you yeah I just wanted to let you know that I good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the lunenberg select board um we're going to start by having a pledge of allegiance the flag is there please stand for the pledge of Alle I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all can you turn up your audio a little bit I don't think we have any room audio but I will project a little louder in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and will be after the after the after the meeting broadcast over the lunberg public access channel on Facebook Faceook on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the lunenberg access YouTube channel after the meeting the agenda list all the topic was may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the open meeting law so I'd like to start tonight's meeting by just advising of just a couple housekeeping things so we are today located in the Middle High School uh the lights turn off at 9:30 p.m. this evening and so no matter what we will be looking to adjourn by 9:15 p.m. uh as such I expect that we may or may not get to the investigation report this evening uh and so I will forward that out to the board members uh if not tonight in the morning and I'll will ask the town manager to post the draft um report onto the town website for discussion at next week meeting so let's go ahead and begin with uh public comments do we have any public comments from the public and the public comment speaker is in front of us there is a button on it and please press the button so that way it's green that's green do you want me to stand or or do you want me to sit whichever whatever is your pleasure we get your audio no matter either way how about my face or not this is not a camera all right I will sit um this I'm Perry juwel uh 20 Sunset Lane in lunenberg of course but I'm here tonight really repres we're not representing so much but at the request of the Board of Health from our meeting Monday night they asked me to come basically we had a surprise Monday afternoon uh when one of our key members uh was felt he had to resign and um it's it's well Justified and we certainly don't resent that but at the same time it's going to leave us in a kind of a precarious situation since we already have uh one member running for reelection and one member uh who is not going to stay and it represents on the ballot coming up here in two weeks an open spot now that open spot could be filled by right in which would be the quickest and easiest way uh for us to uh solve our problems of uh you know perhaps not having a quorum if one of the three remaining members can't be there but um so I thought what I would do is ask that if someone has an interest in the Board of Health and I was going to try to just mentioned a couple of things that we primarily do that they write their name in have their spouse write their name in have a couple friends write their name in uh this is a a quick way uh to deal with the situation in addition to that if we we have more than one person that does that then we have other options for working with the select board to make an appointment uh to fill the other position that we expect will be open now too now normally this would have all been dealt with with another spot on the ballot but it's happening so close to the election that isn't possible um in this particular uh case I guess first of all we meet on Monday nights every other Monday and only about half of the time because of holidays and and things of that nature so about half the time we have two meetings a month and the other half we have one meeting a month based on holidays and business of course occasionally there won't be anything we need to meet on we work primarily on septic systems and Wells at our meeting and basically helping residents to meet the state and local requirements for those in their homes and planned homes uh we have great technical support in that area and in the other areas of the board of Health's activities through the nooba associated Boards of Health which serve 16 towns in total you know going really all around us uh down to Lancaster and Bolton and Berlin and and on up to Littleton and gron and dunable and CER across to Ashby and asham so and Jim graffet graffiti gy Jim gy whom uh many of you know and have seen here often supports us very strongly and he heads up all of nooba and uh you know we have also another uh agent who's assigned to both ourselves and to Shirley in this these environmental areas such as the septic and well issues and we also have bridg who handles all of our food inspections for all the restaurants and uh supermarkets and uh things of that nature kitchens commercial kitchens and food trucks Etc and then we also have the n you know Public Health nurses who are involved in the various clinics and school activities and so on um so I guess basically what we're concerned about is that we want to make sure that the Board of Health is able to have a quorum to do the work that needs to be done and that we don't you know cause other people distress and uh delay and things like that by not being able to approve their plans so I'm asking really if this sounds like something you're interested in or you'd like to to explore it some more give her office a call uh our Administrative Assistant there Andrea you going to call her next week say Monday Tuesday Wednesday type thing and discuss it with her if you want but or just write your name in and have your friends write your name in and let's get at least one more and then we'll uh be happy too to entertain more than that if there's more than one on that we'll deal with it through the normal processes in any event thank you for your time and uh all your service and we're hoping that we can find a couple more people to uh help in that regard thank you thank you do we have any other public comments from the public this evening green light still on correct I can't I know you're just saying that's what it's supposed to do right okay um I'd like to begin uh my name is John Bowen 162 Highland Street uh I'd like to begin by thanking every board uh committee commission uh all with the hard work that was put into Saturday's town meeting as well as you uh Miss Lemieux Town manager my comments tonight is proportional to the two holds that I made a town meeting first I held article 20 for clarification it was for a purpose to show the dire need for money our cemeteries need and how we cannot afford adequate care with the present Direction and it will cost more over time and we will never achieve the desired or adequate result Mr Lonzo your statements were profound we need more money we cannot afford it you made that very clear a seary corporation form pursuing to IRS 501 C13 is just that solution the second solution is to transferred to the Conservation Commission for even more access to Grants and donations I intentionally misspoke chapter 114 section 23 and section 25 during the communication of that to rebuff the cemetery commissioner statements about dis and misinformation that was directed at me the attorney Mr Costa clarified reimbursement to the town is in chapter 114 section 15 and if you watch the commission meeting in March you will see I mentioned chapter 15 as that chapter I did that to draw a route that I do know what I am talking about that I am not producing Mis or disinformation and it was thereby confirmed on another note my hold on the DPW budget line item was for a purpose to highlight what the money is used for for the cemeteries and will only increase year after year on the back of the taxpayer for Corrections the only misstatements or disinformation is from your Cemetery commissioner Nancy fost yasco with her rubbish stamp David Doran to correct the commissioner the money in article 20 is from the sale of a lots fund which has 87,4 4561 this is not the fund uh they only have access this is not the fund that they have access to only interest the access that they only have interest to is the fund which is called the Perpetual care fund the quest fund which has 235,000 to in it which they can only borrow that interest why is it that the cemetery commission with that kind of money $887,000 only ask for $10,000 Mr Alonzo if we have more money to do more care for the cemeteries because they don't know what they're doing uh as for Miss F yasco if she could just control control herself not scream and attack me personally which this is the same behavior I brought before this board about her behavior on November 30th 2023 when she called the police on myself and my wife I made that was my first ever meeting only to make one comment and highlight a few issues with the commission hoping that they would step up and address them did anyone see me call the police on somebody yelling at me in a meeting well I can tell you this I don't need to yell in a meeting because I have answers because I have Vision this this is the same behavior that she did she does towards a DPW director and his staff watch the meetings this is our commission at hand and it is a disgrace it is UNC and the commission has absolutely no vision I have a vision I've Express that Vision my campaign also has a vision but I'm not here as campaigning I'm here as a member of the Town a member and citizen of the Town Alum but on my campaign website Facebook page outlines that Vision which is my vision that I have been propagating for months I would like to get on the select board agenda next week to outline my vision and I would like your permission to outline that Vision because I have that vision and I can make a presentation to that where the cemetery commission will not accept my request to be on their agenda there are millions of dollars waiting for us to act the cost to start up a cemeter corporation is $3,200 but no more than $3,800 to organize it as a 501 C13 then it's writing for for funds and grants in fundraising we could look like Newton Cemetery we could look like Forest Hill Cemetery in Boston woodlon Cemetery in Everett they have millions of dollars for Perpetual care what are we doing wrong I can tell you it's business as usual it's more of the same and ask yourself how has that worked how has that worked for this town the commission asking and continuing to ask for hundreds of thousands of dollars through Capital plan money through uh through taxation money uh is not the answer I am the answer and I want to present it to you next week and I'd like to thank you very much for your time thank you Mr B do we have any other public comments this evening from the public hearing none we're going to go to the board any board comments this evening Sor from thanking everybody for coming from town meeting I don't want to waste any time that's enough you're welcome all right and Communications from other boards I hi I'm H Sarah camer I should be a green light okay Sarah camer I'm in the board on the board of assessors I just wanted to give you an update from our meeting on Monday um we worked on our calendar and we just wanted to thank uh our town manager for that list of different dates that she had previously compiled we're going to use that as a base for the things that we're going to add um we also want you to know that we have 28 abatements so far um a deadline for abatements is May 16th so today's May 8th that's eight days from now so if you're looking for an abatement please submit that by then our assessors have conducted six inspections so far and we'll continue to schedule those when our principal assessor and our contracted assessor are both in the office so that's moving along um and currently we are working on addressing as feedback goals for future years um which entails examining our neighborhood um assignments and our site index assignments um and to that end we're making a subcommittee uh to look at our neighborhoods and site indexes and what we intend to do with that subcommittee is to make sure everybody on that committee is acquainted with DLS guidelines review other towns um methods of assigning neighborhood hood and site um site indexes draft a list and determine um if the assessments pass in the past four years support the neighborhoods that we have and the site indexes that we intend to assign and then after that we will send those recommendations that we make from uh reviewing those neighborhoods and site indexes assign recommendations to neighborhoods and then send that to the boa the lead Assessor potentially a vendor and also our DLS representative to review and decide if they would like to accept them or not um the composition and that's why I'm here um we've determined should be a board member uh two members at large an outside assessor and an active realer so far um people have heard our meeting um we do have potentially two members at large but if people are still interested they should email me I'll give my email in a second um we have a consultant who will act as an outside assessor um and we're looking for an active realtor who has some familiarity with towns like ours or our specific Town um our plan is to complete this in about 8 weeks um and no later than the end of the summer um so those who are interested should know that it will be a fairly aggressive schedule and it has a begin date and an end date and not um a lack of like I'm I'm at a loss for words a lack of definition for time served all right and my email um is pretty easy I'm Sarah Cammer or scammer at Lun all right any other Communications from other boards uh we did receive a communication related to the resignation of uh Camille and I expect that that will be addressed when we bring that up uh at that time so we're going to go to our I'm sorry for not pressing the button we do have a another communication from the uh sewer Sewer District sewer Commissioners related to the resignation of Camille Farrar but I expect that to be addressed um when we get to that part of the agenda so now we're going to go to our appointments we have a 710 uh presentation from the water district on past treatment options and financial projections so I'm not sure if fram's making the presentation fors okay so I will call who the water Commissioners and while the water Commissioners are coming forward uh I will identify that we do have a request from the water Commissioners this evening to make a uh recommendation of endorsement one way or the other uh I'm not sure if we will make that recommendation uh or if we will take that Vote or if we do take the vote you know how that will go but we will discuss that later in the agenda however I encourage the board during these presentations to be inquisitive as possible uh both during this one and the next uh given the nature of the request in front of us this evening I see a citizen with their hand up Sir um I would like to make a request that uh whatever is being said here whether it be someone presenting to the board or the board speaking that we do a better job of making it audible to those of us out here okay now I think I'm probably I don't want to be presumptuous but I'm probably fairly typical of the age category and the associated age related ear loss that goes with that even with hearing aids you know we're we're