[Music] [Music] good being 4:30 this meeting of the water quality
management Committee of March 5th is in order the first item of business is Amy LEL who's going to speak about the status of our of her uh warrant article for the T
ticket sewer phase thank you so Article 15 on this coming town meeting is uh construction funding for Great Pond Phase 1 sewer project
um this group probably doesn't need the reminder but just as background this is the first phase of a project to improve water quality in Great Pond as outlined in the town's targeted watershed management plan that was approved in
2023 $3.8 million of design funds were approved uh in November of 201 23 by town meeting and the design is now uh 90% or so complete uh as a reminder this figure shows the service area which
outlined in red uh and there will be a two lift stations in this project um one at the North End of um what we call the what people have been calling the Augusta parcel uh and another one within the fouth port development uh the lift
station at the Augusta parcel will uh pump waste water up that um what's shown as a yellow and black dashed line which is uh Force Main's um pressure pipe from that location up to the wastewater treatment plant for treat for discharge
excuse me for treatment and it'll be discharged uh up there at the treatment facility um the funding request is $60 million uh for this construction project uh the project is on the 2025 State
revolving fund list of funded projects the maximum that they fund for any project is $50 million um so that's what the what the project is funded at at for 2025 uh the town is expecting a 0%
interest loan for this project and expecting 25% loan forgiveness through the Cape Cod and Islands water protection fund the town will seek a second state revolving fund Loan in 202
6 for the remaining eligible srf eligible costs any portion of the project cost that's not covered by the srf loan will be Borrowed by the town at Market rates uh this table shows the how we get
to the if you round $60 million cost of the project uh it's actually two construction contracts um one for the collection system which is the um the pipes in the roads to which uh each
property connects the gravity pipes and the low pressure pipes um the second Construction contract is construction of the lift stations and the force Mains um grinder pumps the purchase of the grinder pumps for the property
owners who will have them um grinder pump subsidies uh I've assumed for this cost estimate that the subsidy will be the same this time as it was previously um $1,800 per property uh and that's
because um it was it's a it's a though there's escalation in costs the cost the the costs for both gravity and low pressure have have increased have both increased um and uh it's a a
generous reimbursement so that's my proposal is that the reimbursement would be uh the same approximately as it was last time um Engineering Services during construction so you have the design ahead of time which has already been funded but you have uh resident
observation um of the project and you have the engineers responding to requests for information and proposed change orders and all that so there's Engineering Services cost during construction there are also significant police details because there's a lot of work in town in roads and there's an
allowance for utilities fiscal and legal costs uh for a total Capital cost estimate of about $52 million you we at this point point in the project it is very appropriate and prudent to include a contingency um we have not bid these
contracts yet assuming that it's um that the project is funded at town meeting and uh and then again at the ballot uh we plan to bid this go out to bid this summer um but until you have the bids and have um a couple of these other
factors um um outlined it makes sense to include uh 15% contingency I was going to talk a bit about betterments the select board is going to discuss the cost allocation uh for the betterment this evening uh at a
meeting at 7 o'clock so we do uh want to continue with um Steve Raff's precedent of ending the meeting by 6:30 uh because the select board will be in here at um and there's a select board member there um the select board will be meeting in
here at um at 7even and they will be discussing the cost allocation between the betterments and the town um and so that that portion their recommendation on that betterment split will be included in the recommendation on Article 15 so Article 15 will both be
recommendation by the finance committee of um of the um of the funding of the project and um the select board will vote on the betterman plit um at a future meeting the select board will determine the method of
betterment assessment um it's we I'm assuming it will be sewer equivalent units versus Frontage method uh and then they'd also vote on how seus or sewer equivalent units would be assigned to different properties that is not happening tonight that is something that
will happen at a SE at a future date after the construction project bids are opened the select board will have another meeting at which they determine the maximum betterment amount based on the total Total Service Area specific project cost and the total number of
sewer equivalent units in the in the area the final betterment amount will be determined based on actual final project cost after the project is complete but cannot be higher than the amount that will be voted by the select board at
their uh hearing based on a rough estimate of what costs would be covered under the betterment and a preliminary estim estimate of the number of sewer equivalent units the preliminary estimate of the betterment cost per seu
is right now it's uh in the range of $40,000 um that is a higher number than we've talked about before well first I should say at 0% interest over 30 years that would be about $1,300 per year um that's a higher number than we've talked
about in the past um and there will be a lot more discussion about what goes into that betterment um but you can uh everybody is familiar with the the fact that construction costs have escal escalated dramatically
over the last 10 years um since the last project was uh was uh since the betterment was assessed on the last project and um this sewer area has a lot has fewer um properties than the Little
Pon sewer area um The Little Pon sewer area project and there are also fewer um there the lots are in general larger in this in this uh Great Pond phase one area than they were in the last project uh again this is a very preliminary estimate the
actual betterment amounts will be determined through the betterment processed which I just outlined on the previous slide which the selectman is responsible the select board is responsible for um but I did want to get out that number here um because it is a
a different number from the betterman on previous projects um the fouth affluent discharge plan so the discharge flow from the Great Pond Phase 1 sewer area um will go to the existing discharge beds under our
existing groundwater discharge permit starting in the fall of 2027 and I'll talk about that more in a little bit in in the next slides we will also the town is also planning to construct an outfall into uh the sound for all treated uh Wastewater discharge when the outfall is
available which is projected by the end of 2032 the town plans to cease landbased discharge I.E cease our regular discharge to open sand beds 1 through 15 at the main wastewater treatment facility so that's the overall
diff discharge plan for the next seven years um a little bit more on how on how we get to the current discharge plan so the Department of Environmental protection permitting process for groundwater discharge permitting of new
or increased discharged has become more difficult and timec consuming uh also we have been very conservative in our discharge planning we've been in our discharge planning been preserving a significant buffer for
future Redevelopment within existing and proposed sewer areas for the next for the more than 20e time frame uh We've also been using engineering design design flows for discharge planning including a 20% factor for future infiltration and inflow these
conservative assumptions are wise for a lot of reasons um but the town is not planning to continue groundwater discharge for the next 20 years we are only planning to continue groundwater discharge until the outfall is available
which again we're expecting by 2032 uh groundwater discharge from the Great Pond Phase 1 area is really only expected for five years and even within that five years the first at least two years would be a ramping up of flow as people connect to the sewer
system importantly there is sufficient capacity under our existing groundwater discharge permit to accommodate the existing and the permitted flows and the Planned flows from Great Pond Phase 1 for all of these reasons we rescinded
the application that we had submitted for a modified groundwater discharge permit and the associated Hydro geological report and instead we plan to accommodate the Grain Pond phase one flows under the town's existing groundwater discharge permit an
important note here if the town were to be unsuc unsuccessful in permitting an outfall the town does plan to expand groundwater to expand or uh develop groundwater discharge sites beyond the existing beds 1 through
15 um and the town is in fact reserving has been reserving sites in town for that that uh potential circumstance obviously that is not the desired um route we do not plan to go with um
groundwater discharge in the future however the town is does plan to um go back to those options and is keeping those options open in case outfall is unavailable uh so this is the numbers to
um to to show what I was just talking about um the permitted flow which is the total effluent discharge allowed under the town's existing groundwater discharge permit is $710,000 gallons per day the existing flow meaning the effent
FL flow from the main plant in 2024 uh was 489 ,000 gallons per day uh leaving a difference of 21,000 gallons per day and in fact the existing flow that $489,000 number that's a higher number
um than the average the average over the past 5 years has been $450,000 gallons a day so this is a conservative number to use in this um in this calculation uh the anticipated flow from Redevelopment projects that have been
permitted by the town but not yet constructed is about 25,000 gallons what I'm talking about there is Liberty green for example that is being constructed here on Main Street but for which obviously the flow hasn't come yet um
the uh development on Scranton and uh Main Street 763 Main Street and 20 24 Scranton that project is complete now but we didn't have flows from that project in 20124 so uh based on so i'
I've looked at the list of projects that have been um permited and um uh and that we expect flow from uh and and and including a factor of 25,000 uh gallons per day for those the Great Pond phase
one flow without the factors for infiltration and inflow which we don't expect for 15 20 30 years and without uh additional Redevelopment factors for future growth within that area is
