Heat. [Music]
Heat. We've reached 4:30. We have Amy LOL. What more could we ask? We have Doug Brown. Please make sure they get in the minutes there, Will. Okay. Um, this should be a fairly
straightforward meeting today. Um, the first item on the agenda is the fall town meeting. wastewater article says discussion and vote. I'm not sure what we vote on, but um strategy
strategy whether you support her ideas or unanimous support. So, um everybody's been in this committee long enough to know. Oh, there's three of you that way. Okay.
Take one and pass it along. And you can trade later if to get people. Stop. Stop. I haven't written Elijah. You do this every time. Um, yeah. So, these are the Tommy members. It's divvied up. Um, I would
say this time around it's not quite as missionritical as the last time to make sure that we get the money for the sewers and everything, but to the extent that you know people on the list or feel comfortable, please reach out and remind them about certain things that will be happening. Amy's going to stand up and
talk in a second here, but basically uh Jonathan, I don't think you're a town meeting member yet, are you? Yeah, you are. So you understand that there's two articles that come up in November. One of them is a capital items that require a twothirds vote and one of them is a capital item that requires a
majority vote. And it's they're called omnibus bills because there's I don't know Doug but 20 or 30 items underneath it. Um, so we're not asking for somebody specifically to support a specific article, but just to be aware
of why we're asking uh why the wastewater department is put a request in for some funding for items that we are concerned about. Okay. So to the extent we speak with any of our constituents or people on this list, just remind them that we do a good job
with eyes and ears on what's needs to be done and that the monies were that are being asked for are all reasonable. The finance committee thinks so and others do. So with that, I'm turning over to you Amy. I think you got three or four items just just let us know about. Okay. You told me I didn't need to make a
presentation, but I couldn't help it. Irresistible. I spoke to her at like 2:30 today and she was kind of anxious about all everything on her plate. I said, "You don't have to make a presentation." So, how you did this, I have Well, it's not a it's not a wow
presentation, but it is uh just will help guide me through this. So, I guess I'll start by saying there are three articles at town meeting that include wastewater or nutrient management related articles that uh I've had anything to do with. You back up one slide. There you go.
What's that? Yeah. So, article four, I'm getting article two and three. I'm taking them out of out of order because um I wanted to start with the outfall, but article four, uh as as Steve mentioned, there are two capital articles up at the front of the warrant
book. Um article three is is a large longer list of of items and those that that article only requires a majority vote. Article four requires a twothirds majority because the proposed funds are
coming from a debt stabilization fund. Um so that's just the rules on the uh with that funding source. So article four pause. Hey how you doing Ken? Good. We're talking about town meeting articles. Okay.
Uh that are wast related. Um so article four requires a two-thirds majority because of the funds are proposed to come from the stabilization from a debt stabilization fund capital and debt they now call it. Um and that's uh there are to my knowledge uh two items under
article 4. One is the outfall next funding step and the other is uh brick kiln road water main improvements um that are going to be um um we're we're we're doing we're working with the water department during the great pond phase
one project to get um the water man installed in Brickhelm Road at the same time because the the as part of the next project we've got to put a force main we got to install a force main from the Augusta the uh parcel, our Brick Hilm Road lift station site up to the plant
that's taking us through Brick Hilm Road. The water department needs to um um loop close close uh the loop there and install a new water mane. So, they're requesting funding to add that to um to the project. Yeah.
If I was an orary member of town meeting and didn't understand the outfall and thought it was awful. Yep. Could I make a motion to cut it out and leave the water man? Yeah, people can always make motions. So, we need a good argument for the outfall.
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. And I I'm will be prepared to make I know what they are, but yeah, I'll be prepared to make that. Um, so this is the um the page that's in the warrant book for the um for the outfall. And I don't mean for you to be able to
read it on the screen. I just included it to um to show you what it looks like. And this will be in the town meeting warrant book. Um this the standard form said shows what the original request is which is um which what the request is
which is $1.34 million um for the next steps in the outfall project which is conceptual design um say 30% design of in particular the outfall portion itself. the part offshore in uh because we need to
complete that in order to apply for some of the permits for the project and then the draft and final environmental impact report and the initial permitting for the project. Um you all are very familiar uh with the work that's been going on on on the outfall over the last
couple of years. So I won't uh get into that in detail now though I'm I'm glad to if you want to talk more about it. Um, I will say while I'm thinking of it, um, we did, uh, you did support the submittal of the, uh, environmental notification form for the outfall, uh,
which went in at the beginning of September. That, um, the comment period for that was just extended to October 21st based on the request of a couple of the reviewing agencies. Um so the comment period for that was supposed to
close uh yesterday and it's it's open now until October 21st but we expect the uh they have 10 days MEEPA has 10 days after that um the comments are received to issue a certificate on the environmental notification form. So I
was so to that point Amy um you put a certain dollar request in at this time. Yep. Based upon best available information about what we have to do. Yep. We have a narrow window
between when the comments come in from the state to determine if what we're asking for is appropriate. If we all feel that more money is necessary
to deal with what's coming up from the state in their comments on the ENF, we can amend this amount on the floor. Yeah, I certainly hope not to do that. I I hope not to do that. I just want to be sure that we all understand that if
something in the ENF makes us look at it, you, me, other people that are all deeply involved in this and say, "Wow, this is a $200,000 thing we've got to do. We didn't expect, right, that we don't we're not going to add a year to everything. We could
present that on town meeting floor and explain why. We got to get a little more funding." Okay. Right. our we have as you know been in discussions with the regulators over the last couple of years. So we felt like we were um qualified at this point to
prepare a scope and a and a budget to finish this this next stage. But you're right, we we will get additional information at the end of October. I feel we're in good shape, but you know, you never know where the curve ball's coming from sometime. So absolutely. Um we don't want to have the project
stalled from a curveball. We want to keep it going. You can always floor if you get a $200,000 item that you want to prepare for. Right. I just I I plucked this out just to have the conversation. Um I think we're good based on what I've seen and
know. Um but we don't have their comments yet and they asked for another few weeks. Right. And um the bottom of the form shows that it is uh the funds are to come from capital and debt stabil stabilization. Um I unless there's anything more
anybody wants to talk about that I was Do you want another devil's advocate question or would you prefer that after? Of course I would love a devil's advocate question. Okay. Speak Satan speak. So let the minutes reflect that.
So if it's 1.3 million for 30% the total designs of the order of four and a half million. Uh, no. Doesn't work that way. Doesn't work that way. Okay. No. Um, so, well, I'll shorten it down. So, what's
the whole project cost and what's that divided by the number of properties that will be sewered? No sewers. This is the outfall. It's a pipe from I know, but it it the reason for doing it is not just to
see a nice pipe go out into R sound. It's so you can build sewers. Uh so we right now are holding in the 10-year capital plan uh $80 million for the outfall itself and um either seven
or $8 million for design and final permitting of this. Those are numbers that those are very preliminary numbers because we don't even have the design. No, I don't care about the details. So I just wanted the rough figure of you take that you add all that up and divide it by the number of properties
divided it by the number of properties. Okay. Well number of properties over what time frame because right yeah in front of us I wrote it down. We'll get it for you. Um those costs will be refined based on the design but they're pretty darn
conservative numbers. You might have to step to the micro. You might have to step to the micro. You'll be getting picked up. Okay. I don't know. Still have to identify yourself. Sorry.