here because we want to be part of what's happening and we want to know what's happening we need to be able to hear it otherwise it's just it's ineffectual so the comment to repeat it what you can do about it tonight but I think in terms of future uh Endeavors alone that that some attention be given to that goes beyond saying well I'll speak up so the comment tonight was about the AO um the hearing in the room that it is that there's no uh vocal projection beyond our voices and that the recording is you know going to the uh going to pack but that it's not as audible in the room as as as residents would prefer for it to be uh and the note was that even with uh noted hearing aids um that it is very difficult to hear in the current room that we're in and that effort should be made in the future for it to be more um audible did I capture that correctly sir yes you thank you and we're going to turn to the water district uh I see uh another Resident yes just one more comment about the setup if the Commissioners for the water district are speaking to you we definitely won't be able to hear that can they can they when we when we speak and give our presentation we will try to give a loud boisterous present appreciate that but your with your backs to us that may be difficult table should be turn the table so I I would encourage in light of that in light of that comment that that is asking for the Commissioners to face the audience I will encourage that we can hear right behind you I would encourage the Commissioners to face the audience Mr chair yes as as an option they could line up this way you know vert perp I we're a semicircle but semi- perpendicular to us and then I would also ask if anybody who is having problem hearing you could sit bring your chair right here in front and then that will actually help us Mo the mic or orthogonal to the midpoint of the curve to the hopefully there we put this out a little bit that well to pass the mic ACR that was I line straight yeah just a line going straight out two in a row put this table next where where Matt is put that table in front of the chair our chair and or do it that way like that yes there you go and want one side problem is they CA they're going to get our backs okay so you want us on that side of the yeah sit on that side talking to them yes okay don't put it too much no matter what they do it's okay the picture looks okay from that camera I mean and by the way they get audio I mean this is this is not a song and dance presentation all you need to do is on the zoom or is this mic just for you it's just for me okay so we still need to pass the zoom mic thank you Mr chair thank you Mr I I that all right so we're going to turn over to the water district for the presentation thank you Mr chair uh my name is Mark bur I'm the uh chairman of the board of water Commissioners I'm joined by Matt Woodward another commissioner uh L Rocco from time Bond and Fran MCM the water superintendent um we have called this as a regular meeting for us uh previous so uh we will have regarding this uh we will start off with a a presentation um that's going to be done by um a multiple of us and then we will uh open up to uh comments and questions uh at the end okay again my name is l sraco with tyan Bond um helping the water district take a look at Pest and we're here tonight to present um some information and basically a summary of the the master plan that goes along with that work and there's a some slides up there that a copy of what I'm looking at in front of me so what is p um we've had a couple meetings about this it's probably probably going explain quite a bit but it's a family of chemicals thousands long uh there's Now new regulations out uh that govern um what the water District needs to do to comply um with these regulations um the new regulations set goals of zero for a couple of these compounds um but the maximum containment level so the maximum they're allowed to um discharge into the distribution system uh is also set those are what the key levels that we want to focus in on are the posos and the P foa the top two that's a four parts per trillion so that's really it's driving a lot of what the district needs to do uh the reason why these are now being regulated is uh they're they're known carcinogens um they they cause a variety of health problems um they bio accumulate and that is the reason why these levels are so low so uh it's not a onetime exposure it's the accumulative exposure they they're called Forever chemicals they don't really break down uh they just accumulate and and during this uh I I would like for you to I I understand that there's a lot of Industry language but we got to kind of break some of it down to the to to to uh be approachable to everyone so if you can just explain some of that terminology of what you know bio accumulation uh is and uh and what exactly parts per trillion are you use the word Carin carcinogen if you can just explain that yeah um so by accumulate um it's just a term where uh as you ingest it um it doesn't really leave the body it stays in the body and accumulates within the body so this happens to all mammals fish so the fish uptake it and you eat the fish you know it comes down the frood chain um parts per trillion uh so it's a unit of measurement to represent the concentration within the water uh it's a it's it's very low levels uh I guess one analogy I've heard is it's a uh one parpet trillion is like an ey drop of water in 20 Olympic siiz swimming pools to put it in perspective um carcinogen carcinogen sorry um a known substance that leads to cancer um the um and there's a multiple uh um types of cancer that that this can impact but yeah if there's any other terminology as I'm going through this I'm sorry it's it's so common to me I'm I'm sorry if I I sound like I'm glossing over it I I certainly don't want to do that um so yeah if there's something that this strikes out is is not explained uh by all means so that this slide is a summary of The District supplies so they have three main supplies Lancaster a Wells the Hickory well and the keing well and what we're displaying up here are the sampling results that we've uh amassed to date um for these three different sites as it relates to the Past concentrations um we look at Pas um on an individual um compound level as they're now being um regulated on an individual compound level what's highlighted in red is currently a above those new rules so that's why when I was pointing out the four parts per trli the p and pfoa now we can see that all three Wells do not satisfy that criteria uh there is a time frame to come into compliance with that it's roughly five years uh from the promulgation of the rule um currently the Hickory Hills well though is over the Massachusetts level and is one of the reasons why it is offline so it hasn't been used um it was it came offline around 2012 um because it had elevated manganes which is also um a contaminant that uh the state wants to uh control the amount that you put out into the system uh so for those reasons it was taken offline in 2012 since then um you know it's been sampled for past so that's that's just another another thing that goes along with that that site it needs to address before it comes back online but is currently over the Massachusetts limit which is set at 20 parts per trillion and that is a a cumulative amount for six separate compounds added together like I just have a question do you want to take questions through out or wait till the end I think the request was at wait till the end but I think that if there's terminology along the way or clarification that we identify would be helpful uh I would encourage the board to uh to ask so the district operates under a water management act permit through the state uh which um basically limits the amount of water they pull out of the ground uh they have to show the state uh the desired need for the water and then the state uh issues a permit granting them permission to withdraw that um from their sources um in addition to this um best practice for this uh for for any water system is to be able to satisfy your maximum day demands with the largest source offline so what this slide showing us is with all the different Wells that the district has permitted uh Hickory H Hickory heals well the second to last from the bottom with that offline and then with keing their largest well offline in that scenario they're left with the Lancaster AB Wells to satisfy all of the district's demands when you add in the um safe yield of all these Wells together uh it can satisfy demands but only for a short period of time the two Wells well one and well four after a couple days two days they need to be shut down uh as it will overdraw the well if it runs any longer than than a couple of days use so they're currently in a a position where they don't really have redundancy uh or backup uh in that event that their largest well goes offline right now why is that important there's a variety of reasons we want to maintain supply of water to the system um it's it's a it's a best practice as uh as cited by the state um the largest well itself needs to be taken offline even if something's not wrong it needs to go offline for regular maintenance uh these activities happen regularly and the district um plans around these uh and they they look to put the well offline in the middle of winter when the least amount of water is being used so um in the summer though it would be a lot harder to take that well offline for a prolonged period of time because Lancaster really wouldn't be able to keep up um during PE demands and then there's also the the potential for contamination um other prolonged mechanical failure that is unforeseen um you know there's a variety of things that can that can impact a well and cause it to go offline so just stressing the need for redundancy so uh in summary um heating is their large as well uh it can satisfy the the um the systems demands but uh it does need to come offline periodically and they do need an adequate backup for the system Lancaster just has a limited um capacity uh as we we showed in the previous slides so it really is necessary for the district to have have all three Wells back online for a for a more resilient system uh and and for going into the future Al my transition right if we can clarify so a couple things MGD uh it's come up as king well produces 1.44 MGD what is MGD so that's another short term for us it's a million gallons per day so it's a it's a unit of measurement for for how much it produces or withdrawals from the ground on a daily basis we tend to talk about that in millions of gallons if I can ask just a clarification John brush lunber is the limitation of these Wells because of the aquifer or just the number of Wells that are in that aquifer if you can just restate the question before answering it that' be helpful yeah so the question I believe is the limitation on the wells the aqua aquafer itself or uh the fact that maybe there's not enough well points within the aquifer um in the way they're packed in the way they're packed uh I can Fran do you want to answer that I can I can try okay uh for example Lancaster R uh there were there's numerous wells in that that area uh I always think of it as you got a glass of water how many straws you want to put in that in that glass uh if you put you know 10 10 straws you didn't you didn't get any more water you're just going to dewater all the other Wells so it's it's a and in most cases in particular Lancaster a you're limited on what you could actually do because it's only a small little Acer uh keying well uh that one that one was stopped at the the amount that it was is because of EPA Mass DP that that's what they restricted us at I think it could actually have pumped more but there's a it's called a cold water Fisheries in that area uh so that kind of limit us on us on our withdrawal I know uh Shirley water district put in a well uh not far from there they were very restricted on how much they could withdraw from that well even though it was capable pumping like times more than they they got a permit for but it was tied to that cold water fishery so it's it's it's tied to a lot of things not necessarily could you put in another wild pum of water and maybe you could but it only be for a short short period of time thank you thank and also just to kind of clarify on that notion it's also regulated by mass D they set the limits as what these Wells can be withdrawn uh as we're talking about some of these numbers uh of million gallons per day what we drawn uh over the years you know the water department was formed in 1939 uh we have records going back to 1950 as far as usage of lunenberg uh in 1950 for example we use 50 million gallons of water per year uh I went through just come some of the numbers 1983 that that doubled to 100 million gallons a year and today we're at about 200 million gallons per year so it seems to be the trend of every 30 40 years or so that you know we're at 100% increase in our water usage um just in looking at how the housing market uh growth Etc of the this community is we are also part of an MBTA Community which uh you can look into that uh in 40b housing I expect that lunenberg will be growing water usage will continue to grow and as we sit here and we we plan out uh the best way to approach this uh we're taking taking that math into into consideration of where we'll be not just today but in 10 20 30 years are we doubling once again our water usage as it's shown so clarification if I could please sure did I hear the gentleman that was previously speaking say that there were 200 million gallons of water I'm sorry that is ask the question per year that is the the use the lunberg uses roughly 200 million gallons of water per year thank you yes ma'am I thought what did you say about 40b housing uh 40b housing along with this we are an MBTA Community which just B basically means this could get really dive deep into it uh 40b housing allows a lot of local zoning losts to be bypassed in order to put in housing low-income housing uh there's a we are an NBTA Community also meaning that the NBTA rail while we don't have a stop in lunberg it goes by us and they're pushing for housing development in these areas so I want to speak a little bit more to the redundancy and and you could say well why don't we just hook up with Pittsburgh or lemonster um you know we're really close to those systems uh currently we we could in an emergent situation um but other than that redundancy through an intermunicipal agreement is is really not aain sustainable um we wouldn't be be able to do it long term we would be able to maybe do it over a short period of time with very small amounts you have to consider that when we get to the outside edge of our system the pipes get smaller and smaller and smaller so in order to if they could Supply us of water which lemonster has already said no Fitchburg maybe but I would say that you know they're there it would take some time to um for formulate that that agreement if it could be made but on top of that the piping that we have in our system is not large enough to take on the extra