actually uh 110,000 gall a day what we'd been talking about previously requesting under our groundwater discharge permit modification was 200,000 gallons per day and that was again a very conservative number allowing for redevelopment within
the existing service area within this future service area and uh using an engineering design factor for infiltration and inflow so that total uh additional anticipated flow uh through these projects and through through the
uh Great Pond Phase 1 Project is 135,000 gallons per day so the remainder which would be the allowance what's what's left for redevelopment from now through the outfall availability is another 86,000 gallons per
day so the project schedule um April 2025 coming right up is the uh is Article 15 is on the town meeting warrant for appropriation for construction funds in May of of this year there will be a ballot vote uh on
the project um in the summer assuming those first two votes are positive we will bid the construction projects um the the uh construction would begin in the fall of this year and it's a two-year construction window for the for
the two projects so we'd expect them to be done in the fall of 2027 and so that's when connections to the Sewer would begin and the reduction the septic nitrogen load to Great Pond um would begin to to go down as
connections get made uh by the end of 32 2032 we are projecting the alall will be available and again the regular discharge to sandbeds 1 through 15 at the main plant would cease and I have here as the last
bullet that that implementation of next phases of sewering would follow there is some discussion that we could we can have further down the road of how much planning for that we could do ahead of time so that additional sewering might coincide with the um with the
availability the outfall uh but I'm not ready to to talk about that now at at this point additional discharge is waiting for either an outfall which is the primary plan or additional um discharge
beds and that's it thank you thank you Amy very clear any questions from the committee Ken um yeah you may have said this at the beginning so the number of seus is so again we don't know um that
is to be determined well the we will evaluate it in detail and the select board will have a meeting at which they review a policy about how the seus are going to be distributed so for example I the a single family home home would be
one seu but commercial developments multif family developments other you know those two would get multiple would be assigned multiple scus based on criteria that the select board would would uh will determine um the estimate
to come up estimate of seus to come up with that um $40,000 number is 820 scus again that is a preliminary estimate for the purposes of getting a
preliminary okay because when I divided 60 million by 40,000 I got, 1500 right so not all of the not all of the project cost would be un included
under the betterment right so so okay again we don't I don't want to get into too many details here tonight because it's not it's not the water quality committee that's going to vote this and it's the select board isn't going to vote this for a while they're just talking about the the the betterment
split this 7030 distribution tonight there will be future meetings where they talk about seus and then where they talk about the total project cost and the final and the betterment numbers uh so so you look at a total project cost and some of that is some of that total
project cost is appropriate to be included under the betterment and then it's going to be split 7030 and then you divide that by the number of use there there's a lot of uncertainty still in those numbers gotcha yeah okay good that's why everything didn't add
up do you have a count of the single family residences that are in the area just the number of single family houses that'll be connecting uh roughly so I don't have exactly that I have so there are 600 properties in the area there are
800 um units I would say so um so of the of the 600 properties one of them for example is falmouthport falmouthport has 200 um more than 200 uh condo units um so uh no I guess I don't have a number
for single family residential it's most of it the the overwhelming majority of the properties in here are either single family or condos thank you well done as always thank you
I'm just going down the yeah um Amy this project projects I should say have flown under several different names over the past five or 10 years is it now officially Great Pond phase one and two I apologize for the the evolution of
names I personally found it so tea ticket acap pescuit or tasa tet acap pescuit uh sewer project was was that was the tasa a right my my problem with that was that if I if I continue to use it it sounds
like we're seing AAP pescuit right now and we're not that's phase two so I the other thing is that the Great Pond title refers back to the goal of the project which is to improve water quality in Great Pond the other thing is that marav Vista wasn't in that title and this
involves some additional sewering in marav Vista so that is why I have gotten away from the tasa title and I use the Great Pond phase one very logical Amy I think you listened in on the call last week U where there was a change by the mass D regarding the uh srf funding
for the iups and they talked about no longer funding multi-year projects and we'd have to reapply after year one and a lot of the towns seem to be really concerned about that in terms of not having guaranteed funding and some of the towns were talking about completely stopping their sewering plans has that
factored it all into where we're going with this are we waiting for greater Clarity on that or we're going to pull ahead and move ahead regardless so the select board sent a letter to um the to the DP and a comment letter on that the
DPS change in their policy on how they're handling the srf loans uh so fouth select board voted on that and sent sent a letter by the deadline um which was this past Monday expressing concern about expressing significant concern about those changes to the srf
program um this um it is not a threat an imediate threat for this uh current project because the overwhelming majority of the project is covered under the $50 million loan and the town's plan
will be to apply for a a loan in 2026 for the remainder of of the project the eligible project cost which is a small portion of the project cost it it does um the reason for concern is that it it creates more uncertainty about Project
funding in the future and it's availability and how it's how it's going to work for the future so it the the board wrote a strongly worded letter about its concern about the um about this funding for the future there as you
allude there was a um a hearing the DP held a hearing about this process last Monday and there were a lot of concerns expressed by the county by also by so the same these same rule changes apply to both drinking water and clean water is what they call the Wastewater program
um so there are a lot of folks that are expressing concern about it the basic the two the the main change that well the two main things are there's a cap of $50 million per project each year and in addition the big change as far as I I'm
concerned is that in the past if your project was on the srf funding list one year if it was selected to be funded then any project cost which wasn't that weren't covered under that initial loan were automatically provided in future
years and now you have to reapply each year so if you had a100 million project and you were funded at 50 million one year you now you in the past you knew that those that that extra $50 M million would be available in future years now with the change you have to reapply for
the rest of that project fund the rest of that Project funding so it it just it it uh raised concern about the um reliability of funding in the future um it's it is appropriate for the town to express that concern but it is not an
immediate um it's not going to affect this current project thank you um we have a lot of material to cover tonight um I might ask for questions from the audience but I don't want to hear sermons about anything
if there's a succinct specific question uh if you disobey what I'm saying you will be losing your time on all the other questions tonight is there any questions from the audience okay the next item is Oh Oh I thought
you didn't well seems like censorship that that you're limiting what people can talk about and what questions they can ask I will say that um this is PR mature going to Article 15 for town meeting we haven't had the mandatory
public hearings for those two Force main stations I think the butters around those Force main stations would be you know would like to voice their concerns is their public right here in Massachusetts we have six weeks to town meeting the the proper butter
notification is two weeks before those plans have to be have to be in uh the DPW and then you have to have public hearings and in six weeks that's not going to get done so I don't see Article 15 actually legally going to a town
meeting um so I'll bring this up with the with uh the board of Selectmen but that's a great oversight we've been trying to get the sewer project done for four years and to to to overlook the Butter's rights to know what the
construction Project's going to be next to their home how it's going to affect their property values and then to have numbers and not know how many you know units for four years you don't know how many units are in this in this project
and what the what the subsid is going to be all these details should have been hashed out four years ago ready for town meeting four years ago and that's why it got shot down by town meeting four years ago here we are again remixing it and I don't see it
passing and it legally can't go so I'll keep it brief thank you um ask Amy if she want do you want to respond to that Amy or you want to wait for the select board meeting or some other meeting okay U the next item is John
calman and the status of the Marine borings all right this will be a a brief presentation it's really just an update on what's going on with the uh Marine borings uh project that's part of the overall um fouth U you know outfall pipe
outfall pipe and it's one of those uh critical steps that has to be done in order to get to the the permitting phase and really what we're trying to achieve here let me advance what we're trying to achieve is to collect series of um B holes or take
a series of bore holes that are going to run um along the pathway of the proposed outfall pipe and and the main elements we're trying to do here is to capture subsurface soil samples that we could do various um laboratory and insitu tests
on to better design the um the pipe that's going to be drilled the horizontal um directional drilling pipe that's going to be drilled to put the actual outfall pipe in into the subsurface below Vineyard sound and so um ghd has been contracted they're going
to be taking seven total bore holes six are going to be offshore and one will be onshore at kite Park and the map um over there shows the details of that um they're going to run out approximately 2,800 feet and into about 20 24 feet of
