Old Lyme — News of potential aid from the federal government may mean a long overdue sewer and stormwater project in Old Lyme can finally move forward.

In May, Connecticut’s U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Democrats, requested $11.2 million for the project, covering 990 homes in the private beach neighborhoods of Old Colony Beach, Old Lyme Shores Beach and Miami Beach, as well as the town’s Sound View Beach, in the fiscal year 2023 federal budget, currently in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In a statement provided via email through his Hartford office on Wednesday, Blumenthal said, “I endorsed this project for federal funding because it is important to the Old Lyme Community and would help reduce pollution in Long Island Sound. My office was proud to submit a request for this project to receive congressionally directed spending.”

“But I understand many applications from Connecticut and other states will be assessed by the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will have to make difficult choices within its budgetary limits,” he added. “I anticipate those decisions to be made later this summer.”

If approved by the committee and Congress, the town could receive the money by next June.

The project was approved in 2019 to connect the neighborhoods, which currently use septic systems, to sewer systems to mitigate pollution to Long Island Sound. The associations governing Old Colony Beach, Old Lyme Shores Beach and Miami Beach, which are chartered neighborhoods and considered their own municipalities, approved the project at separate referendums. The public Sound View Beach came on after a townwide vote.

The project stalled after higher-than-expected bids, due in part to supply chain issues, raised the project cost to $55.6 million — an almost 30% increase over the originally estimated $43.5 million.

Old Colony Beach Club Association President Doug Whalen, reached by phone Monday, said, “this program is vital to remove a lot of the nitrogen out of Long Island Sound, which is polluting Long Island Sound, and that’s really our goal.”

He went on to say, “all the people in our communities, basically they want to have clean water that they want to swim in.”

“We are shovel-ready, and we’ve just been trying to get the right number because we exceeded all of our bonds that we pulled out for all of these projects,” Whalen said. “We couldn’t go forward with anything, and now, all of a sudden, with (federal funding), we should be able to get over the edge and move this project forward.”

Richard Prendergast, chairman of the Old Lyme Water Pollution Control Authority, agreed. “If we get that money, we can start building,” he said by phone Wednesday. “The 11 months it’s going to take to do the construction of the shared infrastructure — we start that immediately.”

The planned system for the four beach communities revolves around a shared pump station — to be located in the Sound View neighborhood — as well as a force main pipe, enabling all four entities to send their sewage, through East Lyme and Waterford, to New London for treatment.

Assuming the federal grant money comes through, Whalen said, “our goal is to get a shovel in the ground by 2023 and have sewers flowing in 2025.”

When asked what would happen if the money does not come through, Prendergast said, “if we don’t get the funding, we would approach the state and say ‘this is not economically feasible,’” and postpone the project until additional funding can be found. “They know we’re trying. They know that two years earlier, pre-COVID, we wouldn’t have had this problem,” he said.

Officials from the town and beach communities will hold a public meeting at 10 a.m. on Aug. 27 at Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School at 49 Lyme St., Old Lyme, to update residents on the status of the project, including projected costs and what improvements are planned.