Hi, Doug Brown. Select board. What was they thinking with the um using the stabilization funds? It needs a two-thirds vote rather than just some other regular funds. That's a question for the finance director and the town management. But I
believe um so my initial funding request was um split into a draft and a final cost and the the draft and final for the environmental impact report and the the idea was to request the final amount in
um April and um the it was pointed out to me or that that really should be a November request and so and it's a large request for November. So I think I think that looking at funding availing sources available is how they came to that. So
ju try to help you understand a little bit a key part when it says 30% design um that that's a generic sort of no it's a generic statement but we need to permit the outfall with the Army Corps
of Engineers and so most of that a big portion of that money is going to be to get it a real basically almost bid ready design for the directional drilling, the diffusers,
and everything else. So, we can submit it to the Army Corps of Engineers and let them take five years to figure out what they've got in front of them. I'm being facitious, but it's it's it's a key element, not to, you know, to be able to get a a big piece of the design
that's critical to the permitting process done and in front of the permitting agencies. So I wouldn't uh characterize the it's not going to be bid ready what we get for the alpha itself but it'll be pretty it'll be very definitive so the army corp of engineers
can can read it and comment on it a conceptual yeah we should we should talk more about that before town meeting because um and um so that we're ready to characterize how how detailed that level of design is. But my question really was just why the
stabilization funds it needs a twoth3 vote rather than regular like cash or something. Yeah, it's a finance director question, but that that's my understanding finance director and town management. Um,
article three is uh additional capital improvements and this is the one that requires a majority vote and it has a whole lot of different articles in it or different items uh projects in it. Uh there are three wastewater projects included. One is a draft watershed plan for all of Falma's state designated
nitrogen sensitive areas. The next is sewer lift station resiliency improvements and the last is uh wastewater system equipment rehabilitation and replacement. Um so the draft wershed plan for all Falmouth state designated nitrogen
sensitive areas. I gave a presentation to the water quality management committee in July on this um this concept. Um John gave a presentation I think at the same meeting about um how we should accelerate the planning
process and um for a lot of good reasons. And so this is uh the concept here is to as we talked about in more detail in July uh develop a plan for all
of the wersheds that have have TMDLs in town for how we're going to meet those meet those TMDLs. Um and we know that the two primary means of doing that will be sewers and denitrifying septic
systems. Um but it is for with there are for a lot of purposes it's really becoming very clear that we we need that plan as soon as as we are able because for
example the the board of health has been struggling with their um their septic system their denitrifying septic system they they call it IIA I believe uh regulation and where to draw the lines uh for where IAS will be required and Um
it also is very important to look at the whole picture to talk about financing um to plan for the financing. So um Kristen uh with science wares Kristen Rathjen with sciencewares has done a tremendous job of evaluating this on a preliminary
basis with the water quality management committee over the past year or so. And GHD has also done an enormous amount of work on a lot of these wersheds but not all of them in the past. So, we're starting with a lot of background here and we need to finish the job or we need
to get a draft plan that puts puts that information in a written document for the public and and go through the the public discussion of that. Um, so that's that's the concept here. Um the request is for $380,000
to and that is for uh I've asked ScienceWarses Kristen to take a lead role in this with support from GHD to prepare that plan. Amy, does that um budget include uh
getting somebody that knows municipal finance to be able to to verify for projected costs models that might be available to finance it? It does not right now. It's it's it the
the scope of work and the concept for this has been for the the the consultants and the town to develop that model. So there'll be a follow on piece to figure out the financing side.
If if the town is unable to do it without that then definitely. What's the amount for this line item? This is $380,000. Um, how close will the draft plan be to something that would be ready for submission to the
state? So, um, the town would need to follow up with, uh, individual submissions, watershed permit submissions. Uh so this is not intended to take us to through
watershed permit submission but it's intended to provide the background that's needed to do that. Um there is you know you I this is not through final because um there's a public process and
um I think the goal is to prepare this or the plan is to prepare this in the next year and uh if we can if the town can get it through to final in the next year that is terrific but I don't think there's a guarantee of that more money required to get to the final
if necessary. Yes, I I really it's it's really a I think all of the information we believe we need to make these decisions is is available and is going to be include or is going to be included in this plan. The question is whether the town can you know the town needs to
then make approve the plan right so you know over the last year we've developed what's known as a contingency plan under the regulations for the water shed plans i.e. you rely upon sewers and IAS and you live with your existing plan of where you're going
to go for comprehensive wastewater management. This is going to take us through what I would call the next step. And I don't want to characterize it as 80% or 85 or 90, but we're not going to be far from what it takes to put
together watershed permit applications. Okay? We'll have we'll have we'll have done analysis. We'll looked at areas. will have maps. There'll be some numbers attached to it and then there's some paperwork to to actually put the plans the permits together. Is that is that a
fair assessment? Absolutely. That this would be the the basis for the watershed permit applications. Yeah. And is this intended then to supersede the schedule of four plans over four years starting at the end of next year. First one due that we
committed to the state and they said okay go for this. Here's the four watershed plans and each one of those had multiple estuaries in it. Instead of 14 plans, we were going to do four. Is this going to replace that or accelerate it? We're not we're leaving that timetable
in place for now. Ed, let's get through the next year. Okay. And then look at what it's like. Look at the numbers. Look at the cost. Look at the financing. And we can always submit earlier. Okay. Um but we have to submit by the dates that we got. Right. Yeah,
that was what we submitted was a plan to meet the deadlines. If we if the town is ready to move forward to do these things earlier, we certainly can and will submit the permit applications earlier. Well, and by definition, you have to hear from the town.
Your hand so I can recognize you, Satan. Right. I mean, I recognize you. Go ahead. I said by definition you have to wait for the public input that part of the getting to the final part of the process and they might have some good ideas.
They might have some good ideas then it would be different. We're hoping they have good ideas but then by definition it would be different. So John, you want to chime in here? The other John? No, I'll wait till she's okay. Thank you. Finished with this one or with
with with your three articles you're going to review. Okay. Um the next is sewer lift station resiliency improvements. Uh so the request was $160,000. Um the financing folks have finance
folks have um proposed that uh 75,000 of that be paid for with the remaining unallocated uh Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence funds. Uh no. Uh the um right. Yeah.