load to supply the demand days that we have meaning that a small pipe that we could get from Fitchburg will not pump the amount of water we would need to buy from Fitchburg in order to have redundance redundancy and have it sustainable so then we would have to to have a connection made with the community upsizing the piping to get it to an area where we could get the total amount needed from that other community so we're looking at pump stations transmission Mains uh plus additional cost of the water on top of it and anybody that has sewer or is involved in sewer understands that we can't control our cost of sewer because we send it to other communities they control what people pay for SE um and in looking at this and in talking with our with our engineer briefly about it this could be equivalent to the cost of a transmission main from Hickory Hills to Lancaster R which is part of our proposition any questions on that so picking back up on the slides here uh part of the master plan we did take a look at uh a couple of different options you know alternatives to treatment uh one of them was you know to continue without treatment at the time that we started the master plan the federal MCL had not been finalized now that it is it's really not an option all the wells need to be treated um purchasing water from adjacent Community I think you know Mark did a nice job talking about um some of those challenges that we did look at um and it's just not a feasible or desirable option for for the whole system um we also looked at what about developing a whole new source and um so we we we often times uh do look for for new sources however the process to develop a new source uh can take quite a long time that is uh at best case outside the time frame that is available um we need to be in compliance within the next five years developing a new source can take six 10 years plus um it requires a number of things first you got to find a location that actually has the water available uh but given the new regulations uh from from EPA with the low levels of P requirements uh it's unlikely you'll find one that doesn't also require treatment so um it's not a it's not a very desirable option as it's going to take a lot of time and it could be just as high a cost so it's going to U not be a very viable solution next slide so when we look at each of the individual sites what does it take to bring them into compliance so Lancaster Avenue uh it it does need past treatment now that there are new rules from a that set the uh the levels down at that four parts per trillion level um Lancaster app has a little bit of iron and manganese in the water um so typically what we want to do is remove that before we try to remove the P um past filters are um more expensive and removing the iron manganese helps prolong their life so it's a it's a necessary uh part of treat uh Hickory Hills well um currently above the mass MCL and above the new uh EPA MCL as well it also has iron and manganes so both um similar treatment remove the iron and manganes and then provide the past treatment we are um I think we just yeah actually did just wrap up pretty much the majority of the piloting that was going on down in Hickory Hills to prove out uh the the proposed technology alternatives for that Source um and then um backing up the Lancaster uh there's pilot testing currently going on there now what pilot testing is is a very small version of what the full scale system will will be so it's a small low flow using the same Technologies the proposed Technologies just to prove that what we are looking to use will actually work before invest any money in buying equipment to to treat the water it's a requirement by the state uh the state reviews our proposed U piloting programs they issue permits um um telling us to proceed with those programs after that they require you to submit a report with the results they review the results they approved the results through a permitting process and tell you to proceed on to design uh and then before you can build the plant you submit another report another permit where they review your design before you even go on to construction so the state is heavily involved through every step of the way on the process it's a highly regulating process um going down to King well uh King well is different than the other two sources it has different water quality needs in terms of pre-treatment it doesn't have an iron and manganese problem it has a very high amount of hardness in the water um and what you'll see sometimes is a is a kind of a white precipitate calcium buildup Downstream of of of the well so that's one of the main reasons why the district has to take it off every year during the winter is to M uh to clean and uh maintain uh the downstream deposits from that from that current process so moving forward the full scrail treatment would address the hardness issue and then also provide the P pass treatment as it's also over the the new rule so after we identified what type of treatment was needed for each site we took a look at well what's the best approach to provide treatment uh now at all the sites so we took a look at a couple different options uh we called it the decentralized option where basically every site gets its own treatment plan so that's probably the considered the the most resilient as you've got three different things that we need to fail um but it's probably high it's it's the highest um cost to to build three separate plants um and it's the highest Capital um to operate on so then we looked at well what if we did a centralized plant we treated everything at one plant so that does help you mitigate costs there is an extensive amount of raw water transmission man that have to be run since um all three Wells pretty much stand the entire town um so it's probably the least resilient as if something happens to that plant well then now you've lost all your water supplies um so that's not the the most resilient um option and although it might it will help you save some costs so then we looked at a combination of the two what if we combined um and centralized two of the three Wells and kept the other one uh decentralized so that option would also help you save costs when compared to the fully decentralized treatment at each site uh it's a lot easier to um it's less expensive to install a transmission meain and maintain a pipe than it is a full building and treatment system so that that appeared to be a a balancing of residency and cost so that was the the thought and moving to the next slide yeah so that that became the recommended alternative um and since the Lancaster and Hickory well uh yes the Lancaster and Hickory Wells had the similar water quality uh it made the most sense to combine and centralize those because they need the exact same treatment system uh if we tried to combine heating with any of the other one Wells um you'd almost have to keep them separated and treat them separately and then combine them afterwards so it didn't make a whole lot of sense excuse me I I have a question about the generalities of this and and that is is there any uh data that's been accumulated that uh speaks to the issue of the consistency of the level of contamination in other words we you you've got numbers here that were assembled I'm ass at one point in time uh uh is there any historical data that speaks to how consistent that may be and what are we going to have to deal with if we build it for this much contamination then next year it's three to that or you know yes um and Frank could probably elaborate on it but you can just repeat the question answer yes so the question was is there any consistency in the water quality data is are we are we working from a limited data set or um do we have multiple points and is there any understanding of how that might change over time as as as we move forward and plan these that yeah so so yes there there is a um multiple data points for for iron and manganes at all the sites um FR required to keep water quality um uh information uh DP requires that um at a regular basis uh the P information is relatively new um we haven't been tracking it for more than a couple of years so that's a bit more um more limited um but from what we've seen there is consistency between the multiple data points that we've gotten so far I don't know if you have any more to add to that can you just clarify how often the water is tested uh so we have a uh a DP sampling plan that require uh certain uh contaminants have tested quarterly some tested monthly uh in this particular case ion and mangines is tested quarterly uh the P fast sampling is done twice a year and uh it for the example like the Lancaster Lancaster AB Wells we don't test each well individually it's a blended sample of what is exiting that area into the water system so pretty much now it's just two past samples uh twice a year so how how does that affect your projections you know and your plans uh they've been pretty consistent the the the the past levels they high in and M they fluctuate a lot actually at this time of year with the water tables very high uh the these levels is uh much lower than than typical usually we're right near that that maximum L of3 A lot of times we're at like25 we usually pretty close but this time of year we're much lower uh the p uh yeah we've only been testing those for the last I think it was last four years and uh they've actually been pretty consistent and I mean I'm not very familiar the future what what that's going to bring but from what I hear it's in it's in the rain it's everywhere so if you don't have P pass you're eventually going to get so my assumption I would assume it's it's going to rise in time but I don't really know that uh and I will say that the um the treatment equipment that we are piloting um specifically for the iron and manganes process uh has a uh a high capacity for variability in those in those levels so um we're we're looking at a biolog process that um has worked quite well at the Hickory Well site um and the the good thing about those compared to Alternative Technologies is their ability to handle larger swings um without too much in the process change so that's one of the benefits of of some of the newer technology that we're looking at um so uh that's the uh ultimate recommendation was was for a centralized plant at Lancaster a that would treat both Lancaster and Hickory Hills well because they both are using the ex exact treatment system and then to maintain that resiliency uh the second plant would be Standalone plant over at the keing site so now we're looking at a scenario where if either one of those plants goes offline we still have a large amount of capacity because we've got two Wells over at the Lancaster asite being Hickory added on to it so if that treatment system were to go down we got backup but if ke were to go down then we've got Lancaster Plus Hickory as as a backup so it maintains a a good amount of redundancy and resiliency for the system so um it's a it's it's less expensive than individual plants more resilient than a single centralized treatment plants um it doesn't require any any land acquisition uh so be all completely within the district's own property right now there's there's a there's a uh large amount of property of both the Lancaster out site and the KE site sufficient for the treatment plants to be built there just to just to tack onto this a little bit too also another another uh math equation in that of why we chose to break it up that way along with the past treatments working well in those those uh environments the uh laner asab Wells and the Hickory Hills well produces roughly 1.7 million gallons per day uh the Kings well produces roughly 1 four so this is a pretty well balanced uh equation between all the the well sources we have in town if we do it this way we're we're balanced well between one or the other and then I know when we were looking at the fully decentralized option uh we were dealing with space constraints over at the Hickory Hills site um so those would go away now that the plant is down at Lancaster a uh we would actually not be need to go to the Hickory well very much at all in the future we would cease to be having to need to be uh doing chemical deliveries down the Hickory Hill site so those would no longer be all the chemical deliveries would now be would continue to be at Lancaster and service both Wells at that at that one location so really the plan would be for just to operate the Hickory Hills well run what we call Raw water that's just water pumped straight out of the ground we call that raw water without without any treatment just straight into a pipe over to the Lancaster app site a question excuse me something in the math ex what were the averages per day that the Lancaster the the Hickory Hills um and Lancaster R Wells combined together roughly 1.7 million gallons per day okay the Kings well roughly 1.4 million Gall so that's 31 perit that's 3.1 per day per day and I thought you just said we had 200 million per year correct so 3.1 * 300 days is nine okay this is a great point right absolutely so where are the numbers so those are permited capacities so you're um that's what the well can pump at safely per their permit however they're limited to what they can withdraw from the water management act permit so they're only allowed to pump .54 million gallons per day on average for the whole year just because we have the water doesn't mean we can use it no I I understand that it's just the differences the numbers and when we start to do the design and that is I'm sure you're going to explain and you don't want to operate your wells 247 you want to be able ble to turn them off you know we might run it at 1.4 MGD or you know 1,000 gallons per minute but we're not going to run that for 247 right you're going to want to you know maybe run it at a reduced rate and not not all day long then I guess I don't know why you use those numbers it's a good point maybe maybe I should because that is the maximum daily amount so you're correct sir we could I could give you some different numbers to show up more I guess average draw if you'd like okay thanks so this is a figure showing the Lancaster absite so those circles are the four The Zone ones around each well so that's a 400 foot radius a protective radius around each well um so that limits the activities that you can do um within those circles so we want to know where those are um because it's important for us to be able to site certain things for the treatment plant uh say like a you know a septic system for for the bathroom for the treatment we want that outside the Zone one for instance um there's certain things you just can't put in there um anything associated with the treatment aside from groundwater discharges can be put into Zone one um but everything else is pretty highly restricted and limited to what you can do in there um so we want to understand where those were and where the wet Lings were were delineated on each site and so that um gosh I don't know what color you want to call that um brownish color blob on the lower right hand side if you could get up there and point that this what