`A win-win situation for both'; Webster, Dudley agreement.

Byline: John Dignam

WEBSTER - After years of negotiations, lawsuits and hefty legal fees, this town and Dudley have signed an intermunicipal agreement on Dudley's use of the wastewater treatment plant.

"This is a win-win situation for both towns," Town Administrator Raymond W. Houle Jr. said yesterday. "And long overdue.

"Regretfully, it took this long, but it resolves the situation for the next 25 years," he said.

The document defines Dudley's share of the costs of operating the plant and how those costs are calculated.

In a brief ceremony at Monday's Board of Selectmen meeting, Dudley Sewer Commissioners Scott Piekarczyk, Thomas Fournier and Constance Nedoroscik and Selectmen Charles R. Cormier, Robert F. Miller, Peter F. Slota and Deborah A. Keefe signed the agreement and shook hands.

A number of the officials pointed to the agreement as a template for future cooperation between the towns.

Mr. Cormier cited cooperation between the two boards over "the last couple years," and Mr. Piekarczyk referred to a "spirit of cooperation."

But Mr. Piekarczyk also had noted that negotiations "started kind of rough."

Dudley closed its sewer treatment plant in 1987 and began using Webster's new wastewater treatment plant under an intermunicipal agreement signed that year.

However, in later years the towns disagreed over the money Dudley was charged. Webster said Dudley owed it money. Dudley said charges were determined arbitrarily and that it was overcharged.

In June 2000, selectmen voted to end the agreement and gave Dudley five years to find someplace else to treat its sewage. The towns sued each other, later dropping the suits.

In 2002, Dudley considered reopening its old sewer treatment plant. But then Webster extended the deadline for Dudley to find another plant. Dudley approved money to pay its sewer debt and the towns negotiated.

Mr. Houle said yesterday the new 23-page intermunicipal agreement, of which the first five pages are definitions, is complex because it involves a...