water depth at the most distal location and what happens with the um I'm sure many of you seen the barge that's parked offshore kite Park now um there's a a truck mounted drilling rig and it's going to take four holes at these pre
assigned areas 100 feet deep six inches diameter and they're going to collect samples of the soil the subsurface soil they're going to characterize the geologically and run a whole bunch of tests on it to get the sort of the geomechanical properties that will then inform the engineers on how to design
the um the outfall pipe so it's a really critical phase unfortunately it looks like um um they were supposed to start drilling today was the latest information I got but as I drove out here um it looks like they haven't started I think they're having some issues mechanical issues with the drill
pipe and they still haven't sorted that out yet so what was originally supposed to be a late March completion of the project maybe pushed back a little because of the a start date um but when it does happen it's going to collect lots of really valuable data and just a few pictures to show what this looks
like right now if you haven't seen it um this is a view to the Southwest the lower left picture showing um this is a jackup barge Ridge it's got the three tall legs that the uh main hole sits on there's a truck mounted rig on it you can see it in the uh lower right picture
um and that's actually contains the drilling assembly and they drill these holes they take various sorts of Institute tests um they're called standard penetration test with a hammer into the subsurface soil and measure the number of Strokes it takes to go 12 in
and that correlates the various parameters in in the actual soil samples so it's really critical to have this information they'll collect core samples they'll bring it back to the laboratory analyze it and again that'll be used by the engineers to design the outfall
pipe just a close-up look at the barge itself you can see I think you can see the truck there it backs up onto the um the floor the barge and then all the drilling is done right from that truck all the samples are collected there any waste is put into 55 gallon drums and
taken ashore nothing dumped overboard so it's a really um a clean operation and it's a standard type of um operation that occurs when we do these sorts of geotechnical studies so no issues there and then finally just some of the tests
that'll be done you can see in this example um this is called the standard penetration test and a big Anvil is hammered into the soil they measure the number of Strokes it takes to go a certain distance typically it's done on 6 in uh increments and the table there
shows the correlations that based on how quickly the um material is hammered into that correlates the various properties of sheer stress compression stress tells you something about the grain size how moist the soil is how wet it is cohesive
so there's a lot of information they collect samples which is shown in the picture on the right and they characterize that geologically they take that back to the lab run more test and at the end of all these analyses they're in a much better position to um design the correct type of pipe and and drill
hole that's going to be used to bring out the pipe into Vineyard sound so again they haven't started drilling yet hopefully that's going to happen soon um but when it does happen it takes about a month to do the seven bals and that's all I had for the overview any questions
from the committee on this why don't you go ahead to your second thing we're running late I this is it okay so now I just wanted to give an update on the refundable tax credit most people here are aware of what's going on
there we're trying to change the title five septic tax credit from refundable or non-refundable to refundable to make it more widely eligible to the population especially the lower middle inome folks and I don't think I've shown this table previously but this gives a
an example of what we're trying to achieve and I I I do some very simple scenarios of a family with two children and uh married seniors and I look at what the tax credit would look like if the income they have the taxable income is 50,000 versus
150,000 and you can see that you know we're uh assuming an IIA system cost of about $35,000 so under the current tax credit which is non-refundable that family with two children that has a a taxable income of 50,000 they would get
$1,960 per year as opposed to the family that's making $150,000 of taxable uh income they would get the maximum allowable per a year $4,000 so when you take that out in time you can see that it makes a huge
difference the cost to the lower income family is uh you know over $6,000 more compared to the family that has more money so it seems to be backwards to what we'd really like to see want to make sure the families that are most in need of the support can take advantage
of this credit and the same issue is for uh married seniors they also you know would not be able to collect the full amount of the credit if they're only have taxable income of $50,000 now when you go to a refundable tax credit
everybody qualifies for $4,000 a year and everybody gets equal treatment so the lower middle in folks who don't have a lot of um money owed to the state will still get that tax credit so that's kind of the the rationale for doing this now
where do we stand now we met with um uh Senator Dylan Fernandez back uh about a month ago had a zoom meeting with him and his staff and he was very supportive of this concept he really you know sees the Merit in it and I think it took a little bit of time for him to understand
it because at his town hall at the library he thought the existing credit was was great and would do what he wanted to do but when we actually explained and showed him the tables he fully understood that no yeah there's there's a gap here that we need to modify this so he's uh you know behind
the refundable tax credit he does have some questions about maybe putting income limitations on the uh eligibility such that if you're making over some income cap you would not qualify for this credit it would be geared towards lower middle income folks and he wants
to keep it sort of Revenue neutral to the common wealth so that by cutting off the high-end income um receivers of the the tax credit it could then be used to the uh to provide for the lower income middle inome folks and and remain Revenue neutral to the um to the
Commonwealth and he wants to keep the eligibility to homeowners whose principal residence is Massachusetts so it wouldn't be available to people who use uh their homes as a vacation home or a rental property so there are some issues that have to be worked out um he
can provide or Senator men is can provide legal counsil to help draft a bill this bill may be different than the bill that's already submitted a placeholder bill by representative Vieira for refundable tax credit so they might have different concept of how this ultimately plays out but that will be
brought together um when they take it through the legislative process and um we've been in contact with Fernandez's staff providing information as he needs it to help in designing the wording of the bill so that has gone extremely well um thanks to Doug Brown we have the
select board letters of U basically letters of support for this concept have now been distributed to all the other cap and Island Town select boards um a package of information has been uh given to them uh um sort of a PowerPoint explaining the rationale for this uh
refundable tax credit and now the letters and I think everybody seems to be on board with the concept that I've talked to I just recently had a conversation with a fellow Named Dave Bernstein he's uh with Yarmouth and their water quality committee and he's
also the president of the you know Cape Cod Seashore group and he said he's been in contact with a bunch of people who are very supportive of the idea too some of the um uh Representatives further out on the uh on the cap so we've gotten really good um good support from most
people now myself Steve Leon Steve raferty have kind of divided up the cape uh into different regions and we've been reaching out to various um people who are on the various equivalent of our water quality Committee of people who are very knowledgeable about the water
quality issues and we've gotten really strong support from them um you know right now I think um you know it's all it's all systems go from as far as we can see um the the bigger challenge will go as we try to seek support outside the
cap and islands and so the next steps um we need to talk to the other legislators and I have a hopefully a zoom meeting being scheduled with um with Diggs and um Flanigan to talk about this from what I've heard from Dave Bernstein they were
very supportive of the idea we need to talk to Senator Seer and um the other Representatives um we need to develop a plan to sort of broaden the Outreach you know Statewide you know again it's the bigger challenge for those who won't directly receive the benefit of a
refundable tax credit can they still muster up support behind it um and we're going to continue working with the um other select boards and I haven't talked to Doug recently about that but if he has any um information from you know sending these packets out if he's gotten
any feedback maybe he can talk to that uh after I'm done um we'll continue working with representative V and Senator Fernandez to help craft the wording of the bill they're looking for input um and then finally whatever other steps the the rest of the quality water quality management committee has in
terms of how we can progress this in a timely manner would be much appreciated that's all I have feed thank you any questions from the committee Ken not so much a question as a as a a suggestion have you talked it all to the association for preservation
of Cape Cod they're pretty effective uh lob yes that's Andrew Godley and totally in favor of it yeah I'm sure he's in favor of it if he knows about it but yeah yeah Steve that was part of that sort of capewide Outreach and Steve had that town and I think
you've had really good conversation with them you you gave me a list and I picked all the easy people yes the um one thing I would say we want to emphasize in this effort uh I think it's a great start but speed is of the essence because the budget processes
already begun Governor has submitted her budget and now goes to house Senate and all that and very soon it'll be June and the budget's supposed to be voted before July 1st it'd be nice to get this cranked in because we're on the verge
and other towns have already implemented IIA mandates and and also I think your data re uh references how it affects IAS it's not just IAS we're on the verge of approving funding for another sewer
expansion that septic tax CR credit people in their connection cost from their house to the street we know that is part of this yes but I think in in trying to publicize this and educate the public and the legislators it's not just about IAS no it's has a broader reach
for sewer connections and I think that's an important thing and having Dave viera's bill was just a placeholder with no details he had do starting through crunch numbers uh Senator Fernandez is a new Senator might make sense to very