you're talking about to make it easier to understand yeah that one that one right there that's the one kind looks like clay um kind of orangy that's the area that's outside Zone one outside Wetlands resources outside restrictive there's a pretty good area for us to work with in terms of um some of the other uh ancillary systems for the treatment plant like dewater and backwash water and so forth that we have available to us on on site to to make the treatment system more affordable and manageable for for operations next so I just want to offer as a comment here so we did have this presentation initially scheduled for 30 minutes and uh we're we're about 45 into it so I do want to so that way we have room for the next presentation we have I do want to encourage those in attendance to uh to limit the comments to clarification clarifying questions on the slides and generally Reserve questions for the end of the presentation got it so this is the figure for the raw water transmission main route it's just showing the shortest distance uh through town uh through existing roadways to get from the Hickory well down to the Lancaster AB well it's about a 3.8 mile transmission keing well uh similarly this is um a site we're looking at what's what's available to us over on this site uh there is a area outside the Zone one um and there's just a single well that has a single 4 foot radius that we're contending with over there so also also has adequate space in appears to to build the this system that we would need there these are the costs uh that we're projecting for the project uh a bunch of these are ongoing and previously funded um in terms of all the piloting and planning but the treatment plant for Lancaster and Hickory plus uh the king well plant as well are on there as as capital Improvement items and then I think we're on to your side okay I'm going to discuss the financial side of things uh just just to make a note uh today we received a letter from Mass uh original plans were uh that we were going to uh request for uh srf funding State revolving fund low interest loan funding to do a combined treatment plan for Hickory Hills and Lancaster AB uh all discussions prior to this was that that was our our requests we had put in a request for it so we actually got uh received approval today from Mass DP and they approved the addition of the Lancaster AB Wells uh to the funding so uh it just proves the DP approves and recognizes the need of this project and approved the 0% funding so this is a huge huge uh benefit to to this to this project can I clarify something select M um so I'm looking at the letter and it says that uh so Mass DP has reviewed it and it is eligible for srf program financing um it says based on review information the division recommends that the lunenberg water district resubmit the project evaluation form for this project during the 2025 State revolving fund project so they're get basically giving you yes as qualifies submit an application you don't have that funding approved right now that's how I read that I so this has come up on other projects um they recognize that sometimes there is a change in the program and given the strict requirements and the scheduling needed to comply with the funding they recommended uh that the district reapply so they can maintain their place on the funding list in the event that they're not able to comply with all the deadlines so uh we we did that for a number of projects last year uh where they showed up again and they funded on both iups um and then as you progress through the process of getting all your permits you can maintain your position on the initial iup if you can comply with that well you've got a backup plan that keeps you funded if you don't um you don't you're not able to comply with all of the scheduling requirements in addition because this is above $15 million there is a uh anything above $15 million is what's called a carryover project so no single project gets more than $15 million on one iup so what they want is to make sure that you maintain your carryover amount in addition apply as you know in in August which would so the carryover for this project would be on the next iup anyway so that's what they're saying yeah because it says apply uh resubmit project evaluation form during the 2025 State revolving fund project solicitation that will open around May 15th through July 26 2024 right so this project is only currently on the single iup project and it wasn't submitted as a carryover project so what they're saying is to make it officially a carryover project they want you to submit it again to to make sure that you get on that carryover list nowhere in this letter do I see it says you are approved for the additional 17.3 million just that it qualifies for the program that you can resubmit an application for I mean this is really because this is this is a lot of money this is a really important thing to nail down what is the what financing terms are confirmed right now so the sentence from the from the letter um the approach the proposed approach documented in your letter justifies the need for the project scope provisions and the additional funding U the proposed scope of work revisions and additional costs are eligible for priority State funding program financing so what they're saying is even though that we expanded the scope to a new well it also qualifies for the 0% financing eligible yeah this I mean this just dropped in our folder like I just saw when I got y you want to continue thank you yeah so you were presenting the financial impact the financial side so uh on on the as you can see on the screen the uh the original intent for the srf funding was just to go for the Hickory Hills Well site uh right from uh from the release of the master plan it was decided to do a a combined Hickory Hills Lancaster AB uh treatment facility so that's where the $13.79 comes out per quarter uh that number is just based on the total amount of money it would cost per year divided by the customers and it came up to $13.79 that that's based on uh 3.3% principal forgiveness uh that that we guaranteed that uh from what we get from other towns they get 20 to 25 cents what I'm not going I don't know what that real number is but so I won't put it on there and project to it but that 103 shows a 3.3% uh principle for get this uh also uh today I I just ran new rates just to give some kind of ideas for the what it would affect for the water rates uh just based on the the the Lancaster Hickory Hills uh line on for the article that we're voting on so if that passes is uh this is what you'll see for uh pretty pretty accurate changing your water rates uh the minimum charge will go from $75 for a minimum charge to $120 for a minimum charge that's per quarter and the uh usage rate will go from $720 per 100 cubic feet to $12 per 100 cubic feet so it is a it is a pretty drastic uh jump in uh rates but I also compare them to the lunberg Sewer rates lunberg sewer rates the minimum charge $126 for 840 cubic feet and they're $15.85 for 100 cubic feet so uh I mean this is a massive increase in our water rates but they still don't even touch what the sewer rates are yet yeah sounds like you're adding you know something very difficult to something that's even more difficult that doesn't exactly inspire you you know too I was only mention it just because I mean I hear a lot of comments that these are these a huge massive rates but I mean I don't see how many jumping up down over the SCH rates tell that so if I can say to the to those in attendance um part of what we're trying to do is is get through the presentation I know that there's a lot of questions out there uh and a lot of comments this definitely has an impact on a lot of people uh including myself and uh we are roughly on slide number um it was just showing up in front of me but we have 22 slides and what number are we on there's like two slides we have two left we can get you the last two slides then we will open it up to everyone for questions okay so second last slide schedule uh key dates for the schedule uh June 28th uh the district needs to uh appropriate the funding so vote to vote to take on this loan that's that's the big one the next biggest one um is in October where they actually formally submit their loan application and then again in June of next year year they need to be under contract with a contractor um to to comply with the law so those are the main key dates to keep in mind in the in the short term estimated construction schedules these projects take roughly two years to complete um so given um and that's they'll take the full two years if not given all the delays and the and the uh supply chain issues they're not not getting better so so in in I think in summary Y in summary just the potential risk from delaying action I mean this is a health and environmental priority um they are got you they are approved for the srf loan they are getting um the best financial support um that you can get for this uh right now which 0% financing alone is a is a major major boost to to cost savings on projects of this scale um risk of delays now that the rules are finalized from the CPA there's going to be a lot more people looking for funding so there'll be a lot more competition to get access to these same dollars there's a limited amount of dollars um so having having access to them um is key and you wouldn't want to give it away U there's 181 public water suppliers that are affected by this new rule um and uh they all are going to have to comply with the same schedules uh so they'll all be submitting applications well they'll see an influx of applications this nexted round in August um how many people get the srf funding uh it's there like a percentage or number of applications you might want to repeat that any yeah the question is how many people get funded I don't know if it's necessarily a consistent number of people it's more on a uh total dollars basis so they have a number of dollars that they're willing they're able to spend each year and when everyone submits their application they score each application and then based on how much everything adds up together they draw a line everything that's above the line gets funded everything below the line does not get funded so we have had projects that that don't get funded so Mr pel Mr pel before we before we go to questions I want to make sure they're wrapped up and then we're going to have selecto walk around with the mic so that way every question that everyone has can be asked and answer [Laughter] including so I want to let finish the presentation okay uh in the interest of time I'm Mr chair I'll get rid of this piece of paper and I'll just read off of this one so we're approved for the funding because of the need d in the state likes our plan agrees that we need to do it and that's why we got the funding the need has been determined this is a mandate we are going to have to do this at some point we are going to have to treat our supplies our plan is approved by D it's a long-term sustainable plan designed to integrate the financial burden a little over time your Bill's not going up tomorrow it's going to go up a little bit at a time and uh I won't do any of the comp comparisons because I know Mr alono doesn't want to hear about a cup of coffee but it's not in here but I will share it with you later um and yeah it still comes up so our plan was designed by Professional Engineers and approved by D the D is a state regular regulating Authority so um anything else other than that is an interpretation of information as far as I'm concerned we have we all have to share an understanding that our time here is finite with this knowledge comes a profound responsibility that it is up to us that we leave the environment better than we found it we cannot afford to pass the burden on to Future Generations forcing them to Grapple with repercussions of our choices on their health and finances instead let's strive to be conscientious stewards of our community working diligently to create a legacy of care sustainability and renewal that will Empower those that come after us Empower those that come after us I thinken to my kids I want them to be able to grow up in this town I think that this is a very good financial plan it is a lot of money and it is sustainable thank you very much for all right thank you and so what we're going to do is we're going to T first turn to the select board for any questions from the select board and then we will open to everyone in attendance with a remaining question selectman M all right um I have questions about cost and numbers but before I get into that I wanted to ask um about the test results the slide you have of the table of the different P pass test results they they're from 2021 to 2022 do you have anything more recent you have last years uh yes we is there a reason why you just did you can also on the microphone slide it's probably just tied from the information they received when they did the master plan when they set up this thing uh like I said earlier uh the individual Wells weren't not tested every sampling period so you wouldn't get accurate information from that anyway but that that sample showing Lancaster R the ranges that were found there and now we just do one sample that represents them all but we we do these are theed numbers for Lancaster app in the table they're what they're the they're the numbers for the Blended Lancaster r i I thought it was uh all the numbers from all the wells how how are they ranged correct yeah so the range of the one because it looks very much like the Blended results in the EA portal do you have do you have um more recent data on the Lancaster a I've seen up to October of 2023 for peps in the EA portal uh that that could be the last one I'm not sure if we've done the 24s yet do twice a year your test results go into that yes the reason I'm asking is Lancaster a Wells don't they don't violate the EPA MCL yes it blend it does it doesn't it does I have a letter from the D saying it does not I sent them the numbers from the EA portal it does not when you do when you do a running annual average if the number if the test result is below the MCL of four that number is zero that's used in the running annual average I have I can read it directly from Margaret Finn at D the data set below his quarterly data that starts with the October 1521 result there is no violation as the two Raa which is running annual average calculations after the July 22 and October 22 are both below 4.0 and none of the earlier data would cause an MCL violation based on fewer than four quarters all right so yeah I don't I don't think we've have a tested each well individually not each well individually I gave her the Blended results okay I'm looking at a lab result uh one one one value above the MCL does not trigger non-compliance the use a running um annual average which also has Margaret F says I can forward you this you can forward it I can I can dig out my information forward it back well well number five had a uh past of the past uh six sample 14.4 uh the P4 PF was 5.36 is 20 MCL they don't use it anymore the new one is 5.3 new maximum