Right. The it's um so there are three let's see a few things here. So finishing up on the cost um that would rem that would be a remaining $85,000 in the appropriation um for this um the
town has. So, the AFC money, which is Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence money, um you probably all know was provided to the town many years ago by the by the Air Force to offset um to compensate the town for the impacts
of the uh wastewater treatment plant discharge uh at the at the base. Um and um the town has used that money over time for land purchases related to wastewater for and and to related to
nutrient mitigation and for many planning and design documents um including a lot of the including a lot of the um work leading up to the Maravea Ticket um designs and there and
we've the it's been used over the past number of years for scienceware support. Um this this will take us down to no remaining unallocated funds. There is uh so the committee voted $78,000
a year for three years I think was the last number for science wares. There will be a some amount of money left over. That's article 17. That's different. You're absolutely right. Yep. I was on a tear saying the wrong thing. You're right. There's 75,000 remaining
in Afy money. I have a spreadsheet. Don't worry, I just screwed it up in my head just there. Uh, you're forgiven. Thank you for the correction, though. Wouldn't want the wrong wrong account going on the record. Um,
anyway, uh, that's the fun. So, um, this is for three lift stations. um the Water Street lift station, Surf Drive lift station, and inner harbor uh lift station. And the um the town got a grant
in 2022 under which we did conceptual design of these improvements. And now I'm just pushing it over the next line, which is to get design and bid documents prepared for this. These are things like raising the vents and the air intakes on
the lift stations and raising the electrical shut offs for the lift stations. Putting in a bypass uh pumping connect connection point at the surf drive lift station. These are things that will make those three
stations that are right on the water more protected from flood waters. Uh they are not hurricane proofing. They are not, you know, making these stations uh ironclad. They are making reasonable
steps to make them more flood resistant. Um and uh there will the town's going to need to do additional work in the future to decide what happens in the long term with not only the lift stations, but also the sewers and the, you know, the
communities right along the the in utilities for the communities right along the water. Any questions about that? Right. We So we did use one of those grants to do the um conceptual design that is lead
that led to this. Um this is the next step. Um the last one I or the next one I didn't want to spend too much time on. Uh it's wastewater system equipment rehabilitation and and uh replacement. Um this is I asked for funds in this
category every year for major equipment rehabilitation and replacement. This year, um, we're asking for, um, a 4 inch and a 6 inch bypass pump, um, to allow us to pump, uh, around one of the lift
stations if the generator and/or pumps fail at that lift station. And it's an emergency uh, system. We had a um, a pump, 4-in pump like the one that's shown on that picture that has is more than 20 years old and is no longer
usable. Uh we also use it to bypass um or to move water from one tank to another during maintenance at the wastewater treatment facility. Um it's also the other thing in here is is um for rehabilitation of one of the three
SBS once the new third SB starts up. What's the amount? The amount I'm sorry, the amount is $135,000 requested and um the uh during a meeting with the finance director and the town
manager, town management, we were all asked to identify accounts that had um remaining funds in them that might be applicable to new articles. and I identified um $45,000 in a in an article
that um we we're still completing the purpose there, but we're not going to need as much money as we thought. So, the final amount is 135US 45 uh $90,000. Uh the last article I wanted to talk
mention was article 10 is to authorize a special act for reimbursement for grinder pumps. And um it's it's to be clear it's not just reimbursement. It's the purchase um it also will cover the town's
purchase of the grinder pumps and um and then reimbursement of property owners. Um, it allows the town to do this. It doesn't set up a procedure to do this, but it would authorize the town to use municipal funds to reimburse property
owners for installation of grinder pumps on private property. The town passed a very similar article uh and then special legislation was passed for the little pond project. That legislation was worded. It had the words little pond
project in it. So the goal here is to um generally have have one that will apply to this in future projects. It does not obligate the town to spend this money but it allows the town to spend this money in this way.
So Ken go ahead. I'm just curious about the details of if you are putting in a grinder pump uh how much reimbursement are there income rest like if I happen to be a really wealthy guy do I still get it etc. So, none of those details have been
worked out for this project. Um, this um I spoke at um a couple of select board meetings about about this. Um and we went through what the previous grinder pump policy was and what the previous reimbursements
were based on. I am assuming the policy will be similar, but it may not be exactly the same. So can you give me some sense of what the previous Sure. The town the town bought all the grinder pumps for single family residential property owners um and and
residential condo units um but not commercial and not large multif family uh developments um and provided those to the property owners um when they were in the permitting process for connection or when they'd completed the permitting
process for connection. Uh the town agreed to maintain the grinder pumps in perpetuity and install new pumps when they uh reach the end of their useful life. Very big deal, very big commitment. Uh in addition
um the town had agreed to provide uh backup um power or generator pump down when in the in the um in the condition of a of a power outage, a street power outage. Uh
that is the one condition I'd like to definitely limit um going forward. Uh it is it is something we've been able to do on a on a limited basis so far but uh would be a big challenge on a on a large scale.
So you've paid for the equipment but you did not necessarily pay for the installation of the equipment. Sorry that wasn't clear. We did not pay for the installation upfront. the property owners were responsible for the to get a contractor um and and the you
know the plumber and the electrician and get them installed and then once they'd closed out their permits um they were gr they were provided a reimbursement. The reimbursement was $1,800 per property
owner uh regardless of their income or their property value or anything. and it was $1,800 was based on the average difference the between the cost to install a grinder pump sewer connection and the cost to install a gravity pump
sewer connection. So the goal was to have it not based on individual properties and all their costs because it's you know they're many many properties and that would be a lot of work. Um but to have it and it was a flat essentially
a flat it was a flat reimbursement uh that was provided to grinder pump prop people who'd installed these town provided grinder pump property owners. So it's not intended to completely reimburse them. It's a partial reimbursement. Okay. Thank you.
Okay. Ed um just refresh my memory if you will. I as I recall the reason the reimbursement money was available in the little pond project was we went out to bid. We get good bids. We had a certain amount of money to spend. The work came
in under the allocated amounts and there was an amount left over and that was the origins of the reimbursement because it was well we got some money how about we help out the people that had to do grinder pumps. So it was kind of a there was money there,
let's spend it this way. That's the way I recall it. So I I think it set sort of a dangerous precedent, but it it the vote had been a a partial reimbursement. The policy was voted that there'd be a partial reimbursement. We didn't actually implement the
reimbursement until ve very you know after uh most of most of the connections uh if not all of the connections had been completed. So it was at the end of the project and the um in
this in the for the great pond phase one project that appropriation amount that was the amounts that were appropriated for that project included an estimate uh of grinder pump reimbursement cost if the town votes to do that and it's based
on the same number. It's based on $1,800 because both costs have gone up was the logic. Um so uh it's supposed to be a you know reflect the difference not the actual cost. Um so
that's it with the town has the flexibility I assuming the all the budget all the costs come out the way we we've estimated them or most of the costs come out the way we've estimated them. So, um
I just want to kind of highlight a point uh on Little Pond. It was very specific to the Little Pond project recognizing going forward that this might be the approach to on the grinder
pumps for as we march down the peninsulas. This particular article says certain property owners in any future town sewer service area. So this is taking from our experience in Little
Pond saying that that's what we want to do going forward and locking us in a little bit going forward. So I think it's actually useful so you don't have to come back on every sewer project. As
we go forward and we look at the cost savings, I mean the big picture goes like this. The cost of putting gravity sewers versus putting in the grinder pumps is pretty significant. Absolutely.
Okay. And so the town benefits from a lower capital cost when we, you know, embrace the grinder pump philosophy and we're just making it a pathway for getting grinder pumps, getting them
available to people, getting to be installed in. So the grinder pumps ultimately become sort of part of the sewer system, if you will, not a homeowner purchased item. They're part of the sewer system and it's a lower cost than digging deep pipes and
connecting everything up. That's I think it's good that you're covering future s sewer service areas. And this is not the special legislation. This is the article that authorizes the the town to submit that. Mora O'Keefe, the town's council will, you know, we'll
draft that and send that around. I did want to reiterate though, it doesn't require the town to buy the pumps in the future or reimburse in the future, but it allows the town the the ability to do that under the law.
It's it's definitely precedent. It's been a good model. There's no reason to blow it up. Steve, I'm curious know a little bit more about the power failure scenario. I assume there's some sort of tank so which is normally kept pumped down by the grinder
pumps. It's a very small tank. Okay. But you have a little bit of a buffer while that fills up. How much? What? How much? 12 hours. Obviously depends on the family and whether long showers, etc., etc. But that's um
I don't I haven't looked at it lately, but maybe 24 gallons. Wow. That is No, the tank is 70 gallons, but you have between the low low shut off and the and the high high level where it starts to back up um up the the gravity.
Steve, I'm going to do this for you. Under a power outage, you no longer get hot water. You no longer can run your dishwasher. It's basically flushing the toilet. Okay. Yeah. So, it's it's it's the hours. It would be nice if it was a bigger
tank, but the experience with E1s has has not been a crisis yet, right? I'm not proposing anyone do anything different. I'm just curious how it works. Y um so you could have a lot of hot water stored in your hot water heater and say, "Oh, it's a power failure. I
can't watch TV. I'm going to go take a shower while use up the hot water." We is there some sort of alarm or is it is the alarm a piece of paper that you send to everybody that says don't do this both uh we've tried to do a good job on
education but a you know properties are rented there's turnover um and there is both there is a it's called a remote sentry which is a little box that looks like an alarm you know a burglar alarm on the wall inside the house and that
alarms it has batteries in it so it alarms alarms. It's connected to the level switch in the tank. So, um it um it alarms when your pump level gets low and there's no power. Okay. There's no power.