early in the process as you are to get Senator seir who's more experienced in the the gyration of the budget process and the Senate working mechanism so that's my comments and questions yeah via we're been in contact with him I sent him you know potential wording for
the bill same thing with Senator Fernandez um haven't heard back on the recent iteration from his staff yet I mean he's dealing with lots of problems but I think we're pushing them pretty hard but we do need to talk to see yes he he's a much more experienced in the Senate gations let's call it for lack of
a better term and a real good hardworking guy and he's got good staff his district director lives in Falmouth actually thank you all right the next item is the advanced septic system subsidy recommend
ation uh to present to the select board you've all seen the draft of this um Ken any comments no not yet have you you have this Kristen right
to put up On's doing it it's open I'm get s I do it on one page it's very tiny get much smaller I think we'll have difficulty reading that's most yeah just
missing the top and bottom line so the the essence of this is that people putting in septics should be treated fairly compared to people who are required to put in sewers um comments from the committee Ken why you start
other okay for a second I mean the only thing that I a note on was the line that said currently many homeowners will not be eligible for any Financial relief at all but I think most people can apply for these low interest loans through the
Cape Cod Aqua fund where is this the second paragraph the last sentence um but it's a minor point I mean I'm supportive of everything else that's written there yeah I can I come comment on that Steve yeah this no matter what
happens there'll to be many homeowners I don't know the actual number but many homeowners will not be eligible I guess I mean I don't know how it works so I don't think so I think you can always apply for these low interest you might not get the zero to 2% you might be the 4% but you can get a below Market
interest loan okay through the uh Aqua fund which is right you know which applies towards IAS I had a conversation with Brian Bard and if you're in a water shed that's being an NSA that's being targeted for these upgrades to septic
you will qualify for the aqua fund interest rates Tom would you accept striking that second half of the sentence yeah I I think the document still powerful as it sits in that's way yeah it's one with it I just I just did
what I was told to do here so is anyone object to striking that second half of that last sentence all right let's remove the end currently many homeowners will not be eligible for any Financial relief at
all Tom do you want to no I you wrote it so yeah no yeah I always have second thoughts but I'm not going to I'll Come John the uh in in light of that same area the
same thing the the eligibility for the even under current law as a non-refundable tax credit homeowners uh a significant majority of them are eligible for the state tax credit of
$118,000 and recently Z Crocker Barnstable clean water Coalition in their fall winter newsletter they ran some analysis and they estimated 60% of the people in one of their phas plans are eligible for
the full state tax credit so there is a lot of help for people who can qualify under their income for the 18,000 hopefully we can get this to be a refundable credit so all will get it but in considering how much of a subsidy the
town might wish to consider or be able to afford reasonably understand that roughly half of the cost of an IIA if you say it's $36,000 is eligible for state tax credit as long as it is mandated
by the Board of Health or some other Town entity if it's a mandated upgrade to your system you're eligible for the $18,000 state tax credit and that is important to consider when you look at the potential financial burden of a
significant Town funded subsidy I think that should be part of the statement that there is eligibility for substantial state tax credits is there a specific change you're proposing for this um that we had
a sentence saying U currently um a large number of homeowners would be eligible for a state tax credit of up to $18,000 but we've just heard that that also applies to the sewers and and the emphasis here is on bringing septic and Equity with the
sewers and that's my point if they're both that they're both eligible for this the homeowner connecting to a has to deal with the property disruptions and everything else that's
listed in the first paragraph and they also have to pay the betterment and we just heard earlier in Amy's presentation the estimated betterment and it's only the estimate its preliminary stuff is
$440,000 damn that's about the cost of an IIA so I think that there's so many things in flux with making a recommendation to the selectman I think they would say hey we need more information this isn't enough but those
are factors that need to be considered in this if we're going to make in V of recommendation and it should be an included paragraph or a couple of sentences saying eligibility for the state tax credit is significant currently a majority of
homeowners would be eligible for an $188,000 state tax credit for IAS if we want to keep it just to IAS would you like to see a table of costs and benefits for the two systems appendices I don't think well we could we can do that but I we trying to keep
it simple or do we really want to get into the weeds here um do you I I don't feel strongly one way or the other I just want it to be factual okay it says right now while there existing programs that might
relieve some of the costs yeah that right I mean that pretty much covers what you've been talking about right Ed it it does but I think we we're talking about Equity between on one hand an IA and on the other hand a
sewer and the sewer costs as Amy laid it out have gone up significantly since the Little Pond project to the point now of estimating a betterment at 40,000 versus Little Pond it was 13,000 in
change so the equity between people who are mandated to connect to a sewer and those who are going to be required to install an IIA those numbers need to be looked at maybe a t a table
is is the way to go well historically with the sewers town meeting has voted a 30% dissolution of that betterment fee right that's why that's why it got to 13,000 and so with 40,000 it would be
what 28,000 no I think I think Amy she she's say she can correct me if I'm wrong that the 40,000 is the 70% of the cost of the collection system it is oh okay that's so that's what the selectman will be looking at yeah and if they go
with the what has been the the standard for the last two projects 7030 split the homeowner we would be requiring to hook up to a sewer could be looking at in the next iteration little pwn phase
or great Pawn excuse me phase one $40,000 betterment cost coincidentally about the estimate for the average IIA we're not there's no immediate urgent deadline for this okay I I like
the idea of a table okay yeah to focus every more you say that the more it makes sense it could go along with this I also like the way it's written now um yeah you know I guess the the generic nature of the layout of the issue is
what I like the fact that we're not getting too much into numerical specifics so you prefer not to have a table I think it's I could have the table the second page and you wouldn't have to look at well okay but the risk
is that uh your numbers are not accurate if you lay them out Steve I my suggestion is we stick with the general the way the the way Tom has written
it um um I don't think we need to get into specifics I think we've made the point to the get some new ideas from the Jed hand up first yeah sure Jack Goldstone uh pring to I'm On
The Board of Health um not necessarily speaking as a board of health member I I think a table would be incredibly useful as much detail succinctly as to what available uh what available resources
Financial Resources exist now would be Inc would be super helpful to the select board and to town meeting anybody making any sorts of decisions on this and also pointing out that we're going to discuss in the next
item um the fact that there will be IAS going in that are mandated that will also then be hit with a sewer betterment so that somebody is going to be paying not only for an IIA system but also the sewer betterment systems you'll see that
right in a few minutes so um that doesn't necessarily need to be in this letter I think it's something that you guys need to be aware of we we're aware of that um but I think the more informative that more specific you can
make this the more useful it is having a vague oh well there's money available isn't very helpful because it forces a reader to go and try to do the research themselves you guys are the expert on this you have this information
included thank you yes George toos I'm On The Board of Health but I'm speaking for myself I couldn't agree more with what Jed just said the
utility of quantitative information which is never almost never presented to the public cannot be overestimated you folks have an idea what these sentences mean mean
semiquantitatively none of your readers have the slightest idea what they mean quantitatively so I think Mr Leon's idea of a table is uh very important and that having
quantitative information is very important and I would say that in your table it ought to say because of rule 17 in the Massachusetts legislature whatever the reason reason is that a particular subsidy is available to one
or the other sewer IIA it's easy to do you already know what the information is put it in here thank thank you just and we can have a range to handle your objection my point
is that that costs are a moving Target yes and so if you uh imply that someone's going to be able to put in their set their septic system for $40,000 and it's actually
$60,000 you're you're it's misleading so obviously so I just think a lot of caveats have to be built into any Quant now if there's a state uh you know subsidy that has a specific set of criteria that's different yes of course
that information the limits on what you can get and all that should go in there okay so the homework is to to write up this table which Tom and me and at one point we were you know trying to argue for specific percentages you 7030 blah
blah we don't even know what the selectman will decide well i' like to point out that on the the Board of Health has requested from the health agent um uh as accurate a number as we have for the current cost of an IA
system which uh which is a little caveat so we we hope to have that number on Monday so okay but is this quick yes go ahead and it would be important to emphasize to people there is the
hardware cost which can be known relatively well and the Landscaping digging that is can be anywhere and yes you know but people may not know right so those are my points about the danger
of saying right but you can say what the subsidies are you can say that you know most people are not going to get that 16,000 or whatever it was total they're going to get a lesser amount if any at all let me say that I personally think
