Liz Smith told the Swampscott Tides she is resigning from the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee, following critical comments from the community and on social media.

“I don’t think anyone would argue with me that I’ve worked extremely hard and that we’ve accomplished many things,” Smith said. “I really don’t even expect thanks, but I do expect respect, and I do expect for the committee to be respected.”

Smith has lived in Swampscott for ten years. After retiring from her career within the apparel industry, Smith worked at the Swampscott school for a few years as a substitute teacher. She has become well known within the town as an advocate for clean water and beaches, and she joined the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee at its inception.

Smith, who ran for Select Board in the most recent Swampscott election, acknowledged “the vicious attacks” she faced during her campaign, saying they were “part of the territory.” 

“But to have it continue on after that, to have this politicized, to have this pilot politicized, to have the committee’s quality of work and ethics questioned by a member of town is untenable,” Smith said. “I don’t want to bring that to the committee. Basically it’s gone too far.”

Smith said she continued to receive comments, particularly in social media groups like the Swampscott Times and Save King’s Beach pages.

On Tuesday, Andrea Amour shared an excerpt from a May 28 meeting, criticizing a lack of “transparency from our board of health” and “solutions-oriented leadership.” She suggested that the data collected by the committee’s daily testing of Fisherman’s beach is being withheld. She described the communication “very one-sided.”

“I am very sorry to hear that Liz is resigning from the committee,” Amour told the Swampscott Tides. “Since its inception, I thought Liz was the most important member; over the last two years, Liz has proven to be a wealth of knowledge when it comes to water and sewer infrastructure in Swampscott. However, as chair, there were several incidents where Liz became an obstacle to beach water quality data transparency over the last year.”

Amour pointed to Smith “repeatedly refusing to give Save King’s Beach” the dataset from 2024 on the Fisherman’s Beach testing.

“The committee meeting on May 28 showed me yet another example of Liz’s desire to keep data close rather than sharing it with the community who desperately wants to be ‘in the know,'” Amour said. “My hope is that the culture of the renewed committee turns into one of collaboration and transparency, because our community is tackling a challenging, century-old issue. The committee itself was born out of a lack of transparency about water quality from the town. We cannot afford obfuscating any more information from the public, especially when it is specifically requested.”

People commented on Amour’s post that they believe the “withheld” data is then just “very bad.”

Smith, on the other hand, said one of her proudest accomplishments on the committee was securing daily water testing at Fisherman’s Beach.

“We had a feeling that it was more polluted than the tests were showing,” Smith said. “We were right, and we put those results up on the town website.”

The team is working to set up the testing for this year, using a different programming to get UV testing done. The UV Light treatment pilot program is designed to make the water swimmable. It is being done in conjunction with surrounding towns.

“It’s taken time to get everybody trained to the machine, which is brand new to us and is much more complicated than what we used last year,” Smith said. “We’re in uncharted territory.”

She added that the lead up to the pilot light program started in the fall when she worked with the Department of Public Works and interim Town Manager Gino Cresta. The manufacturer also told Smith that this is a test to see how the machine works in the real world.

“Overtime, especially over the last couple of weeks, the amount of testing that is being required…it’s required more and more of my time,” Smith said.

There will be a ribbon cutting of the UV program on June 12.