infiltration plans are resolved.

Alteri isn’t aware of any new projects in the town that are being held up by the moratorium.

He “suspects” that projects involving the Panera Bread restaurant and the DICK’S Sporting Goods store in the Target plaza on Route 3 are not subject to the moratorium because they are moving from one location to another, so they are just transferring sewer permits.

A few days before a Dec. 21 deadline, the city submitted an “offset plan” into the DEC that must be approved before its sewer permits can again be granted.

The town is “looking at different options” to resolve its issue, Alteri said.

The town’s water treatment plant might be “expanded” so it can increase its capacity from 57,000 gallons of water a day to 100,000, Alteri said.

The town also looking at repairing damaged manhole covers that allow leakage into the wetlands and other ways it can reduce the amount of rain water, Alteri said.

According to the two consent orders, the town and the city must put plans in place to account for removal of infiltration/inflow equal to three times the anticipated flow from any new sanitary connections.

However, the two municipalities can use what is called “sewer banks,” in which they can get one-third credit for inflow and infiltration remediation projects that would be used later for sewer connections for new development.

The city and the town will have their own credit accounts.

In February, the city received the notice of violation after the DEC became aware that the city was purposely allowing the discharging of untreated water through a manhole cover on Butterfield Drive. The city also paid a $22,700 fine.

The discharge — mainly rainwater — has happened for decades after the city alleviated residential flooding in the Butterfield Avenue area during periods of heavy, extended rain.

The city received a notice of violation after the DEC became aware that the city was purposely allowing the discharging of untreated water through a manhole cover on Butterfield Drive.

In hopes of preventing the discharge into the wetlands, the city recently completed a $200,000 project to replace 63 manhole covers throughout the outflow system.