So, you have a reasonable chance of a reasonable notice that there's a problem. Yes. And then you either get a generator or you stop using creating waste water. People are we encourage people to reduce water use in a power outage unless they have a backup. Thank you.
Generator. I will say uh you said the grinder pumps haven't been a big issue. Um the you know the town does do maintenance pay maintenance pay for maintenance on the grinder pumps. I'm not saying they're maintenancefree but I
have gotten virtually no complaints about about the grinder pumps. And in fact I got a call we got a call from somebody last week who'd had a grinder pump for four years and didn't know they had it. Um and uh so there's these
things have have been a a success as far as um how they you know how they run in the in the collection system and we're not the first community to use grinder pumps. They've been used in a number of communities up and down the east coast and the west coast.
They're used all over the place. A lot of people that don't know they have septic tanks, right? But that's that's sort of part for the course, right? that, you know, it's proof that or it's evidence that the grinder pumps are working out for people that they
wouldn't know they have that either. Mr. John and John, you have any any John, you're holding group comments till the end? A general Okay. No, no, no. You you you want to wait until you heard it all. I think you've heard it all. Yeah. You want to go first? I was just going to say we've had
grinder pumps in Woods Hole for 20 years down by the Coast Guard base. Yep. There are five of them down there. It's up to Steve. I'm not in charge. I know. Raise your We're going to John at the fire rate. Okay. And we're on the general question. So, um, going back to the first article
number four, you showed briefly that one pager that kind of had the cost table, then some sort of summary of the project. I really couldn't read it there, but is that what is given out to all the town meeting members? So they have some sort of information literature
background that they can base their vote on. So for something like this where it's a big ticket item number four for the um and a critical one for the outfall funding. Is it clearly stated in the upfront paragraph? What is the main driver? What is the criticality of this that it's a
fundamental step that has to occur in order to proceed really with the large-scale sewing plans that we have with the town and without an outball pipe that really, you know, has a domino effect on everything. Well, most town members fully understand that that's why they're
going to approve a fairly sizable number. And do you go to the various precinct meetings before town meeting to kind of help uh reinforce that message and how can we help in our capacity because you know not everybody is very technical on these sorts of you know
town meeting committee some are many aren't and how do we get them to fully appreciate how critical this step is Jonathan there's a piece of paper in front of you with a list of town meeting members. Okay. Mhm. Everybody's got their list. Tonight's
presentation is for us to understand what's going on, the need for things, and then we all are obligated to do our best to reach out either email, phone call, or whatever, and remind everybody of what this is and why we need their
vote. Okay? So, part of our job is to let to reach out to people. When somebody says, "I don't know anything about the outfall." Say, "Okay, let me get you some information." Okay. Um Amy's done a good job. We've kept it in the There's a woman sitting here who
writes us up every week and, you know, says, "We need an outfall. We need an outfall. When are we going to get an outfall? We need an outfall. We only need one outfall." But um the push here is it's a very small group of people, couple hundred, 220, whatever. We've
divvied it up. do our best over the next few weeks. Let people know this is coming up that this is a key step in a key piece of our wastewater needs to keep the outfall moving. Okay. Will there be a fact sheet that like the
last we had like a one pager that if there's specific questions? Yeah, we could we could generate a fact sheet. I think that would be helpful. We can generate a fact. I'm familiar with this project, but I never heard this proposed potential number for the because they're going to ask, right? What's the what's the projected cost? And even though it's a
it's a projected conservative cost, I'd like to have some numbers and the basis for that. No, we can we can put something. So, what's on this sheet or what's on the slide is the sheet that goes it's um it's a capital request sheet that's provided um uh that that this is a
standard form that we use to make requests um for for funding. And it goes these sheets go into the back of the town warrant book. They didn't always, but they're now in the back of the town warrant book. Plenty of people don't read the back of the town warrant books. Uh, so there are plenty of people who
don't look at it. This says um, you know, this is all the space you have. I used to make these my background like three or four sheets and what all they ever printed was was the first one. So you get this is the the space you have, but it says an outfall an offshore outfall is an essential part of the
town's plan to improve coastal pond water quality and meet regulatory nitrogen load limits for the pond. Completion of the outfall will allow the town to cease its existing groundwater discharge and to expand its sewer collection system to serve densely developed areas of town. But we can uh
provide a a fact sheet as well. also you guys that I mean I I hope you know is that word wording finalized or is it subject to any kind of editorial that's printed so this is this is what's going in the warrant I know but has it has it already gone into the warrant
yes yes everything had to be we're not going to be able to change this wording we can change wording on a fact sheet but we we can't change this wording now um forgot fact sheet anyway yes we can do a fact sheet
Okay, it's a good idea. Oh, I don't know. I got dueling fingers. Ken, um I wanted to go back to the power uh question of submitting emergency power
and just out of curiosity mostly, but how do you go about doing that for dispersed homes over, you know, several blocks or whatever it is? So, we have not had to do it on a large
scale. Uh, and what I so I clarified to people that this is that first of all, the power has to have been out for 24 hours and we're only going to pump once a day per property if we can. That we're going to do the best we can, but in certain circumstances, there may be
trees down, there may be flooding. We can't, you know, this is not a a promise of you're always going to have this, but um the most so so far since 2016, the most pumps we've ever had to u pump down
was 18 in a storm. Okay. Out of 681. But but they have a gen they have a generator they can go by and hook up to individual homes. So you got to go home by home by home. So that's I'm just remembering Hurricane Bob and I think we went
it was great. We I think we went on our street uh you know almost a week without power and uh yeah I don't I just can't envision what you would do but um it you
know so the town cannot provide pump down pump down power for everybody uh as Steve pointed out when the power is out so there are a lot of there are a lot of different circumstances right some a lot of time uh when the power is out, the population
is very reduced here. Um a lot of the storms we've had since these happened were in the winter. When these seasonal communities are have much lower occupancy, um you know, there there's when you don't have hot when you don't have electricity, you don't use as much
water. There are a lot of extenduating, but the basic strategy is you take a generator or a couple generators and you go visit each house and what you do is plug that small generator. Generator's on the back of a truck. You plug it into the control panel, you run the pump until the shut off, and then you go to the next house.
And that takes 15 minutes approximately, something like that. But there's also keep in mind that, you know, a lot of people are savvy enough to say, I'm going to have my own emergency job. Sure. Okay. So, you know, it's not it's not like there's 700
these homes out there and there's 700 homes to worry about. I'm just trying to get slightly different number. Wrap my mind around that issue. That's a Yeah. And and as a homeowner, I I've got to think that, you know, if I'm on the cusp of putting my own emergency generator in and I've got a grinder pump and I think
about significant incentive I might, you know, it's worth the 1,500 bucks or $2,000 to to throw that generator on. I think I had a hand over here that beat you. So, I'm going to go to Steve. Okay. Back to this sheet. Just for the benefit
of John, um the last time I did this, just keep in mind the yield is very low. I mean, you you can do it any way you want. Of course, you can use email or phone or door to door, but I called all the numbers. 95% of them, if not higher,
you get an answering machine or nothing. Just rings. And so, you've got to leave a reasonably short message. you know, hi, I'm so and so from this committee. Be happy to answer any questions you have on these articles. Here's my number. Give me a call if you
want. You get almost no return calls. You get on this whole list, you get about two or three people that call you back and one of them is somebody who's a good friend of yours anyway, and they're just calling up to say hi. But but but I go around to every house. I don't even call. I just go to the the
address and knock on the door. Seriously, Steve Ra from the water quality management committee. How you doing? Can I talk to you about article 4? You actually do that? I've done it. Wow. I emailed everyone and I got half a dozen responses.
