The Watuppa Water Board convened on November 3, 2022, addressing several key items. The minutes from the previous meeting were tabled due to staff changes. The Board approved seven leak abatements totaling $3,455.59, while denying three due to ineligibility. A proposal for the Saudi Pond Dam Improvement, costing $198,000 for design and permitting (with $148,500 from a state grant and $49,500 from city funds), was approved. A significant discussion centered on the acquisition of the 7.1-acre Adirondack Farm for $820,000, intended to become an Environmental Education Center; this acquisition was approved, with funding primarily from grants and ARPA funds, incurring no direct cost to water ratepayers. The Board also approved a $506,200 proposal for the South Watuppa Green Infrastructure Blue Water Project, aimed at addressing blue-green algae and improving water quality, also funded by grants and ARPA funds. Finally, the Board accepted a Lead Service Administrative Consent Order (ACO) from DEP and EPA, mandating the replacement of 2,000 lead services over four years at an estimated cost of $17 million, largely covered by grants and ARPA funds, with minimal impact on ratepayers. All motions requiring a vote passed unanimously.
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the appointed hour um and a quorum being present I'd like to call this meeting of the watuppa water board to order first item will be pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees that therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those
0:28present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible item number one citizen input no I'm sorry his roll call of the Ferrera here uh Mr Collins here the present area here thank you okay citizen input we have no citizen input moving to number two on the agenda minutes of the previous meeting so other minutes I do apologize with the changes of Staff or a bit behind on some stuff if you'd like to take a look to
1:13the next meeting you can have them available chair would entertain a motion to table of minutes until the next meeting motion made seconded all in favor aye moving to number three item number three leak abatements okay Mr Clerk so with the new packet you will provided a list of abatements uh there is uh six eight two b seven to be approved in three to feta died okay um how would you like to do this or you
2:03we've got the explanation behind all of them if there are no questions on the proposed appeals the chair would entertain a motion to accept the community utility appeals for the meeting of 11-3 in the number of the total will be 3455.59 and we are denying three requests and the reason for the denial is spoken in the packet notes and I believe the three denials are because the leaks are in eligible
2:58with that being the case the chair would entertain a motion to accept the heels as submitted a second we have a motion a second all of um all in favor aye aye that's right all of the denials were because of the bill was an adult uh yeah one of them was every September the past number of years they had noticing increased so they would have full quarters where they were below the uh normal
3:41uh and then the other ones who were they were not before yes okay um moving right along item number four is the Saudi pond dam Improvement proposal for the dam and Seawall ground this is a very interesting program um long overdue in Saudi Pond down I had one question I would like to to just one of the things Power Engineering is discussing here is um clearing grubbing the embankment I know
4:27that embankment I've fished the pre-soap over the years it's kind of a steep embankment is it and I was just wondering um they're talking about seeding that is there any option other than something that would have to be mowed are you a rip wrap or something well I was thinking something more um I mean riprap is expensive obviously just wondering if it was something um that it'd be a little more habitat
5:03friendly Birds uh that kind of a thing it seems not to believe at the point but it just seems we've got an awful lot of grass in areas where it'd be kind of nice if we had milkweed and things like that that would support um yeah so so the one thing on the embankments we always want to make sure that there's not a any type of vegetation that's going to have a deep root system that
5:31could potentially go in and disturb the actual uh Dam or any subframes or anything that's involved you know a milkweed or something like that I don't believe that's a deep root system it's a Chris could probably be more of an expert on that on what would potentially the use of the situation yes so we could we could look at potentially something with a lower maintenance of the grass generally speaking that
6:03the spec for that when it's written is going to call for some type of a conservation mix which most of the time is is not really a an aggressively it's not an aggressive growing mix it would be a seed blend that and you know with a little bit of research and maybe help from Mike um we could put together a custom seed mix that that would would work well there would be low
6:33maintenance slower growing or shorter growing but that would still be primarily grassy plant material yeah there were a number of seed mixes available which a lot of conservation seed mixes get really pricey really quickly but um I wouldn't expect that to be seated with you know it shouldn't be a rye grass blend that's on that it I would assume it's going to be some type of a of a native um seedlings
7:07yeah and you know another thing just we want to be able to get out there every so often to be able to mow it just so we don't get any chunky tree vegetation or brushing vegetation and with a root system that could potentially damage the infrastructure that was just a question of popular no definitely something that we can keep in mind throughout the uh throughout the design of that project cool
7:43um are there any questions from the members of the board regarding the Saudi pond damn Improvement if there are no questions the chair would entertain a motion to accept
8:12now the proposal as submitted and um approved that for signing okay so just for the record The Proposal was 198 000 uh City caution was 49 500. we have a grant from the damaged Seawall grant program uh in the amount of 148 500.