is four that exceeds it by 1.3 and DP recommends any well that exceeds two pots perr get treatment I'm telling you how the EPA is now calculating whether you are non-compliant okay we can take this offline and I can go through what I have from EPA and D I'm using the Lester Blended results in the EA portal so that's that's one thing um I can ask um Selman M when did you receive this information May second okay I I I think I emailed her a mid April took her couple weeks AG go back and you sent it to Fran when I didn't send it to Fran oh okay thank you FR has a great if we can uh make sure that we're speaking uh at the microphone right now we're taking questions from the select board um so um when you say you know treatment of a new source will be required I I caution to say will like it may be I because again I know these aren't Public Water Supplies but I can see data for Cherry Hill and stowman Wells are non- detectable for p F and residents I know who have private Wells have tested and they've come up clean for past so I mean I think I don't want to overstate anything I think it's you know it's a flip of a coin would a new source be neede treatment or not I don't think we can say yes or no um I wanted to ask about the keing pilot what's the status of that because we gave arpa money for that DP has approved the pilot and it's on the uh vendor schedule to you have a timeline two weeks starts in should begin in two weeks and you'll be submitting um a PF for heating in this next round for 2025 I believe so yes yeah because that is our our major source for um okay then I wanted to get into some cost numbers um the srf that you have for the 14 9 million is that a 20 year or 30 year term uh it comes through as a the standard term is is uh 20 but you can extend it to 30 if if requested do you have approval to extend it no but it says you can ask for 30 okay so you can ask but you haven't they haven't said yes yet because again this changes the numbers right oh yeah yeah I'm off of the 30 and every project we do is at 30 do we know when we will hear for sure we got 30 you won't get any official correspondence that you have 30 until after you have submitted your loan application but if you want to talk to those members they will tell you it is most definitely available to you if you so choose to take it okay just you know mies the you don't want to sign up for long without knowing the terms um and then when you calculate the bond loan I don't know anything about bonds municipal bonds I mean I how to calculate mortgage and that's about it um so I went online to a bunch of calculators and I was able to generate numbers that match yours FR for the total interest but what I noticed was I could I could change those interests values using the same principle amount by hundreds of thousands of dollars just by going from compounding monthly to compounding are are we locked in are there certain terms we have to do you factored monthly apy annual payment and if I do annual apy it's 200 plus thousand less interest I agree those different ones that came up different numbers and I tried to do one that was a monthly and I did one that was yearly and they kind of state similar number oh the yearly is cheaper so uh that's so I I I think those might be the monthly numbers the ones that you've been putting out are monthly I just don't is there Flex do we can we get better terms I guess is what I'm asking or are we locked in uh yeah this is all just me running with numbers trying to trying to so you know so the people can can have uh decent information uh and numbers are important so if I'm giving numbers that are higher and I think people should be happy that the numbers going to actually be lower the cost well that's they don't know that they're going to be I mean we want to yeah I mean we're theorizing on a loan that hasn't been applied for or received yeah that's that's really but but the key thing is zero interest but we're going for zero interest so so all those things that with the bonds don't matter we're going for zero interest and and from what he just pointed out in that letter it says we can we don't have to apply for that second thing but we have zero interest with with principle forgiveness the word approve approval is nowhere in this letter I did I don't see it but down the bottom we can apply next year if we want to we don't have to cuz we we're already on it they prefer to see us do it so one of the big discussions that came up two weeks ago was he like how are you going to vote the money he says because we we support you doing this whole project he says if you vote the 14.9 how do we get the rest of the money what if it gets voted down so they would kind of be in in like a like a stuck spot where they're going to impact the construction that their big thing is the timeline for construction they don't want to delay this thing at all they want this plant built as quickly as possible so that was one of their concerns so I said oh no when we go for this vote we're going for the 32.2 he was thrilled to hear that said no that we're appropriating the money so that we there was no no delays in the uh the loan process through see the problem though people will be voting for an amount of money they don't know what the payment terms are because that loan is not that that 0% for the remaining of that 32.2 million is not a guarantee and zero if you it's easy to figure out the zero one those are the Zer hasn't been approved it's not a guarantee that the SR I mean being able to apply for it to me you can apply but I'm not going to tell you you can ask me for money I may not give it to you well I I I I don't I take that letter as they gave us the money they are they tied into the other project I want to see approved approved approv pass pass the boat we're going to apply and get the loan and then you if I can just uh I know s but by way uh uh I wanted to one last thing I might come back but one last thing right now um so hopefully someone will ask about operating and maintenance cost because so far we've just talked about construction so leave that I'll leave that what are your plans in terms of the payment amount is it going to be it sounds like it's a flat rate for all water customers or are you going to somehow prate it based on water usage well the the first one that was up on the screen $103 that was just just a breaking it down per customer right uh the second one I brought up with the uh the $120 minimum charge and then usage so that was going to be A4 $5 increase per person so then then it went to the usage so the people who used more water were going to pay more so it was going to be more of a tie to okay you know what would be helpful to see I have no idea how much water I use I only know what my bill is um to somehow translate usage into okay like kind of we did for the uh the override the assess value this is the increas in your taxes this is how much water you use you know ranges this is how much of an increase frco I just want to if I could whoops aha here we go how about is that working okay I just wanted to suggest I know we want to hear from all the board members but I also want to make sure that there is enough of a window for the citizens group to be heard they came here they pres they prepared a presentation they need stage time um and uh I want to make sure I have a good carve out for that uh so I don't know how procedurally want to do this but do we want to do just questions from the board up to a certain point and then hold off on the questions from the public till both groups have presented your call on that but I just want to make sure this carve out maybe get them on by like 8:30 yeah let's see if we can give ourselves 10 more minutes here so for questions Mr Lonzo well that would be six minutes but okay yeah I mean I of course I have lots of questions but so I'll I'll keep them brief so the first question is in on the issue of redundancy what would the com the the water district Commissioners and the superintendent what how would you rate the criticalness of that issue as one being not at all and 10 being urgent I think that's based on what D when they what what D I'd vote it be quite high and and the reasons being that sorry I would view them high and and the reasons being is uh there's many things that can happen to a water system outside of our control uh pumps break uh electrical components go tractor Trail carrying gasoline could hit the low bridge of keatings and wipe out that well forever as far as we're concerned I know that's a real like dire uh you know thought to that however as us sitting in here is as forecasting through I think it's important that we look at the resiliency and the redundancy of our system in the EV something happens so I do this High hi okay does the water permit that you have and for the for the whole district has the redundancy component be has it been a compliant issue all along or is it just recently added I leave I want to reframe it's always been part of the overall Outlook of uh of the water district uh I think this p uh new regulation kind of puts more emphasis on it because if if certain Wells get treated and not others then then we're in a really more extremely critical position for the redundancy part uh but the the redundancy depending who looks at it uh I I don't think we meet the redundancy as it as it stands now so it was uh take your lar just well offline can you meet full maximum demand we we can't Lancaster office can't meet maximum demand which we've had a maximum of 1.4 million uh then they go into looking at other redundancy things are two days of storage in the water tanks and I did a full calculation of our storage in uh summer months we have like 6 days so we can go pretty much a little more than half a day uh running off our tanks and uh I think it was just under two days during the winter period so uh so I think uh we don't you're going to have different from that but that that is actual true actual nums I have a whole print on if you want to see it but uh those are actual true nums so I feel the redundance is is not met uh from what we have but been a mass D component yes okay and do they does mass D do regular inspections and do they have a checklist that they go through compliance uh when D comes out they come out like every two to three years okay they call sanitary survey uh the person comes out they usually here for four or five hours the the the focus mostly is on the the chemical treatment and the safeguards so if the the the pH goes high will the chemical pump shut off the pump shut off so we we run a full routine uh of how the operation of the chemical treatment plants work uh not and mostly just visual of the the wellet don't really get into the full details hey I'm I'm trying to use the best use of my time so I don't feel I don't want this to be a congressional hearing but I really just want to make the best use of my time my question was is it part of the checklist from nastd in their report redundance they they don't talk about it I mean they put it in that report but they didn't they didn't like discuss hey what do you have to is it part of their report you're you're the superintendent for 40 years it's either part or not part of the report it was in their report okay and what did they say they they said we had adequate okay so you're saying it's high but they saying it's adequate and my question is it's been offline for 12 years have we had any emergency situations in 12 years well uh three years going was very dry we did not have the ability to use well one and well four okay so we that's why we down they running that well we were trying to run at a lower capacity to get the manganes level low enough that we could put it back online so yes it was not very long ago we were trying to get that wall back online it was probably six years ago we we put it to the to the uh annual meeting vote to doing pilot test on it to get it back online that was voted down so we have tried for many years to get this wall back online so this isn't like a new thing well I again I've been here for 24 years and more than 24 years 26 years years and I if that vote happened and I don't know that it did or didn't happen I'll take your word that it happened certainly didn't have the level of of uh public interest you know the water district didn't come to the board and say it's so important we need your input on this so I just question the redundancy I'll leave that after the redundancy part because uh I I think also as Miss empy said I think we have the operation of Maintenance costs which is not even touched on that could be anywhere I mean we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars per water treatment plant that's not even taken into account that'll be annually so thank you m i I do have a letter from May 2nd from Mass DP that references a redundancy and uh it says while the water been able to meet current water demand for its customers the use of HIC rail's well for several years Mass D acknowledges that maintaining and treating this well will provide some additional operational flexibility redundancy and resiliency for public water system show a reliable delivery of Safe Drinking Water to its customers so DP supports the react no they just said it would give you added resiliency it didn't say it would make you meet the resiliency component it says it would give you added obviously adding a well would give you added resiliency I'm not even a water expert and I can tell you that so I mean that doesn't prove my point my point was that even D says that we meet it now you could say well as I heard you say at the Thursday meeting well that's just a guy who just walks around which is what you would okay but it's still a d report so you can't have it both ways you can't say d says this and it's with the ultimate Authority but D says this it's like wow I dismissed that I mean it seems kind of counterintuitive Mr chair thank you thank you okay I have a lot of questions but we are very quickly running out of time um but since the previous two speakers did bring this up and it was a question I wanted asked to and I think it's a major component of this maybe you guys do want to speak to maintenance and sort of the plan is for that and how we'll pay for that and I know you guys also mentioned a class action lawsuit that you potentially could put money away for I know other towns are doing that as like a maintenance plan if you guys just want to speak to that Mr chair if if I could I'm sorry just very briefly briefly because I I we have to get this of the group on and I'm going to yield all of my time to the group so sure so maintenance for these facilities uh comes down to operations the you know the District staff that have to operate these things which they currently have um electricity to run the new plants and then the major component is the the past media replacement uh in frequency so uh that's what the pilot testing uh is geared towards is coming up with u how long the media will last before it needs to be replaced um so for a system of this size um you're looking at anywhere from 100 to $300,000 a year potentially and media replacement costs I really