The point of this is for every person that doesn't pick up, there's somebody that will pick up or will respond and you we just we build momentum to Oh, absolutely. I'm I'm not It's a perfectly appropriate process. I just
was telling John from the standpoint of time planning and so on that a whole bunch of these people are not going to respond. So it should give at least a little bit of an informative message without this we can't move forward with affordable
housing or anything else and we're fortunate I mean we are an elected town meeting most of these people are very you know this is not the first town meeting that this issue is coming in front of them I think you're going to have some small presentation Amy or or or not maybe about the outfall
and where we're at. We'll definitely have it available. I'll have a presentation about the outfall and the wershed permitting available. So you know'll be not wershed permitting waterershed plan. Wershed plan be there'll be inform informative messages. So oh what's the date of the town meeting?
The 15th 14th 13th. Yeah. Second second week of November. We have we have we have five or six weeks from now. Yeah. So don't need to look Yeah, we don't need to look up the exact date. Thank you. All right. Did you have a
question? I I did not have a question. Just to you know, I'm more familiar with the actual practice of the grinder pumps living in the Heights and you know, a lot of my neighbors and people closer to the water than I am. I have a gravity, but they have the pumps. They've been basically
troublefree in the event of power failures. And they we've had very very few extended power failures in the last 10 years. the company, the electric company has done a lot of upgrade and strengthening of the system to prevent
extended power failures. And I would say probably 40% or more of the people that have a grinder pump in the heights have put in a generator for not just because they want to keep their grinder pump active, but for their lights. The these are
most of the folks, especially closer to the water, which happens to be where the pumps are, are well off. they can afford. It's a second home. They throw in a whole house generator which probably cost 10 grand and it has enough amperage and it's got the 220 to run
that grinder pump. When the pump fails or gets overloaded, you're full and there's no power. A red light goes off and it sounds an audible alarm. Some people didn't like the alarm and they unplug the audible so they just got the red light. But the power
failures have been few and far between. But that that's been a problem. I know it's been a problem in in West Falmouth on the IIA systems where people get sick of hearing the alarms go off, but the system works. I was a doubter of grinder pumps when it was first proposed. I thought they were out of their mind on water quality to propose it. I become a
believer. They work. They work effectively. They're pretty much troublefree. You know, when when you know power's going to go off, you know, there's a big storm coming, you might make sense to run it so it's pumped all the way down. And now you get 50 60 gallons of
capacity rather than oh my pump is just about ready to trip and the power is out. So now I only got 20 gallons. Fill it up with water and trigger the float switch and it'll run and it'll drain it all the way to engineer. Well, sure figured this out, but
you know it it works. Triples your capacity, your buffer and you go use very little water. But you know it works and people that don't understand it ask the questions and you know I always think great presentation Amy we're learning as much about grinder
pumps as we know about urine diversion. It's fascinating. At least it's good. You know the the green and east is pretty reliable and it comes back probably the first in town. It's such a densely populated area that I think they focus on that first. Yep.
All right, Amy. Thank you for that. um everybody's kind of up to speed on what these different articles are that we've got our list to call, email, go knock on the doors, whatever we want to do. Um you get to meet some nice people that way. Anyhow, uh we're going to move on
if if that's okay to item two. Um Kristen, I think this is uh on you a little bit, right? Sure. Um This is discussion and vote. I don't I don't know. I don't know if we need to vote. I mean, does anybody want to make
a motion to support the articles that Amy's got? I so move that the water quality management go on record as supporting the wastewater articles and second and I've got a second already. Any further comment or discussion on this?
Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All right. Thank you. I um the next one is uh the shower drive PRB. Uh
so the last meeting Matt Sheret gave the update for the last two years of sampling and he made a recommendation to continue the sampling for another two years. So every six months to do a monitoring interval. Um, the last time
the funding allocated was not to exceed $6,500 and the final invoices for all four came in at $6,400. So that's costs have gone up. If you're going to do it again, I would add a little bit
more to that for the next two years. Um, but that's that's the information on what the last round cost. Right. So Amy, what I heard is the AFCE money is being allocated someplace else.
So it's not clear where we would fund this from at this time. Um, you have any thoughts on it? I I guess maybe the first thing is a little bit of a philosophical question. We we we got a nice
presentation last week, last meeting about this is continuing to be effective. Uh I guess how much money does the town want to invest in continuing research to see how long uh the emulsified vegetable
oils last? or do we decide that we know the emulsified vegetable oils work and perhaps move on to the Snug Harbor project uh which is moving along and and and use that as as a benchmark. So um
there's no there's no immediate pot of money and and funding it for another couple of years may or may not be our best expendure funds. That's my personal opinion. But I'll let Amy talk about where money might come from and then let's hear what people think about continuing this. Uh I I sort of agree with what you're
the the what you were say saying just now. But the only agreement Yeah. shocking. Uh the only funding source I am aware of would be article 17. Thank you for the correction. What would be left over that
science wares hasn't used? I I would that just what I had what I was going to say earlier was that um ScienceWorks has not spent all of its allocated funds under its contract each
of the last three years. So there will be some say 30,000 or so $25,000 left over at the end of that. You may want to consider that using that again for Kristen, but it's it's up to you. contract is up at the end of the year by the way.
Right. So there's and that's the only funding source I know of for that as well. So I I I guess again my personal opinion I'd rather pay for science we're doing the great job they they're doing for us than u funding additional sampling of
the PRB. Go ahead Ken. Well I disagree. Um, this is we've spent several hundred,000, right, to install this thing and we've stuck this two-year dose in and it really would be useful to know
how long and why is it continuing for so long because, you know, if we're this approach which has value clearly um is going to be used in the future, knowing something about the appropriate dosing
is important, but but but funding this means that we probably don't have Kristen working for us next year. I'm just saying it's cheap money. I mean, if we're talking $7,000, I mean, I'm looking at Doug. Is there
not 7,000? What is our budget? 130 million. Yeah. How are we going to know when it's time to reinject? If it's working, we should keep it working. Well, we won't know unless we can see it failing. That's okay. So, I'm just I'm looking at you because
you guys need funding. Figure it out. Hold off. I want to let everybody speak first. Go ahead, Steve. You have something to say? Yes. Well, you told me to raise my hand. Um, what about the fre changing the
frequency? I mean, could somebody tell me something about the proposed frequency of measurement? Maybe it only needs to be done once a year instead of once every three months or some such or twice a year. Kristen, what do we sample now? So
during the actual grant period, we sampled quarterly. After that funding ended, it went to every six months basically so that you could have kind of a six month. Here's where it actually stopped working to back calculate of it
was a two-year dose and it went six and a half years versus seven to get slightly more accurate. Yeah. Right. The longer you are out that the the less frequent the measurements need to be. Just common sense. But it's going to die at some point. So, right. But we don't need to know exactly
when because no other system is going to be exactly like it anyway, right? It's not a precision measure. How much will it cost to reinject? Well, that would be expensive. Would be expensive. And I don't think there's thoughts to reinject it because
the houses that it's capturing are slated for sewering. So, it doesn't really make sense. Thought it was a plume that was coming from That's what they originally thought and it's not. Oh, okay. So, so what's the frequency proposed for this?
