Lexington School Building Committee Selects Exterior Acid-Waste Tank, Defers Tile Decision

LEXINGTON — July 20, 2026 — Lexington's School Building Committee selected a direct-buried exterior acid-waste neutralization tank for the new high school and logged roughly $2 million in target value design savings at its July 20 remote meeting. Chair Kathleen Lenehan led the 11-member quorum through updates on a regulatory snag: Jim Williams, on behalf of a 10-citizen group, filed a superseding order of conditions request with MassDEP on July 13, halting all work in the project's 100-foot buffer zones — including skate park relocation and a planned Eversource temporary-power feed along Worthen Road — for up to 75 days. On the lab waste system, SMMA plumbing engineer Brian presented four options; the committee gave direction to proceed with Option 4, a directly buried 500-gallon exterior chip tank saving roughly $33,000 against the $1.2 million baseline, citing lower maintenance burden and LPS facilities staff comfort with the system. The $2,010,000 in cumulative target value design savings includes a $1.5 million reduction in the lighting package. On exterior design, the committee asked SMMA to carry porcelain tile cladding at the stair towers — estimated at $242,000 with markups — as a base-design item with a deduct alternate, pending members reviewing physical material samples at the DPW building before the next meeting on August 17.