8:39and this is four I'm sorry man absolutely this is for design and con this isn't for the actual construction of this correct this is designed in construction management uh fees or opinions not construction management so this is design permitting uh brings us up to about bidding perfect uh and then we would have to uh extend out or pick up project bandages cmri at that time following commissioner Collins's question um
9:18well we are they going to be redesigning the flash boards and that so like we did at Stafford pod that would be my expectation of you know Staffing partner went in and we redid All The Winged balls yeah all the structures and stuff like that this I think we're going to really do a deep evaluation to make to see what this structural integrity and those current structures are you know something that's
9:46been in place we the wig walls and where the board sliding and everything is there but as you can you know the concrete's pretty pretty uh eroded in in you know in areas it's weathered it's yeah concrete that's been there for probably a long time yeah probably yeah somewhere close to this so whether it's a full reconstruction or this bill way area or not because it's actually that
10:15Spillway the dam is actually primarily considered route 177 yeah and then the embankments come down the side of 177. that's actually still considered part of the dam itself and then actually to the West there's a separate emergency Spillway that's almost just a covet pipe that crosses under 177 as well so there's a couple of different aspects to this but with the uh with the primary Spillway is we'll be
10:44evaluated that and I would suspect that it'll probably be a reconstruction of that Spillway and where the uh where this Splash boards are the city portion of this would be forty nine thousand five hundred yes and that will be coming from uh so we have an authorization that was uh authorized back to the 2007 I believe it was so 2010 uh for uh Dam Rehabilitation yeah I believe it was
11:13after the 2010 storms when there was a lot of uh well there was a lot of dam failures within the area uh the city authorized 3.6 million dollars for damnization which is what has funded most of our projects today so we still have that authorization open and available with the funding unit for this project and then okay and that the 49 would be in um the form of alone yes thank you any other questions hearing none
11:50um we have a motion to approve the proposal for the dam and Seawall grant for Saudi pond in the amount of 148 500 dollars
12:16you'll have to excuse my brain fog tonight yeah the um The Proposal uh to par Corporation is in the amount of 198 thousand dollars with the city portion of 49.5 and the grant portion of 148.5 thank you so motion made seconded all in favor aye aye promotion is approved item number five Adirondack Farm acquisition long saw yes it is so this is uh this is something that uh I'm glad that we can bring to the book
13:07uh Michael Bossier Forester has probably drip to this day many times and it's worked very very hard at on this project like if you want to talk a little bit uh talk a little bit about there so what you have just in your packet you have in order to purchase which essentially will go to the city council for the purchase of the property there is also a auditor purchase for one
13:40of the grant fundings that we got which was the land grant of and uh also there's a copy of purchase and sales that we currently have on the property with the current owners um the uh the property uh is uh located off of Blossom Road uh about 7.1 Acres uh that has been used historically as a fob uh with a Bard and a file house on the property
14:10uh Mike if you want to talk a little bit about the project sure we have some pictures from some of his studies sure so we have the city has had a dialogue with the penalt family which is a gene and Lucy Pinot for maybe two decades it was always Our Hope to uh to to protect the the Farmland it was says about seven acres of Farmland in addition to the house and the lot that
14:43the house sits on it's a historic farm it's been farmed for over 150 years it's had different iterations uh a family ownership there were bordens there were free loves and most recently the peanut family has been the stewards of this property for over 40 years and a lot of people are familiar with it because it was the it was the former uh Adirondack Petting Farm yes and school kids and and adults with
15:15the uh with kids would would go and you know would see the the livestock and and he and the family really set it up for an educational experience and um so as time went on and we we discussed the idea of uh protecting the land it sort of became natural to think about maybe since we were looking for a Environmental Education Center which is something that the the Biore Partners envisioned 20 years ago this would make
15:45a great a great site for it it's one of the only uh residences on Blossom Road which has a view of the Northwoods up a pond and of course our stake in the bio Reserve is uh water protection I mean every every one of the browser and part of this episode of a different um you know a different Mission but ours is really protection of the water supply so it became apparent that this would be
16:09a great place to uh um to embark on teaching the public uh the importance of our water supply educating them as to what we do to protect it and um just an entree into the buyer's room which is a 16 000 acre protected uh Forest so um this and I have to say the family the penile family has been very gracious as as has been a lot of the families that