hope people don't call me on that because I'm taking a lot of assumptions into account here that I don't really have enough information to give those numbers but I know you're really asking for them thank you any other do we have any questions from the public yes sir we are going to go right to the presentation from uh we have a question from the gentleman back here I just want to give him the opportunity to ask the question sir do you have the phone thank you Bill 445 towns of har Road I only have um I only had I had one question then a second question when uh Mr bir yeah um when you said this is something that we have to do can you tell me what it is that we have to do the EPA is mandating that we treat any levels of past below four Parks per trillion their goal is is zero above I'm sorry above they they want a detect of zero what how is that related to activating another well for example our drinking water comes from Keating and from Lancaster we must treat that water to get our p p levels down but the vote that's coming up on the uh 16th it's going to be for 32.2 million to put a plant activate a well put in four M pipe and put a plant in Lancaster that is not I just want this is a clarification that's not what we must do that's they not and you know what you're you're you're probably 100% right that's not what we must do but to me to me no I need to finish answering my question pleas sir I feel it is a fiscally responsible thing to do for our future generations and yeah just because we have the money doesn't mean we have to spend it but historically and Mr Alonzo can probably speak to this we've had packages before in town good packages proposed and we passed over those and we did the projects anyway at a significant higher cost to the residence so to be fiscally responsible for our future generations and try to get this to a level where our kids have safe drinking water and a sustainable supply for their future and keep it affordable that's why I'm that's why the plan I I support okay that's the clarification I wanted was what we must do we must provide clean Dr drinking water and that means we have to take pasas out of our current drinking water the pr on the table for vote is not that that was a point I wanted to clarify excuse me the second question I had um Lou I when you were describing this letter about about the 32 million approval or not approval for about to be approved an allowance at my eyes blazed over I didn't know so I want to see if I can simplify it to one question the vote on the 16th when people vote on that will that $32 million be approved for srf funding or not yes that is my understanding it is so it is approved yes that is my understanding yes what is my understanding yeah what that it either is approved or not approved historically speaking the letter indicates that the full amount of the project as proposed and expanded is eligible for Sr funding so when they vote you will not know whether that money has been approved for zero and srf funding you can you can plot that's what that's what I was getting you apply for it you're allowed to apply for it you're not allowed to apply for it until after you vote the money it's on an intended use plan correct it's on an intended use plan and have you ever seen anybody that got on the intended Ed plan and gone through the approval process not got the funding no as long as you comply with their deadlines you are funded I want to be able to provide an opportunity for the citizens group Mr pasio you had a question or commment as well Mr pasio say no Mr fortune and then we're going to turn over to the presentation from the L citizens thank you I sorry I have two questions the Commissioners John Fortune 50 H Drive the Commissioners I've heard all of you I think at this point in time talk about this tractor trailer truck that's going to drive and wipe out the keing well what is our plan today do we have an emergency action plan for that if it happens today what is our plan we technically you know I mean we have not much I mean we could borrow some water okay I mean you already have your your pre pre uh it's already there just let out we know us you keep telling us that we absolutely need this new plan but we must have a plan today right it could happen today it could happen tomorrow it could happen the next day if we don't have a plan already why are we waiting what are we waiting for we going to wait for this try do it we're planning so if I can if I can interject I think this question is a little bit outside of what we're here to discuss tonight which is Pas it's more about something that could be probably asked at a water district meeting are there any questions related to P one more can you tell us within reason how much this will cost the town all the town's buildings all the water use in the town you must have someone stand I'm sure you have an understanding or some idea of how much water the town uses how much is this going to cost the town some up to the SE builds it's less than the sewer builds so the town most of the Town buildings have sewer so I don't know I don't know I didn't bring the does anyone have an answer to that question directly if not the answerers we don't have I can I can summarize this for you real quick though okay so as far as I understand there's a lot of uh discussion about how we're approaching this uh past solution and I assure you we need a solution for it okay what we are propos here is we believe the best financially responsible and resilient way to push this forward okay I'm a military guy for a many of years I've set many committees and I've looked at a lot of numbers this to me is the most resilient and responsible way to do it you as the general public will definitely vote on this and and I I I hope everybody does and put a lot of thought into it but we need to be very clear about this this ship is leaving the port okay and the P remedi this is a remediation ship we can board this now or we can swim by it later and try to jump on but at the end of the day we will need to remediate past from these Wells and you ask about the cost the cost of the town this it is simply going to go up it will not go down that's our proposal here I thank you for listening to it I understand your your questions but that that's how I feel so I'm going to call I think Joan P here with to Lun citizens are you planning on having a making a presentation of we have a slideshow with the town manager ask Mr chair just one one statement from the water district we've had multiple meetings we've had multiple offers to meet with anybody that has an interest in this this private interest group has never once came to our meetings offered up uh any kind of a a presentation or anything we are going to be seeing this for the first time as you are um so obviously tonight is probably not going to be the night but uh to understand that this this uh presentation we have not seen heard or had any communication on I respect that I hope that you guys will be able to stick around and ask any questions as they were asked of you we're going to pause while the group gets set up thank you for your time I want to thank the L water district I want to thank the general from and their consult as us [Music] all that water it wasn't me [Music] abely we're all set Mr chair when you're ready we're all set all right so we're going to go ahead and resume so we have a presentation tonight from the lunberg citizens for affordable clean water and uh if I could just ask those in attendance as you speak to State your names as I haven't had the fortune of uh meeting all of you and uh I see what you did there and and uh we have the presentation up on the screen sir thank you sir my name is Andrew staras I'm and if I can just ask those in attendance to to um give the respect to the gentlemen to give the presentation thank you thank you my name is Andrew starasi I'm a lunenberg citizen I'm here with other residents of lunenberg to to give a response to what we heard tonight and put forth opposition so in the essence of time I'm going to really try to go very and can you just clarify all the members at the table currently members of the Hickory Hills area do you all live near Hickory Hills differ what difference does that a curios it doesn't make any difference okay doesn't make any difference we're Citizens We're All C is your is the group comprised of more than just the residents that live in the immediate thank you thank you okay so in the essence of time we like to go forward um very basically we we support we want the town select board not to support this vote on May 16th we want you to support a no vote so what we are here for is a fiscally responsible way for clean water that's not even an issue every everybody here is for clean water it's not a cons it's not up for debate if we're going to do Tas remediation or not we're going to do it and everybody here is for clean water the question is how are we going to do that and how are we going to do that in a phisically responsible way what we're looking at is what we saw tonight from the lunenberg water district is just one plan and it's flawed it takes it the Hickory Hills well which is been out of the water drinking system for 12 years and forces it back in the water drinking Supply and that makes this the most expensive option there and what we heard tonight wasn't a p remediation plan it was all about redundancy that's what they're trying to do and that's not bad but as it was pointed out tonight regulatory we meet the redundancy requirements what we should be focusing on on is p and p had a keing well which is number one and Lancaster so excellent next slide please the bottom line on clean water is we have the wells that we're using today that gives us ample supply of water that's keing in Lancaster a and that's not even part of their proposal we're not given that option to go that way if we vote on May 16th we're committed to the keing Lancaster and Hickory Hills well they want $32 million and it rolls into a $45 million plan we're not even given the option of treating the wells that we're using today next slide please we talked a lot about redundancy tonight and the plan here is we're pointing out there is redundancy in the system the de's documentation says it is do we want more redundancy that's always good but at what cost a reasonable person needs to understand what is this going to cost us we're looking at $45 million with this plan and we can put together a plan to treat King and Lancaster for half that we were all there last Saturday when we're looking at Town budgets their plan is more than the town budget and we're talking debating over should we go with a prop 2 and a half override for 900 ,000 this plan that they put forward eclipses all of that so redundancy we do have it that's a fact next slide please well before before we move before we move can we go back please man you also use the microphone yes I'd be happy to I have a little one in front of me but I will use two uh I just want to point out here that mass D on December 15 2023 uh did a public they do this every dream water system in Massachusetts has a review by the D It's called The sanitary survey and in December of a just this last December they came and did the sanitary survey for the Lunenburg water district and those two red boxes were taken directly from the sanitary survey and they categorically state that lunenberg has sufficient redundancy as the system is now set up to meet the needs and the regulations that the D has for public drinking water systems so whatever you may say about our present redundancy it meets the needs according to the D it meets the regulations according to the D and is your understanding Miss P that that redundancy accounts for the Hickory Hills well or no it says right in there if you have you seen the sanitary survey I looked at the reports that are okay the thean sary survey clearly states the Hickory Hills well is inactive and with the inactive well it still meets the redundancy requirements that mass DP has for all of the public drinking water systems in Massachusetts thank you next Slide the next slide because I think it goes right into that last week chairperson bur read part of this statement to the select board yeah you can read it here but only part of it it talks about redundancy because Mr Burch read the first half and I'm going to read this um sources for Community Systems any person who obtains Department approval for Community public water systems that rely entirely on groundwater sources that's us shall provide additional Wells well fields or Springs and pumping equipment of the equivalent equivalent capable of producing the same volumes quality of water as the system primary well kind of goes to what you're saying and as Mr Burch was trying to lead us to see last week that's what we needed to do but he stopped and it says or shall provide the storage capacity equivalent to the demand of at least two average days if approved by the department unless another interconnection with other Public Water Systems have been provided which can adequately provide water if needed so that's Mass General law we meet that and I'm a little bit upset that Mr Burch only read the first half I think he should be here to provide full open transparent information so that you can make a decision in the town next next slide please so redundancy versus Necessities this goes back into it this redundancy wish list versus what is actually needed lunenberg water department presently meets all the D redundancy we keep hitting home on that that regulatory not required we're meeting regulatory systems the uh their proposal produces redundancy above and beyond what is required by the mass D drinking Waters at an extremely high price the more water you process through the system the higher it's going to cost us looking at the clock next slide so we need complete accurate information we have not been getting it over the last year and a half through the water district one of their most outrageous statement I think Mr Fortune started to talk about this earlier as they stated should there be a critical failure of the keing well the Lancaster Avenues could only Supply the community with two to three days worth of water John can you help me out here that's not true that's misleading that's correct so we started with the towers that we have today those beautiful towers that we have in town we maintain every several years or whatever but those hold a lot of water right and so there that's the partial system we talked a little bit about the lemonster connection we heard earlier that well the pipe is not big enough and this that and the other thing keep in mind these Wells don't run 24 hours a day they run six or eight hours at night to fill those tanks and then they shut down and the tanks run all day long right we fill them up so yes they have a smaller pipe coming from Lem or a smaller pipe coming from Fitchburg it has to run longer that's true but we're not talking about this running the whole town for months on end we're talking about it in an emergency situation that's what the redundancy is for right so all of this there is that there are we