the point of this letter is like you sending up a flare from a boat in trouble we're saying to the selectman there's an inherent disparity in the present approach to these issues okay we're not calling a coast guard and say
you send three boats now and this is the exact thing we've got a person that's had a heart condition in the past on the boat this is a simple note to the board of Selectmen saying we see a significant problem here look how complicated John's table was where he just had a couple of
examples talking about refundable tax credit we'd have a whole full page table trying to explain the different options and possibilities and six months from now it would be something different I I want to keep this letter simple a clear
statement to the board of Selectmen that there's an inherent disparity the way things are set up right now and let them think about how it might be solved that's that's my feeling about the letter and I want to keep it simple and moov It Forward Doug which would you
prefer to receive that's a useful useful input picking on our for S input Doug Brown selectboard uh you know more information are better if you guys have time to put a table together I think it might be helpful I don't think it's going to add confusion or distract
from the the matter I think you can put that together but if not I think the letter is fine too so thank you so I see the letter just as a first step well I propose that you and I and anyone else that wants to contact us by
email work on some details for next time all right I'll volunteer okay um item five yes Matt Hanley from Thomas Landers Road um when I speak I speak as a member M of
the general public and I agree with the Board of Health the more information so we can make this very clear we're doing more information mat yeah you probably want to save your minutes for the next item all right thank
you the discussion of the Board of Health proposed regulations relative to Advanced treatment systems Steve can I so start that sure um we have two members of the Board of Health here this is the Jed's uh n9th
draft which the Board of Health has not seen yet so they haven't had a chance to comment on it so I would suggest that any of us who've read it carefully and have specific comments we
could make them directly to Jed and he could even include them before next Monday's Board of meeting um or we can ask Jed to walk us through this um but I think this
is uh still in the iterative process uh I believe the Board of Health uh is getting closer to being able to go to public hearings uh but they're not there yet so uh I believe we will have additional uh
chances to make comments but but I think if people have specific comments on this ninth draft we can pass them to Jed and i' Happ let's do it I think yes you're here
we have the time I am going to try the zoom back out again though uh so that everybody the zoom on this can you back since you're going to be going through Section by section Maybe
magnify um is that readable for folks Yesa so um what we have done here um we have uh the purpose and the regulations that provide the authority um I believe
um we have the full authority to do this so I'm not going to worry about that um we've defined uh the best available nitrogen reducing technology um this is based on the uh the language in Title 5 which is
310 cmr1 15 um and we uh specified a um a total nitrogen performance value of 10 milligrams per liter or less um regardless of whether a system is under full condition or piloting approval um
and uh this is in order to meet the modeling criteria and also because we we do know that there are systems that can do that um so that that exist they are typically right now under conditional approval and piloting approval but um some of that is
also uh system Technologies progress from piloting to conditional to full depending on how many they're are in the ground and how long they've been in the ground so um nitrogen sensitive area so this is um uh more there's a m more I
don't have a map attached to this but this is about 3/4 of f is is defined in various ways as a nitrogen sensitive area um so uh that would be um those watersheds that we've that that you've delineated um we've put
in um the District of critical planning concern um which is uh the part of the Watershed um immediately abing great seit Marsh um we note here that those areas in public and private water supply
protection areas are also considered nitrogen sensitive um that's been all that's been in um Title 5 for a long time actually um and those there are already a number of um various IA systems in those areas because of that
um and then um we uh also added in um uh Watershed that are listed under the Clean Water Act section 303d integrated report which is um aring Brook Watershed which has does not have a tmdl um so it's not
in the MEP but we can continue to debate that one so we will have a ma website map eventually um we just some um JS work that hasn't been fully done but um uh we are then requiring all new
construction to incorporate best available nitrogen reduction technology in nitrogen sensitive areas so this is this is sort of under the premise if you're in a hole stop digging um so new construction is new flow so that's an
addition or a new house um so any new flow um item three section three is um if you have uh if you are doing a large reconstruction and we talked about this um before so that would be a voluntary
non-emergency substantial Improvement um then uh the cumulative cost of which equals exceeds 60% of the median assessed value of the properties in the town of fouth in the year prior to the date of the initial Improvement
um uh so um this roughly means that if you're adding in the best available nitrogen technology to a septic system a septic field that's already there we think the technology cost between um itself we're roughly running about
$30,000 in terms of the technology plus the construction of that addition of that so I can't remember what that number is this value comes to but uh the addition of $30,000 to that is less than
5% of the total construction cost is is our estimate and it's indexed to the increase in the value of the of the uh property um the item four is a retir a requirement for uh best available nitr
yaia system at the time of property transfer if the septic system has failed um and so here we have uh property with an assess value this is the new language that the Board of Health has not read um with an assess value of about 100 140% of the median
property value in fouth of the previous year um right now the median property value in fouth last year was $727,000 um and so this is approximately a million dollars um and if that's so if your Sy system is failed you if your
house is worth more than 150 a million dollars you must upgrade to an IA system so this is to try to balance this since it's not we don't have comprehensive Wastewater we don't have any plans yet there's not a
requirement yet we know it's coming but it's not absolutely required this requires that this requires an inclusion of an IA system um and then there's some uh technical aspects of um failed elements of the system because um
previous Health agents allowed um cess pools to be used as incorporated into otherwise okay Title 5 systems um um this part B is a complicated way
of saying that if if you're asking if you're exempt from a Title Five inspection because it's an interf family or transfer if it's a transfer to a family trust you don't need to incorporate an IIA system so it's again
an equity issue this is also covers any refinancing uh and then even though we don't anticipate that affordable housing well affordable housing may be maybe a million dollar house deed restricted as affordable housing given
the the way the property goes but we're trying not to force affordable housing to upgrade um at this point um and here is um uh
if a if the sewer service area has been funded the design of it has been funded then we shall not uh require the installation of an IIA system so we'll just keep an old system
until the sewer comes but it's only if it's been funded because the timeline of that is about five years from funding to construction based on am's um description of this um we have credit for installation in a sewered area um if you put an IIA
system in an area that eventually is sewered you have 15 years to that to connect to the Sewer however and this is the expensive part you'll still need to pay the betterment charges because otherwise we can't fund that
system um if we put a whole bunch of IAS in um uh if your system fails you have to connect to the sword so 15 years is a is half roughly half the life of a of a system as far as we know and then here is the um once there's a watershed
permit um will you have to this basically says once there's a watershed permit you have to uh follow whatever The Watershed permit comes to in terms of putting in a uh a uh IIA system it's all technical language so
hopefully it'll P um we anticipate um discussing this we will be discussing this on Monday uh our chairs and hope is that on Monday we'll be able to pass it to Town Council for review but I depends on the extent of the comments we get tonight um
and Monday in in between so thank you D yeah um I I like John's idea to not force him to fight it out in two different venues it's obviously your Venue the more airing it gets the more
the more it gets beaten on the better it is right the more emails we send you with ideas and so on hear about it in various venues the better it becomes can I just ask a question about last piece y if you go back to that if there's a watershed permit
so is that intended let's say you you had a house that nor you know that after we do extensive Geo boundaries Falls outside the geob boundary would not have been required to upgrade is that intended to relieve them of the
obligation to do that well the Watershed permit will say we as presume that the Watershed permit is going to say these houses are going to be sewered these are going to require an IIA right on this time scale right um if it is not and Group C won't
be required to do either one and Group C will not be required to do either one unless there is new construction or their system fails but I I think Ken's point or at least would be mine is why should Group C do it at all if the wed
permit has decided it's not required physically to clean up the estor because uh well my question the point is is that the point is is that the the models that we have do not
necessarily assume new con substantial new construction right this is talking about existing but was that this is talking about existing well no this one is talking about 7 a I'm just 7A is basically is is the figure
what you're trying to get at there the 7A is the is the backing for comprehensive for the comprehensive Waste monor Management plan because otherwise you guys can come up with a plan but without a a a regulation no I think it's great do yeah but I'm just
trying to understand what the implications of it are I I think can I so those those are those three categories right you're you're going to be hooked up to the Sewer you're going to be mandated to in to upgrade your septic or you're far enough away and in
