By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Words of desperation filled Goffstown Town Hall’s Mildred Stark Room on Monday, April 17, as residents of the Lynchville/Danis Park neighborhood insisted on relief from problems they have been complaining about for decades. Those problems include the area’s water, sewer, drainage and road conditions.

It’s a problem dating back two generations, and town officials say the solution may carry a $10 million price tag.

About 40 residents of the neighborhood turned out for the board of selectmen’s meeting on Monday. Martha Fournier, a resident of the area and co-chairman of the Lynchville/Danis Neighborhood Group, was scheduled to address the board on neighborhood issues.

The overflow crowd spilled out into the hallway of the selectmen’s meeting room, forcing board members and the public downstairs into the larger Stark Room.

Residents’ complaints illustrated why so many had turned out.

“You have people living like they do in Third World countries,” resident Janet Caza of Pine Grove Avenue said of her neighborhood’s situation. Drainage conditions in the area are so poor, Caza said, she sometimes has to take a boat to get on and off of her property.

“This is an atrocity,” Caza said.

Deb Gaudette, a resident of Danis Park, said children cannot swim in the neighborhood’s section of the Piscataquog River because polluted water causes them to break out in rashes and acquire ear infections.

“I am concerned for the health of my kids,” Gaudette said. “That’s why I bought my home. I was promised this was a safe place.”

The problems of the Lynchville/Danis Park neighborhood date back to 1967, when 28 residents of the area signed a letter to Manchester Water Works requesting municipal water service.

Residents presented selectmen with a new petition Monday night, requesting support in securing grants to make the sewer and water projects affordable.

According to the petition, equipping the homes with sewer service would cost $21,274 per home, and water lines would cost in excess of $5,000 per home. The petition referenced a proposal from June 2005, in which the town would use $1.8 million to cover 35 percent of the total sewer costs through nonproperty tax revenues and reserves, and state funding covering 20 percent of the project with $1 million.

“These funds are clearly needed to undertake this project and to generate community support,” the petition said.

The 284 homes in the area currently use mostly septic systems with leach fields for sewage and dug wells for water, said Fournier. However, some residents are forced to use aboveground holding tanks for sewage and purchase bottled water.

Members of the Lynchville/Danis Park Neighborhood Group say the area would benefit from a connection to Manchester’s water and sewer lines. However, Goffstown officials noted such a project would involve a lengthy and complicated procedure.

Stephen Crean, chairman of Goffstown’s Board of Sewer Commission, said a sewer project could be bonded and drainage improvements could appear as a separate warrant article.

However, he said installation of sewer lines would change the area’s water table.

Carl Quiram, director of the Goffstown Department of Public Works, said the road conditions in the area also call out for improvement.

“The roads are awful,” Quiram said. “If the sewer system doesn’t happen, we still feel we have to do something with the roads. And there’s no drainage, so the water finds its own course down to the river and damages property.”

Selectmen Chairman Barbara Griffin said board members would respond to the neighborhood group’s request for a working committee on the Lynchville/Danis Park issue.

The group’s petition requested that the committee consist of a member of the board of selectmen, the neighborhood group, the town planner, the sewer commission, a representative of the Department of Public Works and outside engineers among others.

In a discussion following the neighborhood group’s appearance, Griffin said selectmen would be in touch with Quiram, Crean and Town Planner Steve Griffin on the issue.

The neighborhood group’s petition requests that the working committee have its first meeting before May 17.

“The more the project is delayed, the more critical the needs are,” according to the petition. For more information about Lynchville/Danis Park, visit www.ldpsewer.org.