Littleton Board of Health approves One Monarch Drive septic upgrade, halts Stephen Street waiver

LITTLETON -- December 13, 2023, Littleton Board of Health grants One Monarch Drive septic variance and orders remediation plan for a failed shared cesspool at 23-31 Stephen Street. The board voted 4-0 at its December 13 meeting to approve a local upgrade allowing below-groundwater pipe connections between two 8,000-gallon SeptiTec pretreatment tanks at the commercial One Monarch Drive property, conditioned on quarterly operation-and-maintenance reports delivered to the board within 14 days of each inspection; engineer Sue Carter of Places Associates said cast-in-place neoprene boots and watertight testing satisfied MassDEP's provisional approval requirements, and Health Agent Jim Gariffi's written notes concluded he saw "no issue granting this request." In a separate 4-0 vote, the board continued a Title V waiver request for 23-31 Stephen Street to January 24, 2024, after member Kevin Davis declared he had "no appetite" to approve a waiver for a failed 1957 cesspool receiving an estimated 347 gallons per day from two separately owned properties, "flowing into the groundwater, and that is just not okay", directing the owners' attorney, Emily Langlis of the Law Offices of Thomas A. Gibbons, to return with a design for a shared tight tank as an interim solution while the properties await connection to the town's new municipal sewer system, expected in roughly two years.