16:35we've acquired land to protect our water supplies it really it really has been um you know we're able to work with families who have a um an empathy or sympathy toward our mission which is to protect land to protect the water supply and so they they um agreed that this would be something you'd be interested in and um over time we negotiated uh you know a price that would be a fair price to them and
17:06um and then here we are so we um you know we stroked to have a to have this agreement and then we've been trying to line up the funding and we're almost there doing that so it's a seven acre there's seven there's literally Seven Fields um Farm Fields is surrounded by stone walls the house is over 150 years old um the historic house and historic Barn it's just Apple setting and a setting that somewhat represents
17:34you know 150 or 100 years ago this other side of Fall River which was really rural we you know we're really used to the urban and the Mills and all of that which is which is so important but the water supply that the city started protecting as early as the 1890s was protecting farmland and this this is a real sort of a a symbol of what that was and it's going
17:57to be an outstanding place to have a Discovery Center so excited about it the next slide so as Mike mentioned we've you know the house we expect to reuse as the Discovery Center the house from the bond what that would be it's almost uh kind of it's right as you enter and start to come into the bio reserve and the different resources that we have out of that area so a nice area to be able
18:30to have a Welcome Center or a close Educational Center for kids from Fall River schools or other surrounding communities to be able to go to be able to you know interact with nature see what nature is about so prior there was a couple of slides about some of uh it's what the house looks like now it's been used as by the family for a number of years a couple of years
18:56ago we actually had a bike head of Roger Williams University come in and look at the possible reuse of uh reuse of the house and what could be done so this was one of the pitches uh pitcher in the downstairs of the house being used is a little welcome area a classroom area in the back a second floor potentially office space for staff with an addition off the side as a as a large meeting
19:22room election Hall that could be uh that could be utilized by different groups both meetings or other things like that so on the next slide over the next slide everybody says uh you guys are crazy because you're going to spend eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars on purchase of this piece of property but let me run through the funding play that that we have and is what is laying
19:52out here so the purchase price of the property uh 820 000 that was uh not far off from what the appraisal came into the uh current rates of the market for a piece of that size that could be used in multiple different ways um so we've uh We've included an acquisition expense of Thirteen five uh and a conservation Recreation holder fee of 15 000 which we've talked to some of the partners which they might not even
20:21be if he uh buy them for holding that so where are we going to get the money to uh purchase the property so the funding sources uh e-o-e-e-a land grant which was awarded to us about a month ago I think the awards came out uh so from the Bristol County arpa funds 365 thousand uh so Bristol County APA I applied for a 1.
20:511.365 million uh to go towards this project and it has been awarded by the Bristol County Treasury and then also CPC we put in a CPC Grant application for four hundred and fifteen thousand dollars we fed through their eligibility route they seemed very excited about the project so we are hoping that that their funding will come through so that's the for the property acquisition you know
21:24what would me and Mike were looking at this project we just did want to acquire this property and have it sit there and not be used or be able to be utilized we wanted to make sure that there was a struggle funding plant in place to be able to redevelop it our plan is hopefully to be able to work with some of the local vocational schools to assist with some of the uh some of the
21:45work to be done out there and that's why so CPC within our CPC Grant application we have two hundred thousand dollars allocated for the to assist with the historic restoration of the buildings out there and then in the outer funding the additional million dollars from the Bristol County Alpha funds will be going towards the renovations at the visited Center if visit is set to by uh you know Discovery Center
22:17you know this project uh was talked about as Mike said back whether just with the fire reserve was originally started and it never really got off the ground um right now I gotta say we're getting a really good motivation with our group uh with other uh groups uh within the state within the region uh that are really backing this um there's potentially another funding source that we just heard about today
22:46that may be coming down the line to assist with additional um so so far besides Mike's time my time rate pay is water rate pays haven't had to pay anything towards this it went up right now with this funding plan it's you know there's there's going to be some maintenance costs and stuff like that which will be uh which we will assist with uh but so far for the capital expenditures uh we haven't
23:16uh planned on putting anything into it from our rate pays um you know again maintenance costs moving forward uh depending on Staffing and stuff like that uh other partners that we've uh that we've been talking with uh the autobot Society Trustees of the reservations who are great Partners out there DCI who are great Partners out there so I think this is going to be a really uh multi