Matt, Matt proposed to continue at six months. So, we could cut the cost in half two years by doing it once a year or you extend it to four years if you do it once a year, right? Good point though. Ed, you know, I I I think it's
worthwhile. It's small money. I think the committee ought to send a letter to the town manager and the select board saying can you find something in a budget to continue this? It's important data because if this works you know two
times at least if not three or four times longer than projected we know something for future projects and this technology may have increased applications as we address our overall watershed planning. Um,
it begs the other question that you just brought up and Kristen mentioned that the contract ends the end of this year or next year. This year, what do we do to continue that and how do we go about Well, there's this there's article 17. So, I think we live through another
year, but yeah, down the road create a water quality management fund, right, to support the the necessary technical assistance that we require to do an effective comes an item under Amy's budget someplace
that that gets added for the April town meeting. Okay. But now I think that needs to be recognized and become part of um maybe that should be part of the letter too come to our attention that the funds are no longer available might need a new funding source.
Yeah. So that it's part of their planning, your planning, Doug, and the rest of your board going forward because I I think without the technical assistance, how how do you function as a board? You know, this is a real technical business. I want to throw a small factual item in
here if I can. So initially, this project said we thought we were going to have these many homes and this amount of water flux at a certain concentration coming by us. and the amount of uh oil injected was based upon
that. The reality is that we're we saw a lot less flow, right, than we saw. So, um at at the end of the day, that all has to be factored in. It's not like this thing we thought was going to be be expired in two years is
now magically going multiple years longer. The amount of nitrogen coming by has been a lot lower than we thought. And that at the end of the day, we need to determine how much nitrogen came by and how much got reduced. So, I just want to caution everybody that it's not
like, oh, look, the oil lasts twice as long as as we anticipated. It's just we're getting a lot less demand for the carbon than we anticipated. Okay.
Okay. That's that's a counter to what Ken is saying. In other words, no, it's not. Well, in a way he's saying there's Well, in fact, I was going to ask you. You said to find out why it's lasting longer. It sounds like he already knows the answer to that. If you think he doesn't know or if you don't know, me or Matt,
anybody, then then the question is what do you do to find to answer your why question. That was the question I was just measuring more and more times the same thing doesn't strike me as a way to answer that question.
So, may may I Mr. Chairman, you may. Yeah. So, I think you there are two issues. One is how how long will it last, but the other and I was going to ask Kristen about this. Are there any
uh drilling logs or anything for the type of sediment and the difference between because the one-year dose lasted one year, right? Or two years. How long? So the one-year dose, we never saw a signal downstream. And there's a couple
of thoughts as to why. So when they injected the one-year side, that side had a lot more back pressure, so more clay in the soil. So one thought is that it didn't get as large of a radius, so
there were holes in the line. So where the well the downstream well is may very well be downstream of a hole in the line. Um so from what we saw we never saw so that was one thought. The other thought
was it was such a low amount of carbon it never actually kicked into process. So but we had no way to tell from the data and the wells available what the real answer for that was. Right. So so I guess Yeah. Yeah. So
there's sort of two levels to approach this question and you raised a good point which is should we be doing something even more significant like getting some sediment samples at depth to determine what's different about these? You're talking about getting
permeability because here's permeability, you know, organic matter content, sediment grain size, stuff like that. Yeah. or or use the money wherever it might have come from to do. I in other
words, it seems to me the problem with this one site was that enough measurements and analysis wasn't done ahead of time. In other words, it was not predicted correctly. I'm going to right I'm going to jump forward. So the the Snug Harbor project
is marching forward. So the sort of questions about getting better stuff from drilling things and getting a better understanding of soils and all we we I I would focus on Harvard. In the meantime, I am willing to entertain a motion to create a letter to the select
board explaining the benefits of finding a funding source to continue to monitor what we've got out in Shorewood Drive as well as um was the second part as well as the uh ongoing funding source for keeping scienceware engaged.
You mentioned the other PRB site that's coming up. That's snug harbor. That's snug harbor. So to the initially but not maintain right. Uh well I think there's a year we we we put
in roughly a year or so of monitoring but not beyond that. And uh you know it's a I mean I think you hit upon a important idea which is a more generalized funding source to look at
how these various strategies that we're employing are how effective are they uh in general. Uh because if you've got several hundred million dollars of infrastructure out there, it might make sense to spend 1%
of that to see how well it works and what we might need to do to improve it. I'm looking for a motion. I so move what you said. Second request that some funding to continue this and here's why. and also to identify the funding source
to continue the consultancy to the water quality management committee so that we can carry on as an effective committee. I consider asking to create a fund that's in place like the housing fund. So when the developer wants to do
housing, we're ready to go. We have fund other ideas coming. Let's stick with the first part of it and then when it comes before the select board, maybe we'll make the pitch for um some some ongoing funding or whatever. So, I've got a motion. I think I have a
second. Second. Any conversation relative? I said uh you said to sample twice a year, we need I'd say 7,000. 7,000. And then for your annual
contract, you're going to say 78,000 a year is what the existing contract is. So we'll put those numbers in. No inflation hasn't been inflated for many years. Wouldn't you like to be? I mean, it would be great, but
include the other project in future using the other project. So just leave that. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's a point that doesn't future projects if you want to consider something Christian is a great letter writer. So she'll work up a nice thing that says this helps us.
Would you c can I ask a question relevant to the other project? No, because we're going to vote on this and then we can we we can talk about the other project on the reports of members and staff about where that project is. How's that? You're the boss. Just maybe. Okay.
All those in favor of of of the U motion is made and seconded signify by saying I. I. Thank you. Can I just make one suggestion? Could you consider approaching the company saying it's unlikely we're getting funding? This thing is looks like it's
doing really well. You could we'll allow you to do it for free and use it in your advertising. Sure. Well, the company isn't doing the monitoring, right? The the monitoring is being done by Exactly. Tell the company it's going to stop. But
they did it. They can take credit. We'll let them do it and they'll show how they their job went far longer than they didn't they already do some in kind. Okay, we're moving on. We're moving on to item three. Um this is uh the annual election of water quality management committee chair
and vice chair. Um I figure this is a lengthy discussion and vote. I will cut it off at six o'clock. Um, a year ago, I I I clearly stated that I thought over time I should not be chairman for life um and that others
should accept this position. I entered into a fouian bargain with a Tom Duncan in which I requested him to prepare the annual committee report uh and he said I will only do it if you agree to be nominated for chair again.
I nominate Steve Rafferty as chair. second. And and I I I probably should have negotiated harder. It just shows I'm not a good negotiator. Um I will recluse myself and hand the gavl to you for this vote.
Uh all in favor? I I say all opposed. Congratulations. All opposed. Opposed. Congratulations. Let me say, Steve, I I think you've done a phenomenal job. I really do. Thank you.
I I try to keep it humorous. Not always not always successful, but occasionally. Um there's a second vote. Um uh before I nominate anybody, are you still willing to be vice chair? Sure. Okay. Does anybody think that Steve
should not be vice chair and have an alternate? Uh you want me to recuse myself? You should. Yeah. I think he's done a great job. whenever you've missed a meeting and keep moving it on target. Heartily endorse that.
Um, all those in favor of uh Steve Leighton as the vice chair signify by saying I. I. All those that are going to say no or abstain. Abstain. There you go. Tag, you're in. Um,
since we're on this subject, uh, about chair and vice chair, we did submit, um, you know, pretty much you guys saw the the annual summary for FY22. Some small changes were made, but I want
to I want to offer um uh an attab boy. Uh, I I used to run different teams and then we gave out adaba for people that did things that were really good. So, um, I'd like to, uh, offer an attaboid to Steve
Leightton. He made 23 of 23 meetings last year. And Ed, uh, you made 23 of 23 meetings last year as well. So, uh, kudos to both of you for being here and participating. Um,
close behind was, uh, Tom Duncan at 22, John Waterbury at 21. Um, I fell off the map a little bit. I'm at 20. Um, and Ken and John, you guys made 19. So, uh, everybody was here.