a distant land and you're not rebuilding your house and it's not no no no not because you're not rebuilding your house because the geology in the Watershed doesn't need all that nitrogen taken out because everyone else this way
suppose that these other efforts that we've been working on about where the funding is coming from involve not just individual homeowners but they involve the town's budget
why put unnecessary costs on either case as soon as you have some monetary skin in the game you begin to see the logic of yeah I uh Steve can I comment yeah I mean I think the whole point of what the Board
of Health has been doing is to try and say and and the point that the Coalition has been made that every new construction is adding to the nitrogen load in the water shed and that the purpose basic purpose
of what they started out was to say let's not keep digging the hole deeper uh even though we've ascertained at time x now that if we do the Watershed permit that we're going to meet the tmdl
if there's a lot of additional building we're still adding nitrogen into that wed and we want to prevent that from happening by you're right and you're still saying nitrogen sensitive Weds yes John right but what I John had his hand up what I was goingon to say is because
I think this is something I committed uh contributed for this document is that we're going to have a a comprehensive Wastewater management plan that's going to specify which areas are going to have to go to IIA which will be sewered and if you're outside of that then the other triggers will apply right you know if
you're building you're doing something that one through six apply to that's still G to cause you to have to go put an IA in but we want to put some teeth behind what we're doing with the comprehensive Wastewater management plan and having the Board of Health saying that you know if you're in this boundary
that's defined based on you know scientific principles then you're going to have to upgrade your septic system okay so teeth behind that I mean one thing you know one thing with the Geo boundaries is is that we are we're making you know they are scientifically grounded assumptions but they are but
they are assumptions and they are sophisticated um some of these 1 through six that this category C um they're still in nitrogen sensitive areas that contribute to the Watershed there's not
we don't anticipate based on the numbers that we're looking at we're trying to get some more some more solid n i mean we may this may be 50 IA systems or 100 IA systems per year maybe maybe and what the comprehensive Wastewater plans are
going to call for like 500 600 IA systems per year we don't the town the the upper Cape Southeastern Massachusetts does not necessarily have the capacity to build that many IA systems per year so part of this is also
trying to start to ramp up this process of digging holes in the ground and putting expensive technology there and we just don't I mean you know we we can't like we couldn't do 500 next year there's no question about that
but go ahead so but Jad when I read that it doesn't say new construction it says structures located within nitrogen sensitive area subject to Accord in accordance with the guidelines and time framework delineated by the
plan so only so I'm just looking at it from the point of view of I happen to be a fortunate individual that I live out inside the Geo boundary I'm not doing anything to my house uh I'm not increasing flows do I have to okay so
this protect in a sense this protects me from some of the other obligations uh no this just says this just says you have to follow the plan that we that that that the town comes up with that's the only thing that this
says that the that the Board of Health through the power of title five and the says that you have to follow the plan because otherwise there isn't any unless the unless the the the state comes up no
I I hear what you're saying and I think that's great we're getting the additional teeth of the Board of Health uh to back up these recommendations which is I mean technically the question I mean we'll
have to see because the this may be redundant to title five to be Hon you're basically saying that that you recognize that there will also be Watershed permits and in that case they Prevail yeah over this that's kind of where the language usually something like
notwithstanding blah blah blah above yeah I mean we'll have to see because honestly title five which is superseding to us which you know our any of our local regulations are in accordance with Title 5 but there're sort of in in above to Title 5 Title 5 says if there's a
watershed permit you have to do what the watered permit says so I Commonwealth has the final word there Doug hi Doug Brown select board just looking for a little bit more clarification on when this is triggered are you from what I'm reading it seems
like everybody in all these embayments that doesn't have a sewer come uh on a on a budget is going to have to change their septic or is this only triggered by the construction or the failed septic so this the the plan of this is that um
if you add if you have new construction then you'd have to put an IA system if you have a failed system you have to upgrade to an IA system if your house is worth above a million dollar okay um and if you rebuild if you tear your house
down and rebuild it then you have to and you're and you're in one of these areas you have to put on but not everybody it's just those people that fall in those circumstances okay if you shown your hand that you have 800,000 in disposable income then you have to spend 40,000 of it on a new system okay that's
what I wanted to clarify that's what it comes down to yeah and then uh if I could just get one more answer as to the geob boundary I think it's like 6,500 houses but what Jed was mentioning was 75% of the folks in town are in some sort of a
watershed is it the expectation that we will be only likely doing IAS on those 6500 that are identified in the geob boundary or are we then later on going to have to go back and say the other 7,000 or whatever it is are also
probably going to have to do something but maybe at a later date is that the reasonable expectation or is 6,500 it that's a very good question that that's what I was trying to bring up before with my category C and Jed correctly pointed out that you need a certain
allowance for the fact that a brand new house on a that on a lot that was vacant or an increased number of bedrooms is actually increasing the amount of nitrogen and so there should be some compensation for that well I'm just
saying on the bigger picture can a bigger picture we'll know in 40 years well can I can I answer Steve can I address that question because I think if you have a watershed permit you're doing this every five year you know you're going to have to show what your targets are are how you're meeting those targets
and if you're behind you have to go what to a contingency plan which is just sewering and IIA and if you don't have enough nitrogen being removed you may have to consider adding additional homes for IIA or or or or sewering but you're going to have to get to that number somehow yeah and when I read the
original uh mandate from D it says that we will address in all watersheds so that to me means everybody that's in those watersheds so you've got the Geo boundary now but that's sort of the first phase of implementation I would think and then comes the other
half I propose that we all sit down in quiet places and study this and send our comments to Jed and show up on Monday you spent quite a while talking about the equity issue of people who have to put in a sewer and people who have to put an IA system
and my concern is what about people in I guess you're calling it category C who don't have to do anything seems to me this is a townwide Statewide Humanity wide problem the people in category C
are a certain degree arbitrarily there because they need you the calculation was we need to do this fraction of the houses that house isn't any more dangerous than that it doesn't produ produce any more nitrogen pollution than
that one we just didn't need both of them we only needed one that seems incredibly inequitable to me I I totally agree with you and that's the strongest argument in favor
of a high subsidy for both sewers and IAS or at least that it be done equally that way tax the entire citizenry entire set of taxpayers has skin in the game and is is solving the
problem even though it's only on a less than 100% of the properties but not everybody agrees with you and me Steve can I just have while Amy's here ask one question Amy in seven we talk about a comprehensive
Wastewater management plan there is no more comprehensive Wastewater plan it's just individual Watershed PL yeah I was I was thinking the same thing that the the term should probably be delineated in the watershed management
plan for that watered all right that's an example of the technical thing that should go in an email to Jed and he's obviously going to accept it any other comments I I I just want to say this
because I I've spent a lot of hours on this and went to the last Board of help Health meeting and uh they spent about two and a half hours talking about this which I think is incredible dedication by that Board of Health to this whole effort and they should be commended for
that I I think this is real close this this is really good I think that last statement is a critical one because it puts the the onus and the Authority for further expansion of IIA mandate into a comprehensive plan or a watershed
management plan not a comprehensive but and it'll be Watershed by Watershed uh I think the important thing that you're expecting by Monday if you if I understood your right Jed is you're going to get some numbers hopefully from Scott as to where these dollars fall out
because my gut feel is it's a pretty high threshold and we won't get many IAS this way but I understand too your the reticence to try and keep it to you know maybe a hundred a year I think it's important as as we look at that
Factor though to realize that we're not the only Town doing this there's 1500 under a mandate on the vineyard in Tisbury and um Oak Bluffs there's several thousand up in Wellfleet that were just put under a mandate in January
of this year and they have a trigger not only of what you have delineated but property transfer not if it's a property transfer with a failed system but Property Transfers period any house sale and well Fleet if they're in the area
which is something like 80% of the town they got to put an IIA in so they're going to add to the let's call it the burden or the problem of who's going to install and manufacture all these systems so it's not just Falmouth I think
bne does not have management plans I think they're they've kind of punted on this and they said everybody's going to put an IA system they I do believe they've recently changed that within five years so I think which which I think is insane I
think that I think that they could buy themselves a lot of time just by coming up with something I think they did just come up with and file for a plan and state that they are going to do a plan and their initial IIA numbers are small because their their watersheds that are impaired are relatively small by