could go into new sources we could relook at the Lancaster AB wall number three we've heard about that being um having bacteria in it I'm sure it is far cheaper than $14 million to get that W back online so there are other options unfortunately we haven't been we haven't been told much about them but those exist I think that goes to the plan we've only been presented with the lunenberg Water District's plan that says Hickory Hills keing and Lancaster when we raise questions about other alternative sources we get hand wavings we don't want to do that you don't understand it we deserve as voters as we go to approve a $45 million plan we need discussions on what those alternative are and we get to dismissed at every single chance next slide Please Mr chair if I may just interject one thing as each of you speaks can you state your names for the record just so can we just go down the line and do it now so it's on the record I think so yeah um yeah Bill Emy Joan PE Andy starvy John Fortune Barbara cherington thank you this is a critical slide and select board miss m actually began to talk about this this talks about the key uh land casor AV well and I brought this up to tyan Bond's question during the April 25th meeting and right now the data says the king well excuse me the Lancaster AB well we don't have enough data on it to even know if it's over or above compliance we don't know and they want to tie $32 million and pipe up Hickory Hills to a site that may not even need treatment yeah it's it's our understanding that the new EP a regulations are going to require four tests a year or quarterly testings of every water supply for past and you take those four numbers and you average them together and if the average is less than four parts per trillion then that well does not need to be treated in addition if any of those four numbers comes out to less than four it's my understanding that that number becomes zero in the average and thus the numbers for the Lancaster well at this point in time do not indicate that it even is going to need a treatment plan now none of us knows the future maybe yes maybe no but at the present time there is insufficient data and as M imy pointed out both the D from Mass and the EPA are not requiring that Lancaster be treated they don't meet the level that requires treatment so this plan that we heard tonight from the water district takes an inactive well that has been inactive for over a decade over a decade and we've managed and a well that may not even need treating and puts those two together in a program that is going to cost us all a tremendous amount of money and no one has even layered on the operation in maintenance costs all the costs so far have been simply construction if I if I can just add to that uh so this is the EPA fact sheet where all that data comes from uh basically what it says as Joan alluded to anything under four becomes a zero it says that very clearly in here so the last four numbers actually average out to 1.08 and the reason you take an average is because they can't really measure less than 4 possible trillion and that's why they bring them to zero so even seen the 2.44 the 2.7 the 2 the other 2.7 they really just round them back down to zero because they can't really measure that accurately so again whether Lan cter really needs to come online these numbers say absolutely not save your money work on the Kings well work on the Kings well right I'd like to know if Lancaster have actually needs treatment before we vote $32 million to build up there you're you're asking us to vote on money that we know hasn't been approved it's eligible to be if we can just continue with the presentation I I apologize I you're very passionate about next slide thank you spending money you're spending money uh so unknown total cost of the water customers as we talked earlier we don't know what the terms of the financing are what the terms of the loan are we know we're eligible to go for the srf funding but it hasn't been approved we have absolutely no understanding on what these operational costs are are we do know what keing will cost us we have an idea what Lancaster would be that would be $27 million they want us to go to 45 and we haven't even talked about the operational costs and we talk about every penny counts we better damn well know that what those operational counts are and why are we voting for a $45 million plan when everything points to it could be 12 to 27 million so estimated cost through water users we we can play this we've seen Fran's numbers every time he puts numbers up they change um but at the bottom line is are we at 44 million or do we want to look at 27 million and each scenario has the same applicability to does it apply to srf funding can we get that principal loan forgiveness can we get the 0% so at the end of the day do we want about 45 million or have them move ahead with the treatment facility pilot studies and move ahead with a $27 million or less because that 27 includes keing and Lancaster and again we are not even 100% sure about Lancaster it is still up in the air whether Lancaster will even require a treatment plant based on the data that the lunenberg water district gives to the EPA portal so we're going to wrap it up in four minutes we can go to the next slide what we're looking at is we're not asking to vote if we're for P or clean water what we're being asked to is do we want to steamroll ahead with a $45 million plan which is what they want us to do and they want the select board to approve that even though we know we have redundancy we're in compliance with that we don't have data on the Lancaster a wealth we don't have operational cost none of that's been presented to us but they're coming before us and they're saying don't worry about it approve it then we'll get the number numbers that's not a that's not a a responsible way ahead and that's why we're saying we we don't think that the lunenberg select board should support that position and one of the things we think that people need to be and the select board need to be very conscious of is that we might say this is only going to be $15 $200 a year for construction for this one then we're going to have construction for keing that's required that's not optional we know keing is going to have to be treated keating's numbers are absolutely over the limit then we're going to have operation and maintenance for King then we're going to have operation and maintenance for this one how much can the taxpayers and the water users in town afford there are people who can't afford that you know someone might give you a racehorse you know a thorough bread for Fe for free for free you can have it free but then you got to feed it you got to board it you got to V it you got to have someone exercise it and and the same thing here someone may be giving us some money we don't know how much is going to be given yet because it's eligible to apply we don't know what the payment's going to be but it's going to be something but on top of that we're going to have to do keing construction then we're going to have to do operation and maintenance how much can the water user shoulder we have people on fixed incomes it's a lot one more slide last slide that's it that's it all right I would like to yeah I'd just like to close out uh with a with a comment and that is we just went through an override here in town that override was vetted by the school committee it was vetted by the finance committee it was vetted by the board there were probably 30 or 40 people that went into that in detail going through what was the best plan for the town and let's keep this in mind this is for the town this is money that will not be used will not be available for the school we're going to need in 20 years or what other other building we might need in 10 years or 15 years right so unfortunately what we have today is we have a small group of people they're dedicated there's no doubt about that um but it hasn't been vetted well enough and that's really the point we're trying to make this has not been vetted well enough for us to come up and just say $32 million is a great deal we've heard it it's a wonderful deal it's the best deal we're going to get personally I don't believe that's the case and I think it needs to be Ved further so I have a couple of questions and I want to I I'll start with the U the lunberg citizens group so my my first question was about whether or not the you know the group is titled I don't know I don't know anything about the lunberg citizens for affordable clean water I it's not a secret that I'm not on social media and that I don't know most of what's being posted and I understand that a lot has probably been out there in that realm um so my first question was about whether or not this Lum citizens group represents or is is comprised of of people from the entirety of the town or if it's a neighborhood group representative of Hickory Hills and and I think the answer was well I understand that many members in front of me are from the Hickory Hills area that the group itself is comprised of residents from all across town so my next question just for the for those sitting here do you drink the water without any filtration I'm not asking you fil I'm asking if you drink the water okay I'm a water user and and you drink it you drink the water without fil yes I definitely wanted to know the answer to that question um and then the other question I had is do you believe that that clean water or access to clean water is a right absolutely and that is not what this plan that the water district has come before us is about the Water District's plan is about redundancy we are going to have clean water because the EPA is requiring that we have these pfast treatment plants and Kings will get a pfast treatment plant and if if Lancaster's numbers fall in that range quarterly numbers average together below four are turned to zeros if it falls in the range that it needs it it will get it because it is mandated all right so that is address go ahead the question that you ask is is a consequence I think of the way this whole thing has been positioned with the public the the whole message from the water district has been regarding equating a totally independent project redundancy to past removal and you're not on so I'm not on social media either people share what's people are saying social media I want clean water okay I let's do this project so it's it's absolutely a a misunderstanding what's going on here there are two independent projects one was applied for earlier redundancy maybe I can get money uh cheap money cheap money low interest money zero interest in this case and now we got to shoehorn that into what just now came on we got to reduce P they're totally independent the P mandate says here's our drinking water fix it we want that everybody wants that fix it absolutely what about this other thing redundancy that's a separate topic they really have not proved their point but looking at the other options everything that's been presented thus far has been hand waving we got pipe this pipe that big it's that kind of stuff that's been going on don't have enough water well who where did they say they don't have enough water we using it for an emergency uh the the pressure is too low thought about booster pumps all of these arguments are hand weting AR without any quantitative analysis and they're being people are being asked to invest effectively $45 million for a programs that's totally premature and the data is just the the conclusions are unsubstantiated it's just not there if you were on a board of directors and they they worked for you and they walked in you said I want to invest $45 billion what no better yet I want I want P production it came in with this plan you you show them the door well I want to offer thank you for the questions you know this presentation tonight to the select where we're soliciting some feedback from us I want to offer my thoughts um and I I only have a couple because we are again short on time you know my personal opinion on all of this is I support the Water District's plan as presented and I support it for a variety of reasons I think that the right to clean water should be absolute and when we ask people to vote on the right to clean water and access to clean water I think that what you what you end up with is is is concern about Neighborhood Impact you concern about about an individual's you know house what they you know what they look at uh and there's also concern Underneath It All About cost you know but but really it's about access to clean water you know we elect people to work for the water district and every year you know whether we agree with all of our elected officials all the time or not we have a democratic process in which we elect people to be on the Water District to volunteer their time to look into these matters um and in this process they've done that they've hired qualified people who understand uh the situation that we have here in town and who are proposing in my view a pretty reasonable plan now is it costly of course it's costly but I've seen compromise from going from the plant being at the Hickory Hills Well site to now moving it further down the road moving it on Lancaster a I've seen a willingness of elected officials to make to to try to mitigate the impact on neighborhoods and so what it boils down to for me is do I support clean water no matter what and the answer is I support clean water and I don't think that there's ever been in our history a time where we can say that a problem of today was better addressed years down the line there has yet to be that moment where we've pushed something off and we've had a better result out of it so I I hear the concerns today I unfortunately I think a decent amount of this is not in my backyard which for the most part I dismiss um but I do think that there's a legitimate concern about cost and and that is legitimate concern about cost right everyone cannot afford it but I would hope that if we have a lunberg citizens for affordable clean water and the concern is that the clean water is not coming out of the pipes that perhaps we should have some alternative source uh whether it's bottled water or whatnot that maybe that's the citizen group that that that that we should be trying to pull together but but to me pitting ourselves against elected officials who are doing their job as presenting a viable plan to me it doesn't sit well with me um now again I support the plan for the water district uh as they've presented it to us this evening and I think as we look ahead yes we've talked about redundancy but to me this seems pretty clear that in order to treat the other Wells you you have to make up that water somewhere and that the solution as I've understood it has been that the Hickory Hills Well site is the most contaminated and that if that site gets the funding now that what it allows is redundancy at every other site it allows us to have clean water while we work through everyone else's site and I don't have an interest I'm not I don't have an interest in negatively impacting anyone's house anyone's neighborhood or anyone's Lake and