They did a good job. Um, I am I am I'm honored to be your chairman because you guys come here, know what you are doing, you've done your research. um not 100% uh free of a bad idea now and
then, but we're probably at the 95% uh of of good ideas. Um and so uh it's it's my it's my pleasure to um listen to everything you've got to say. All right, we're going to move on to item four, reports of members and
staff. I've been alerted to the fact that Steve Leighton has about a 30 or 40 minute presentation on things that are on his mind. Um questions of of of of the meaning of life and uh um and where
we're going to go from here uh with the committee. Um Steve, you're up. Thank you. Um this is prompted by my attendance at the board of health hearing and I just thought of you may have seen all these
numbers before, but I thought of a way of putting them on a graph that I think people should think about. And I have one question at the end that I'd like your opinion on. This big square represents the 23,000 or
so parcels in Falmouth. And you could sort of think of it like a map, but it's there's no north, south, east, west tour. It's not that kind of map. The the bottom black bar, the darkest
black bar is the existing sewers about 2100. The next thin medium gray bar is sewers in progress about 600. And then above that proposed sewers 4600
45 4580. I'm rounding it off. Oh, okay. Okay. If you want the nitty-gritty here. Well, you're very particular sometimes. So, I was I'm surprised you're not being particular. But but my point is is to get a feel for
this and not to be nerdy scientists looking at the third decimal place. Um the the middle widest bar and this is this and the proposed sewers are both subject to change. Kristen by
the way made up this gorgeous graph for me which is eight times which is I mean it's amazing how she does this stuff and was a long afternoon and you know the this thing about do you want to talk to the man in charge or the
woman that knows what's going on? is absolutely the woman that knows what's going on. Um, they're subject to change, but they're not going to change by doubling or cutting in half or something. So, the IIA is achieved that TMDL is 7600.
Then there's a little group of lucky people that don't have to worry about this at all. They're not even in they're in not in nitrogen sensitive areas. They're about 1900. Uh, no, excuse me. So, I said that wrong.
Up at the very top are people who are lucky because they're in non nitrogen sensitive parcels, which is about 5,000 of them. And then below it, that one is they're lucky because
they're in a nitrogen sensitive area, but we don't need all the nitrogen sensitive areas to meet the TMDLs. And I just, you know, that none of these are totally insignificant.
They're all sort of about the same. Now, Kristen tells me that we're the correct me if I'm wrong, that these watershed plans are going to have to be, you hear a lot about when they
have to be submitted. They have to be accomplished in the order of 25 years, right? You get 20 years. And you can ask for extensions if there's financial and other reasons, but yes, 20 years, right? It's not 80 years. It's not 50
years. It's 20 years. 20 years. Yeah. 20 years. Right. And to install all those sewers and all of those IAS ex with the possibility of
extensions. Now that's a whole subject in itself how you do that. But the board of health has come along and proposed requiring IAS under certain conditions of renovation of houses above a certain amount with a
thinking that this is new production of affluent because more bedrooms or an entirely new house and that the people have money coming out of their ears if they're paying to have all this done. So that the cost of the IIA will be negligible to them.
They've checked with the um building department and found that there are about a hundred permits a year uh for projects of this size. The reason I um did the dotted lines is
I'm not sure whether they corrected for permits within the IIA areas or whether that was for the whole town in which case you would have to make another correction because there'd be no point in requiring someone to put one in in a
non- nitrogen sensitive area. Also, you obviously wouldn't make someone put it in if there was an existing sewer there. And they were nice enough also to say sewers that have been voted by town meeting.
But the the sticky issue in my mind, they don't agree with me, um is proposed sewers. They're saying, "Hey, some of those sewers aren't going to be put in for 20 years. What about all that nitrogen that's going into the
groundwater in the meantime?" And um you can accept that if you wish. Or the other way to look at it is if if that was so important, why aren't we going to make the people that are
going to have sewers in 20 years put in IAS first? I I think that's ludicrous. I can't imagine the town voting to make a certain subset of the town only put in an IIA that would only be useful for
them to for 20 years pay for most of it themselves and then have to pay for a sewer. So I don't think it should be any different in the case of the board of health. But uh as I said the the other issue is how do we accomplish all this
in 20 years? It's I think it's great that the board of health is doing this as a pilot project um to begin to really start kicking the industry creating an industry. There were speakers at the board of health
hearing about the fact that is this a monopoly because the only people company they hear from strongly is um the Nitro Eclean too. Clean too. And one lady in the audience brought up a
contract and something about the uh investors in clean two are um but I I don't know this is not firsthand for me. I probably shouldn't say it but they're they're concerned about prices in a monopoly environment and I
sympathize with them. So it's a good thing that the board of health is starting this as soon as possible. But my point in putting it on the graph like this is the left hand bar is
how many they will install in 10 years with their current algorithm and the other bar is the next 10 years. So that little blue area over on the left is how many how much of that whole area is going to be satisfied by the board of
health requirement. And that's all I wanted to say. I just interested in everybody else's opinion about any aspect of that. So, um I I'm going to suggest this since it since this is not actually on the
agenda as a discussion item. Okay. Um you're bringing this up under reports of members and staff. Oh, okay. Yeah. But I would welcome that we put this on to a next meeting for a more thorough discussion, Steve. Um, I just think it's
fair to people out there that may have an interest in how this all works. Very good idea. And and everything. Um, not to get ahead of ourselves. Okay. Uh the only comment I'm going to make is that what you show in your gray bars there is in fact the
contingency plan that we've discussed over the last year should there not be any other things like aquaculture storm water management fertilizer or we get an outfall and we can put more sewers in and reduce the
number of IAS. So, absolutely. Um, I just I just wanted to to anybody that's listening or watching at this thing and looking at this chart, it's a good way of looking at our contingency plan from last year and what the board of health's recent action may
or may not have uh relative to the contingency plan. Okay. Right. Let me can I just say two or three short other things? One is two How do I condense this four? Um, but not three. I I totally agree in postponing it, but
to help people think about it, if somebody wants to make another version of this for the non-contingency plan, that's great. Or put error bars on this, that's great. But they they won't be it's not going to wipe out one of the bars. No. Or double.
It doesn't change essence. And it doesn't change it's it's a qualitative argument. It doesn't change the essence of it. And the other point is that this one year it it there's a direct connection to what Amy was talking about is the
huge value of this preliminary plan being done within a year and coordinating that with the board of health. So be it. Two things. Yeah. So be it. You're good. They're good. Okay. Are there other reports from
anybody? Uh, just one update. Uh, Kristen and I and Eric Karpless did drop the uh sands into Oh, good. into um perch pond. So, it is recording data
as we as we speak. Look forward look forward to seeing that data. Ed, uh, couple of quick points just for those who aren't aware. The board of health held their second hearing uh public hearing on the IIA mandate that
Mr. Leighton mentioned on Monday night. Uh they've after a number of comments uh both in mostly in favor but some against they've closed that hearing and later this month somewhere in the middle of
the month we'll vote at a regularly scheduled meeting on that uh new regulation and are looking at a targeted implementation date in the middle of November November 15th.
