By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

If residents of the Lynchville/Danis Park want a warrant article forcing fixes for the area’s water, sewer and drainage problems, they’ll have to wait at least until 2008.

At a special meeting on Friday, May 12, a group of public officials and engineering experts agreed that a multimillion dollar project to improve conditions in the neighborhood would not be ready to appear on the town warrant by 2007.

Members of the group said there there are still too many funding and infrastructure questions to make the project a viable item on the 2007 ballot.

“This project moving forward comes down to three things,” said Goffstown Department of Public Works Director Carl Quiram. “Funding, funding and funding.”

Residents of the area have been complaining of poor water, sewer, drainage and road conditions in their neighborhood for nearly four decades.

The area extends from the intersection of 114 and Mast Road to Shaw’s Plaza at 533 Mast Road. There are there are 314 lots in the neighborhoods, with 244 homes and 750 residents.

At a recent selectmen’s meeting, a resident compared the neighborhood’s living conditions to that of a Third World country. Residents complained of children getting rashes and ear infections from swimming in the local section of the Piscataquog river, and one resident said drainage is so poor in the neighborhood that she sometimes had to use a boat to get on and off her property.

Action on the issue is now among selectmen’s stated goals for the year.

The project could be one of the largest in town history, Quiram said, with the price tag potentially reaching $10 million.

Grant funding is crucial to the survival of the project, the panelists agreed. According to figures provided by Martha Fournier, co-president of the Lynchville/Danis Park Neighborhood Group, the absence of grant funding and local dollars would mean $41,000 in expenses for each household, plus $500 per year in user fees.

Half the costs of this project could be financed through a federal STAG grant, which officials are pursuing through the offices of Sen. Judd Gregg.

Selectman Bruce Hunter, who is coordinating the grant with Gregg, said the senator will know if those grant funds are available in September or October of this year.

Robert Tourigny, executive director of Manchester Neighborhood Housing Services, said grants, loans and other public funds could account for the rest of the project.

Although the STAG money would reduce costs significantly, substantial other expenses still loom, panel members said. The cost of extending Manchester water lines into the neighborhood would itself cost $1.3 million, said Guy Chabot, water distribution administrator for Manchester Water Works.

Residents themselves would be responsible for connecting their own homes to the water lines, which could cost an additional $4,000, Quiram said. The panel will have its next meeting on June 16.