I think that we should employ some mitigating efforts here to make sure that the science as I understand it will be true which that the aquafer which sits well below the lake is Not By Any Means connected to the lake and that you can measure that when you start pulling water out of that aquifer that if you start seeing levels decrease to a certain point you start the pumping but to me what's being said is here's a solution let's get this site cleaned let's do it with available funding I think they've explained what a legal letter means that not all of us read these letters that coming from departments not all of us understand that they don't necessarily speak in plain language so presenting a plan that says let's bring the Hickory Hills well on site online let's mitigate it let's treat it and then let's treat everything else and let's go back to the status quo for the last 20 years of turning it back off I can support that now tonight I will ask if our the how the rest of the board if the rest of the board wants to take a vote on this and I'll turn to Mr Franco um thank you I am deferring on all questions I I put all my questions aside but I what I'm going to suggest is this first of all I want to thank both groups for coming out this has been useful but there's a lot of information in flux here so the the water district is asking for our stamp of approval on what has transpired I don't feel like I'm in command of all of this yet and um so the question the only question before this select board tonight is whether or not we're going to put our stamp of approval on this plan or vote to recommend to not approve it I don't think we're speaking for myself at least I I am not equipped to answer that question will you make a motion to that effect Mr yes and and um I just want to make a couple of other points too as well not only is the information completely in flux there's so there are unanswered questions is what I'm trying to say uh uh a lot of the information is canceled each other out are we we're not in a position right this moment to make a determination as to what is is the actual case uh and this is a smaller subset of town not that it's not a very significant subset of town uh it is very significant I am not a water taker I don't necessarily feel comfortable voting for something that is going to um uh mess with other people's bills and uh I just don't feel adequately knowledgeable here to make a decision so my motion I do I am going to make a motion I'm going to make a motion that this board not rec make a recommendation in either direction to approve or not approve and that they they just let the vote happen on the 16th with the at that meeting I second that we have a motion and a second I know that there may be some discussion any additional discussion on the motion and the second again the motion is to take no action on the request in the board from the water district as it relates to endorsing the plan for water mitigation I say that it's the biggest abrogation of responsibility I've seen in this town in a long time you know we had hourong discussions about the the the override and the budget and everything and here first of all at the Water District's request not our request their request they asked for us to take a position on this and to have this meeting that's number one number two is they're our Town's people now unlike the override this doesn't affect everybody in town in fact I'd like to know on the board who is a water taker on the board okay so yes I am as well okay well that's important because 25 00 homes just shy of 2500 homes are going to pay for the whole 45 million and first of all make no mistake the vote next Thursday is not for 32 million that's what's on the ballot but we all know we have to do keying so tomorrow next week's vote is a 45 million doll vote and if we can't come to a decision as as members sure we're not part of the water district we're a separate Municipal enity everybody knows but for a decision that affects people who voted Us in the same people who vote them in vote vote Us in that it's a super set everybody who votes in their election can vote in our election and they're asking for an opinion they're looking for an opinion and we have very very contested numbers and lack of options and a permanency if we they if that vote passes next Thursday there's no going back there's no underride there's no like oh let's go vote to take away the number that is it that is it going forward and they have an they don't have operating and maintenance cost they don't have other options they don't have a redundancy you know potential now that they could do potentially other ways that may cost less than the 17 million that it's going to cost to take the Hickory Hills well to come online so you know I just don't see the plan we would if this came up in town I certainly would I don't want to speak for everybody else I would if it this happened another building plans you know we we rejected them and say no you got to go back and do this again this is exactly what this plan calls for you know and it's not the end of the world you know that's the important thing at the meeting that at the water district meeting that was a TW vote majority after three separate votes to even start the pilot plan to put the Hickory Hills well on line I said that I was Voting against that because I said you're not treating the right well you're not treating the well that has the most volume that produces the most water I am against this plan for similar reasons there are other options to not bringing Hickory Hills well online for instance you could build a treatment plant that at Lancaster and keep heing keep the Hickory Hills well off with the option to include it later on if you need to down the line but we're not given that option it's one article one number and again and and by the way Mr chair I have to say this to bring up where people who are voting you for that and try to you know create a segregationist lake people versus non-l people is it really is is really discomforting and distasteful because they're water takers then not one of the things they presented in their thing had to do with the lake not one item that they posted in their presentation had to do with the lake it had to do with the proposal and I think that this board should vote on whichever way it goes we should be voting on a recommendation from this board any other C MK I think I thought you had have passed no I'll just say in response to that you know to compare it to how we made a decision on the override we had months to discuss the override and we discussed it to the point where there was nothing else to discuss and I feel like we're just scratching the surface of this and that's to no one's fault at all to be honest I walked into this room today with an open mind because I was still on the fence and I listened you know I let everyone make their cases and I think I have a little more confidence in the plan presented by the Water District than I had when I came into this room I'm sorry if I did not find your presentation compelling at all so in terms of redundancy just saying yes we have redundancy it is a fact that's not enough for me so I don't feel like I have enough information to accurately say whether or not I recommend this to people and ultimately sometimes people are just going to have to make their own decisions so un fortunately the timeline just worked out this way but I don't feel comfortable recommending this either way right now second do you have any comments related to the motion in the second I I have been following this for the past what however long it's been going on I know the numbers by heart um I agree with all the comments Mr Alonzo made and I want to make it clear I am also for clean water I don't like the implication that anyone part of this citizens group or anyone is not for clean water if they're not for this plan that is totally you that connection is not valid at all I my own opinions I think we should be treating Kings is in violation now it's our primary water source that should be our Focus um the Lancaster I'm not sure if it's I mean the information I have it doesn't qualify yet Massachusetts has up to 2 years years to review and come out with their new regulations they can be more strict than EPA they cannot be less strict so they could go lower than four they could say notable in which case Lancaster would be in violation um so I I think I I agree I think we should V I think it's cop out not to honestly all right and Mr Franco okay let me just say this perhaps there are I I will completely admit that Pro Mr Alonzo and miss both have a better command of this information than I do that's that's I'm not even questioning that if I take a vote on this it it that would be an abdication of my duty to have full command of what it is I'm talking about before I take a vote on something therefore if a vote is taken I will abstain from that vote all right and and I'm not going to vote on something on which I do not have full command I can appreciate that so to clarify in response to to Really Mr lono's comment you know when I ran for office both times I was elected by many residents who live in Hickory Hills I have absolutely nothing against anyone who lives in any part of lunenberg I think tonight I wanted clarification on whether or not this was a group that represented the entirety of the town I understand that many of the faces that I'm seeing tonight have seen them at water district meetings I understood the concern as it came from Hickory Hills and Hickory Hills well I wanted Clarity on whether this was that group or this a group had broadened and I think the the answer tonight was that the group had broaden and that it represents residance from all across town so we have a motion and a second uh any additional discussion before we take this vote all right is me and the vote again is to is to not make a recommendation uh so a vote in the affirmative is to do nothing a vote in the negative will then trigger another likely another motion uh all in favor please say I I those oppose no no the motion fails is there another motion I would move that the board of Selectmen recommend a disapproval or a no vote on the May 18th meeting on the project as requested or is presented second all right we have a motion and a second any additional discussion I'd like to identify that I think the water district did a good job in their public Outreach um that they hired a consultant to assist they established a website um that they set a phone number they've had multiple Community meetings I think the opportunity to receive as much information as possible prior to this vote has been there for the public and I certainly feel informed enough to make a a vote of recommendation one way or the other Mr chair I also want to commend the water district as I said to their chair when he's come before us on several occasions that this of all the things that have happened have been the most transparent so for that and all the presentations and public hearings I do appreciate them and in no way I want to be very clear on there so no way am I saying that they are indicating or purposely misleading all I I am saying with my recommendation is that from my perspective it is not completely analyzed to the point where the voters and especially the rate payers know what they're voting for and what the total cost is that is my request we all know that this will need to get treated everybody has agreed for that all I'm saying is that this plan is a premature this vote and we should be looking back and hammering out the numbers and I look forward to working with them to do that I think it's achievable I don't I don't want to put any disparity on anybody's uh motives in presenting what they did on either side I just want to be clear that why I'm made the recommendation I did was purely on the plan and not on any of the personalities behind either side any other comments on the motion and the uh and the second yeah I mean just as a Counterpoint I mean um uh the fact yeah I I mean yeah the information is incomplete Mr alono you just you just made that point I know know you have much a high a very good command to this they're asking for our recommendation either way I just think the information especially just rapid fire uh as with lots of fresh information tonight uh is that's premature am I still coming through here or what uh that's premature it keeps going off so I just don't feel um uh equipped personally to make to make a vote so I will abstain from the vote um and and I respect what the other members do but that's my position all right we have a motion in a second the motion again is to vote in disapproval all in favor uh vote in the affirmative is to vote against supporting uh the request um all in favor please say I I I those oppose no no abstain I abstain as well uh extensions we have two extensions I don't know how to count that votes the board votes in disapproval two the the vote is two one to two one with two extensions uh the vote the board votes to support disapproval all right the vard the board has voted not to endorse the Water District's uh plan as presented I want to thank the water district for their time this evening as well as the lunberg citizens for affordable clean water uh the board has about two minutes here to wrap up mandatory business so I can just ask you to just quietly exit the room while we do that we must discuss this evening okay is the board prepared under current business uh to support the letter uh letter of support for the Governor's amendment to means tested senior citizen property tax exemption bill is the board prepared to vote on this request is that what we talked about that's the the amendment change yes I am yes yes is there a motion to this is there anything to see I don't think we have it in our drive for this week let me see if it's in there from last week it was a request from the house to get a letter of it's what we previously I just want to make sure I wasn't missing I would move that we approve the board approved the letter of recommendation for the senior tax relief Amendment second any additional discussion all in favor please say I I I those oppose no the board has moved to support the governor's amendments and we will very quickly um do some warrants we have an accounts payable warrant in the amount of 98635 and10 we have an account payable warrant the amount of 6,000 excuse me $ 61,69 40 cents we have an accounts payable warrant in the amount of $1,448 it's all it's all together and then we have this should be payroll I haven't seen payroll this this payroll we have a payroll warrant in the amount of $1,200,000 s was it just one signature in this stack right here yes yeah one signature in the stack that that Caesar has um we are going to need to skip tonight um all other things on the agenda because again the light shut off on us in about S8 minutes um and so we likewise uh we be skipping our comments and we will be moving to I move to adjourn the meeting second any additional discussion all right all in favor please say I I those oppos no the time is 9:23 and the meeting is ajed thank you