So um the other thing was uh there was a remote site visit by uh MEPA uh Zoom conference 22 people were on on the 22nd of uh September
relative to the outfall ENF that was submitted and um Amy gave about a 30 minute presentation on that um And there were some questions that, you know, were somewhat disconcerting because it shows we have an outreach
problem that people who you would expect to know more about this project to be aware of it and the details and the implications were not. They were asking kind of basic questions about you going to be dynamiting, what is the pipe, are you
going to wreck the what's going to wash up on the beaches? You're going to disturb the boulders holding up the bluff. uh no dynamites, not disturbing the boulders, not on the beach. Very wonderful, concise answers. People asked, you know, basic stuff too, like why not out in Buzzard's Bay? And you
know, we all know that answer. A lot of people do, but unfortunately, I think the majority of the people in the town and and particularly like in the Heights don't know. So how and when we can more readily reach out to more people. Um
people wanted to know uh you know is is as a result of this would all the heights get sewing? No. But you know that would that was a good question because I think that that needed to be recognized. Uh so I think it's important as a as a group we kind of put our brainstorming hats on and try to figure
out how can we reach more people townwide about this project. why we're doing it, what it really means, uh, and the timing. I'm hereby appointing you to write a column once a month for the enterprise and the value of the outfall. I I don't think that's the the vehicle
that's going to do it because Katie does a great job pretty much every time we meet putting the stuff out there. I don't think enough people reach the enterprise. So, put become creative and and I'd be happy to collate. Um, people want to send me ideas of outreach
methodologies. Great. Because I've been kind of scratching my head for the past week about how can we reach more people and get that message there over the next year. So, do a sewer dance on TikTok. Hey. Wow. Well, you know,
you just beat me. Yout falls clean. Well, you know, I'm I'm not asking for answers now, but put your thinking caps on. I agree. I agree. We have to keep putting the message out there in any way we can find to put on. What's what's a what's a more effective vehicle than those that we've had? You
know, going to meetings, um Amy's covered stuff on the outfall at precinct meetings, at town meetings, at association meetings, um various other groups. How about a table in front of Shaws on Saturday morning? Um, I don't think that's going to work. But
covered with brownies. What about the precinct meetings? In previous times, you've assigned us to different precincts. Yep. We got when they get the precinct meeting schedule, you'll get assigned. Brownies and lemonade. Come. Ken, what do you want to say? I was going to ask if you were planning
on making a general report at town meeting when they call for those because I think that's an opportunity to make some of these. I was going to have the vice chair make the No. Yeah, we we we I got to I got to coordinate a little bit with Amy about messaging and what we're going to say at
town meeting, whether it's, you know, something at the beginning under committee's presentation. I don't want to overlap too much with what Amy's going to present relative to articles, but yes. Right. So, there's specific thing on the article, but a more general on where are we going?
We will, what have we done so far, how effective is we will, and at the next meeting that we have, um, I'll probably come in with a draft of whatever I'm going to put out there and you know, get some feedback from this committee. Okay. Um I think we get is it five minutes or three minutes? We don't get it's pretty
constrained. Is it five? Yeah. There's always a a time limit, but Right. So, that's a way to get more. Yep. Yep. No, we do that every year. Any other committee uh reports? Jonathan. So, I had um a lunchtime meeting with a
gentleman named Bruce Walton, and he is uh a member of the New England Water Environment Association, NUIA for short, and he's doing some really interesting things in terms of calculating the economics of going to sewers versus EAS.
He's done very detailed cost estimates based on town of Barnesville numbers. and I I think it's a person we want to talk to, but he has a model he's developed that's in the latter stages of beta testing now and it's a septic sewer financial planning tool where he can
look at different scenarios to meet the TMDLs and kind of come out what makes the most economic sense. We've talked about these sort of things in the past, but he has a tool that allows you to go through different scenarios and and figure out how can I get to my nitrogen
um removal numbers, but do it in the most economic fashion possible. So rather than just saying we've got this number of sewers and this number of EAS, what makes economic sense? Sure. You know, so he'd be willing, I think, to give a talk to the group at some point in the future. And he's starting to work on
urine diversion to put that cost estimate in. And so he's looking to get numbers for the installation cost for whatever one or two toilets, what the hauling cost of the urine is. So you can do a similar type of analysis based on the amount of kilograms removed. And we
can start comparing apples to apples. And the last thing I'd say is what's interesting is the number he used for sewering for kilograms removed per household was 10.34, which is pretty close to the 11 kilograms that I talked about last. So yeah, with the concurrence of the rest
of the board, I would suggest you keep the conversation going with them. Um, I think it would be appropriate after we go to town meeting and get funding for the sort of townwide watershed plan, maybe to bring them in here as a here's, you know, an outside viewpoint, yada
yada yada, and um, and integrate that back into what we're going to do for a watershed plan. You know, more tools the better. More tools better. I would agree with that. I talked with him probably for over an hour last year about this whole project and where we
are and you know he he's been telling me they they have a newsletter that comes out I think every every six months updated on and there's a lot of fascinating data and research available on that website. Uh I don't know if anybody is going to the rich earth
institute symposium. He's one of the roundt participants to the Wednesday session. That's a good segue. So, we're all aware that we are not having a meeting in two weeks. We're having a meeting in four weeks from today. Okay. Um, we're
deferring to the Rich Earth Institute and the urine diversion uh pow. So, the date of the next meeting is 29th. 29th. You should have got something in your email cancelling the mid meeting month. We don't we don't
have a a lot of burning issues in front of us. We've got to get through a couple things, town meeting, and then see where we're going going from there. Okay. Can I ask a quick question of John about that last thing? Absolutely. I mean, you can tell this guy this is
the devil's advocate preview. Satan. Um, how does he do the cost of the sewer without a civil engineering study? He's basing it, I think, on others towns results and using a range of numbers. I can provide his write up to the
committee through Kristen. I guess he he gave me a couple of papers that he's put together. That's that's a great question to him when he's actually here. Yeah. You know, I mean, makes a lot of difference if it's sand or rock. Yeah. I I don't know if he went into
that level of like the lithology of the ground that's being, you know, cleared for the pipe. And I'm guessing I'm guessing if he's looking at IAS, he's looking at Cape Cod. And um although there is a little bit of boulders on Cape Cod, um unlike
places like um Pittsfield where you have to blast your way through the rocks to put a sewer in, there's not a lot of rock on Cape Cod. Boulders, boulders, boulders. Okay, one other thing. Go ahead.
Okay, in that case, um I am going to take Oh. I I I I I I came back. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. It was a little uh memory lapse there. Uh again, for information uh wastewater forformational purposes where a week or
so ago submitted their grandmaster watershed plan to the D. So, it was published in the environmental monitor. It's about 192 pages. Uh skimming through some of that. It it's pretty interesting because they're they have an outfall which I did not know in the Weham River. that's too small and
polluting a distressed body anyway. So they're part of their plan is a larger outfall hopefully and IAS and everything else. So it makes a good reference document just to see what is another community nearby submitting to D for
their grandmaster plan I'll call it. So okay, good to know. Have fun. Thank you for being a a diligent reviewer of the environmental monitor. No, it's good. I'm thank I'm clubing you because you I wonder sometimes. No, no, no, no.
It is a great document to see what are other communities doing. It's a way to wait way way to stay on top of it. Thank you for doing that. All right. Um, does everybody have the minutes of the prior meeting? Put together by Kristen and elegantly uh
Oh, Tom Slack. Tweaked by Tom. He didn't touch them. I noticed he didn't touch them. It it kind of concerns me, you know, maybe doing that annual report just wore them out, but uh um I read it. We accept them as presented. Second.
Okay. All those in favor of accepting the minutes as written and presented, signify by saying I. I. I. Um I'm going to move on to uh the next item of which there can be no discussion. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second.
All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. [Music]