comparison fet's got the big skin in this game to use Steve's phrase we got the majority of them by far but there's a whole Cape Cod and Islands Community that's under the same guns so that's all I want can we move to the next topic uh
number six number six um Town manager's office recommendation on the draft water quality management committee mission statement in charge discussion and vote what should we be doing
um I want to make a couple well first of all does anybody have other than fairly technical grammatical corrections to this I think it's pretty good I agree
um at the end of the first paragraph there was a word processor error by somebody um I submit that the after experience and skills should be simply crossed
out it just doesn't make sense can I change that Steve yeah I think that phrase should come in front of the select board it should say in making these appointments comma in recruiting and appointing members to this committee the select board shall seek individuals
that's where it was supposed to be but it says it it's right that's why it's at word process area look it's there in making these appointments the select board shall seek individuals who possess the following knowledge experience and skills in recruiting and appointing members to this committee right so you
put that up in front but it's there it's in making these appointments but it says shall seek who possess the at least in my copy it just appears once it that in my copy it says in making these appointments the select
board shall seek individuals who possess the following knowledge experience and skills and then there there's the the bullet points well the extra then is recruiting so I mean you could drop recruiting anyone else want to comment on that to resolve this you could drop
and appointing in recruiting members to this committee because you're saying appointments yeah why not just drop the whole thing because I think it's important to add the rec in the recruiting of members of the Committee just drop appointing because you already
said appoint me appointing in the first part of the sentence all right who who was writing this you Tom or this came back to us right this came back to us so Peter Johnson St took right but
who on this committee started writing it no one I know so this was the draft that you guys discussed month or two ago two months ago that went to town hall Peter Johnson St reworked it to this to match
other documents from other committees recently so this came directly from him and we have not done anything to it thank you all right Steve can I yeah go ahead I we agree there's some redundancy there right I agree that's what I'm trying to get rid of if we just strike
in making these appointments and start the sentence with in recruiting and appointing members of committee the cect board then we could get around the redundancy yep and yes that I have no problem with that let's let's do it that way that's an easy way okay so we're
striking and making his appointments and beginning the sentence with in recruiting and appointing members of this committee the select board shall seek individuals Kristen can you do this now and have it show up on the screen sure in big print yeah much bigger print
christien while you're at the screen could you spell out seven yeah yeah thank you so you want all right tell me again what you want go ahead Tom oh um just take that
last phrase starting with in recruiting and move the whole thing to the beginning of the sentence capitalizing in right strike in making these appointments yeah everybody happy with that yes I
like it good okay print it uh next trivial thing is at the end of the paragraph that's now at the bottom of the screen it should be an on meeting state regulatory requirements
and number five I'll give everybody else a chance to go through this toe I'm just K uh I think it should be Coastal waterways I've never heard anybody talking about the health of coastal
water Waters yeah is fine yeah that's fine right um I would call it John any any changes you want no I'm happy with it Tom um can you I'm talking about the whole thing now yeah no I was going to go back to that
paragraph the purpose this sounds like we're never going to make it better so can it say advise the select board and town manager on maintaining and improving water quality I have no Pro and then strike
impaired because they're not necessarily always going to be impaired I hope and strike the comma at the end of waters that doesn't have any business there good that's what I would do with that paragraph well I'm not sure I agree with
you on all of those changes in particular impaired because that has a very specific meaning with respect to the state mandate regulatory requirements it provides the focus of where we're at right exactly so but well
Steve rafy had mentioned that he likes the idea of keeping it General why why not in in other words the the genius in our job description for Kristen is this Clause that says and any such other
matters as may seem appropriate once you see that nothing else matters yes and I just think we started with a a clear Mission and this it vager not
clearer but but if if you insist on leaving impaired in there then we're not allowed to do anything to prevent a good Estuary from becoming worse right that's why I'd like to well I don't object to maintaining I would have wrote it on
improving and maintain first you got to improve it before you can maintain it unless it's it might be already there aren't that many yeah but what do we have we got three healthy estuaries under the state requirement we do have
several yeah but we don't need to concern ourselves with them but anyway we don't want them to get worse right no I'm not objecting to maintaining but I I think it's sort of a
second the first obligation is to improve the water quality in the systems that are really impaired and there is it clear designation of what those are in 303d and that was the impetus for
initially forming this committee clean up the mess right and the state is mandating now quite specifically that we need to develop plans for those so Tom I was read made the mistake of
keeping my eyes on my copy instead of looking up there has Kristen already put in what you suggested yes maintaining and improving water quality she dropped the paragraph the comma at the end of the end and she hasn't and and how would
how would you change it Ken well if you put it back to the way it was which is impaired wait don't put it back yet it's not that many pretend that it's just hit contr z um it it didn't have maintaining it just had Improv water quality and ecosystem
in phalus impaired Coastal embayments I think it could be more clearly stated select board and manager in improving water quality and ecosystem health andness and Par bment and Main and Coastal Waters and maintaining
Health in all of you know what I mean I would just segregate it I hear I bits it's a matter of taste it it requires let's have a simple straw p how many people on this board want it
the way Tom has the way it is up there on the screen right now versus Ken's changes what is focus on impaired well just the way it's written right the way it is written Now versus changing it
General yes or yeah that's fine you've taken out any reference to the impaired estuaries I don't know that there's any St regulatory requirements on healthy systems have to worry about State regul no state regulations have tmdls they
don't you know right it says and all kinds of town committees that do things that have nothing to do with State regulation I understand but we happen to have that that's our mission mandate so it says and on meeting state regulatory
requirements I I just saw the majority saying keep it like this yeah okay let's move on anything else all right okay uh do I hear a motion I'll move that we go with what we've got up
there right now top to bottom the whole thing second second I'll second any further discussion all in favor okay I'm opposed just the record
one thank you Christ yep Kim I'll see you tomorrow um oh we're actually running ahead of time um maybe let's do the minutes next I have any I move they be accepted as
distributed can I I understand Steve found a couple typos oh you got some I thought you already corrected them before it went out to us well I don't know didn't didn't you find a couple I Steve oh I found two minor things yeah
I found two totally minor things right okay um at the end of section five the very very last two words significant drawbacks with respect to Downstream receptors it sounds like a
neurobiological paper to me okay so I would change it to downg gradient embayments with the idea that people don't always know when we say receptors that to me sounds almost like a sensory motor how about Downstream if you want it for the
comment Downstream is fine too because the groundwater is streaming in so Downstream emment I just I got realized going back and looking at it again The receptors and then I'll move that we'll
accept them with the changes right Steve you said you yeah did I did I send you mine you left me a voicemail oh okay was it clear yeah okay I'll second any further discussion
all in favor all right reports of members and staff okay no the U open for decision on The Snug
Harbor prb whether we proceed to the next phase of full application we expect that decision on this Friday the 7th so fingers crossed as far as I understand from earlier discussions with the granting Authority they did not feel
that any changes in the federal Administration would affect These funds because they were already call it in the bank and unless something has changed to freeze those hopefully we'll get a positive uh decision on Friday to
proceed with a full scale application for the grant for Snug Harbor prb so in the bank has replaced in the mail well the old expression was well those were the phrases that they used they did not feel it would be
jeopardized by yeah some of the things that have transpired in the the past few weeks um the other thing I would mention because I think it was a interesting educational and important unless somebody else wants to is
um Steve and and I and and Amy and um Dave buzanowski from the heights Association had the opportunity to visit the eversource site on surf Drive yesterday and it becomes apparent to us
that what they are doing is very very similar to the hoped for outfall boring so it was a great opportunity for for education for questioning to see what they had and just some of the things that that struck
me in particular is um you know they're drilling a 30in bore hole that's almost completed they've got about 300 feet left to do and they've pulled the barge due to the impending storm so it's in Safe Harbor so it won't be done this
week uh but they will then be pulling the hdp uh pipe 18inch diameter through that bore hole to Shore and then not doing the same thing on the vineyard side uh and it's very similar to what we're
projecting for the outfall um they're about 85 ft deep uh as they get out into the sound um and they had a very successful brief pilot boring uh three days to go out roughly
3,000 feet into the sound and then they'll be pulling the boore enlarging that hole to the 30 inch what's out there now is a little over 6 in so that was encouraging in 2014 they did the same thing and it took 57 days
