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.