to do that and they ran into a lot of Cobble and obstacles and various technical issues so we would hope that we'd be in the other side towards the three-day they are graciously going to share with Amy a lot of the data on test borings they did similar to what we're
going to be doing hopefully when they fix the darn barge they they said they used the same barge when they did test borings off of surf drive so um some very interesting educational and great data that they're going to share with us
um I did not know the details but they're planning on sometime in the next week or so moving the entire operation to the surf Drive Beach parking lot and doing the same thing all over again and hope to be completed with that no later
than early may but and their target is for Mid April but they're they're weather dependent if they run into cabble and other obstacles like they did 10 11 years ago all bets are off on how long it will take
but report thank you I want to add a couple things to that one is well just second that it was fascinating technically and if any of you want your own version of it or watered down version of it I believe if you contact
ever Source they have a very nice woman who is in charge of community relations and she will arrange for you to have the same experience there and uh I mean to me as a mechanical engineer
and not a civil engineer it's it's mindboggling the fact that they can drill a multi foot 30in diameter hole in the ground in sand and mud and inject the right mud with no pipe or casing and
have it not collapse so that's what they do they inject a a mud to fill this but it's just I mean it's EnV of sand castle Builders all over the world you can buy this you can buy banine they flowing clay it's just commercial product CL
it's just not intuitive to me it's fascinating yeah okay that that's the answer to the question that was percolating in my mind thanks and the the other the other point is that Ed mentioned that in 2014 they were working day and night and I
remember because I used to drive by it but full the lights would be on you could go there anytime they were working 247 drilling it for several weeks and this time they did it in three days in virtually the same place in terms of a
distance relative to the distance between boore samples you know John pointed out that the boore samples are 500 feet apart yes okay these two things are less than 500 ft apart one took 50 days the other took 3
days so that tells you something about what you learned from there's a lot of variability in the the substrate under the C the the other thing that I didn't mention that I found fascinating as an engineer and just curious individual is
they've got roughly 3,000 feet continuous fused pipe submerged out in the sound right now they Fus it at Quan Rhode Island and towed it intact from quantit point to Falmouth wow um in
conceptualizing the outfall for kite Park um Steve raffy had the idea we might do the fusing and wor courton in that Park and then drag it across the beach and float it from there but wow you know they they actually float a
3,000 foot long snake 18inch diameter from quanset point absolutely fascinating they probably don't do that in the summertime with the recreational boats out there so Ed you said 85 ft deep is that sea level or below gr below
the seabed below the seabed they are 85 ft down in a starts off it curves down in the Cen area and then comes back up and Beyond the Eel Grass they will then do a trench and cover they won't be horizontal drilling beyond that the so
they're going to dig a trench that 85 ft no I don't think the trench goes that deep I doubt I doubt if they'll be burying that far I think the 85 is primarily due to the the technology of the boring you don't want to have it blowing out you want to be in good solid with plenty of weight on top so that
when you you actually are pressurizing this pilot hole with the mud yeah so and because you can once you once you you've got to drill anyway you're not going to trench across the road and the beach and all that stuff right so once you're drilling the expense of going down to 85
ft compared to 40t is probably almost zero well the reason because you're going this gentle catenary but then for the bulk of the distance in the middle of the sound you're in deeper water so you don't have to worry about people dragging their anchors so maybe the plow
puts it 10 feet under the or 20 feet under that makes my next point because I had already chartered a Chinese steamer to come and drag his anchor Midsummer and isolate the vard the point is you can only horizontally drill 3500 ft that's the
limit that's the limit the limit and I think there's a misunderstanding they drill the pilot hole they then put an augur on the end of it once it's out there turn it back and attach the pipe and then they bore back the 18 they pull
it back oh maybe yes they don't they don't leave it exposed with no pip they add the bent KN as a lubricant as they're pulling it back in both in both directions when they're doing the pilot there's bent knite being used and then when you're reaming it out I think they
referred to it as a reamer if I remember right yeah that they are going to then expand it and more pressurized bite mud system is taking all the cuting the material as the boar is cutting through the subsurface soil the sand and whatnot and it's all being returned back to the
drilling point right they' got this is this is the after meeting BSA yeah which is fun but are there any more reports of members and staff yes Tom Amy LOL gave a super good
presentation last week um to the shellfish advisory committee and I participated by adding two or three points about Jim Churchill's model and the dilution factors and stuff and
there's obviously still a lot of UNC certainty questions and doubt among shellfishing Community um what the consequences might be and part of it is a state of flux did
did you get a chance to read Anastasia's stuff she sent today okay on followup with a meeting with the I switch people okay anyway basically the from the shell fishing standpoint the FDA is moving from what I
would call hard data which is going out and taking water samples and seeing what microorganisms are in it and taking soft tissue samples from shellfish and seeing what microorganisms are to relying on hydrodynamic models and when they ran this model in
ipswitch suddenly all three towns Raleigh ipswitch and Newberry Port right I think were the three towns that had to completely shut down their commercial shell fishing because the models showed that there was a problem and our shell fishing group it is
concerned that a similar thing might happen here even if there is no problem if the model shows there might be a problem they're worried that the FDA would come in and shut down all the shell fishing over a very large potentially very large area so but
Churchill's data is based on a Model right and and the FDA is using Church Hills models that's so your point is that there are they shouldn't have to worry I don't think they had to worry I went in with that idea and Amy will tell you that right away we they said well we
don't know um and the other issue is and I didn't know this until Dale levit who was there presented on what happened to him in Buzzard's Bay when the FDA changed their stuff it's a totally different situation but the aquaculture guys are
particularly upset because they've got a large investment in fixed assets and when a big area is shut down they can't just say oh I'm going to you know go dig oysters or clams over here I'm stuck here and I can't make a living um beyond
the 1 to th000 dilution which is what we were saying really Church Hills model shows really great because things are diluted so quickly there they have a conditional area that extends out to a dilution factor of 1 to 100,000 which is an enormous area under
any circumstances and that's a conditional area that's not a prohibited area the one to a th delution includes a prohibited area where he can't do any shell fishing at all conditional means on a moment's notice literally on a moment's notice it can be shut down and
anyway so it's it's much more complicated at least than I thought before we went but overall it was I thought it was a really good presentation and they could see where we were going with it and we're going to be
having more meetings with them Steve can I uh AR our commercial beds all in the estuaries they're in the Bays they're not 3,000 ft out in the sound there's a some years there's a substantial scallop fishery in that whole strip of eelgrass which the outfall is immediately outside
of but interestingly enough the FDA regulations don't require to scallops if all you're harvesting is the aductor because the m organisms don't accumulate in the adductor muscle John I was just going to add something not a question on your work
you know the muscle um I've been in contact with Brian bomgar he's the was division mtech manager and I was always concerned when I read the cape cot Aqua fund you know website and it talks about what qualifies for the different percent interest loans and it specifically said
that IIA system installations are not eligible for zero or 2% loans only the 4% and I never understood why and then I started corresponding with Brian he said well that's not written correctly if you're part of a watershed permit or required by the mass TB to install an IA
system you can qualify for a z two% loan depending on what your income is so they have not change that on the website but it's another tool you talk about putting a table together no that that stuff would be good to include in the table I'm just worried about putting a number like okay $40,000 for an IIA system you
know oh no I'm just saying that this is is what people see out there this is a public website and you're looking for funding opportunities and you're saying wow I'm going to lose some out on this low interest rate because I'm doing an I not connecting a sewer but that's not accurate what he's saying is they have
not updated the site but all the people in The Watershed permits were required to go to an IA system whose site is this Bri pardon it's Brian's well this is mass this is the you know the cape cot Aqua fund on the barnow county you know water quality site it's where you go to
for the information if you Lo somebody should tell I've told Brian that Brian's aware of it he's the manager of oh oh okay but um I don't why they're not updating it I don't know but he said not to worry you will qualify if
you're in a watershed area a mandated and that's a key you know if the Board of Health says Thou shalt put in an IIA then you are eligible for deceptic tax credit if they don't mandate it you are not eligible y you can put in all the IAS you want's got about of any other
new and different reports if you're in a watershed permit by the mass you'll qualify for the credit that's been that's been changed and that's clear now that's not an issue mandate has the same status as a failure anything else to get a magic motion I'll move that we adjourn only if
you want toj do you want to adjourn absolutely all right I'll second that all in favor I great [Music]