23:46multi-group you know to really put this together 20 years has gone by very quickly too quickly in fact for some of us uh when we began negotiating the bio Reserve this was a dream that we had was to have a visitor center to have an educational center to reinforce just how important the drinking water supply is to the city to the citizens for sure but to the area in particular and it it's
24:26nice to see the support that's coming in from various groups here um I would like to congratulate Mike on a lot of hard work that went into this I I as I say 20 years has gone by real quick but I remember 20 25 years ago talking with Mike about this particular piece of property because it's Shoreline it's one of our this is an opportunity to to purchase Shoreline and and prevent a potential problem
25:12from development this would be a plum piece of property out there and for the water department for the water board to be able to purchase this property especially especially with the grant funding available and as you have said at no cost to the resident to the ratepayers at this time that this is a fantastic opportunity um it's just a fantastic opportunity I can't I I couldn't be happier like I
25:52said it's something we dreamed about and now it's here and you don't without any further ado the chair would entertain a motion to proceed with the Adirondack Farm acquisition with approval of the order to purchase in the amount of eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars second all in favor aye so moved thank you okay item number six proposal South watapa Green infrastructure Blue Water Project this
26:41is very interesting as well and the chair would appreciate it if the clerk would review what we have here from Woodward and current yeah so again moving forward with the South watapa Pond project um sir you know it's something that we've been working on for the past three years or so now uh since it was an issue that came up a number of years ago that came to light about the uh you know food breed algae
27:16uh effects on the south patapa pod um so the park has been impacted for years and years and years of blue Creed algae uh and uh you know it needs to be fixed at some point so uh it's kind of come to light it's been a group of uh local people we were lucky enough uh last year to be able to get a grant from uh bay Coast Bank to be able
27:44to do a phase one study on the pond to be able to uh kind of start to figure out what's going what's going on in the pub uh we've had great support from the uh from the local delegation of that area uh rev Schmidt as well as uh Senator Mike Rodricks were able to uh get some uh some money appropriated to continue the study through this suburb we were able to work with the
28:13surrounding communities to be able to submit a grant through the MVP program Municipal vulnerability preparedness program to get some funding uh to uh to start to design some of the work that came out of that phase one study uh so what we're looking at is uh our original Grant proposal actually to the MVP uh was for the uh was for the design and the construction uh they did feel they felt
28:45that we should go move forward and design the projects and then potentially come back for another Grant application uh for the construction of the projects which is okay so they did grant us the uh the ability to be able to move forward with the design overall we're going to be designed a number of projects that surround the Pod one two of them actually in Fall River uh one of them drainage right off that comes from
29:15Tibetan and one drainage right off that comes from Westport uh so with the boat ramp uh down uh next to uh the 994 Jefferson Street complex off the end of Jefferson Street uh will be designed in a bio retention area for the runoff from that parking lot on top of that will be the exiting a uh the infiltration uh retrofit for Cherry Lane drainage so that's off of Lake Avenue area down off of Hancock Street
29:46uh it's a Cherry Lane subdivision that is inhibited which all drapes down into a retention pod then comes down into the south of Tampa pod so being able to filter out phosphorus and nutrients from that from that point source we'll be designing that up uh Temple Road in uh Chabot street over in Westport uh is Another Place Another runoff location that comes down into the south of Tampa so again we'll be looking
30:18to design a BMP for that area uh to reduce the food and load and cut it down uh the big one one of the ones that I'm pretty excited about is uh sucker Brook Wetland restoration and water quality enhancement which is uh the lodge uh Wetland area that is to the uh to the west of the daylight on Jefferson Street complex that that area is uh underutilized as a wetland flood plate area there's
30:53Upstream flooding issues and stuff like that so this contract will help us start to develop through the hydraulic analysis study and bring us up to permitting to be able to potentially move that project being able to reutilize that as a functional Wetland for both flooding resources as well as as well as reduce reduction of pollutants going into the south of tough upon so kind of a pretty uh pretty good
31:28project for the South with Tupper pot um Southwest up to five that we like I said we were able to get uh funding for for the studies this past year uh from the state so we continued with our sampling in the pot this year it will be continuing uh again next year I have some funding potentially lined up from another sauce a mitigation project that was required to be done uh great
31:59funding from that to be able to go towards this project but this this project this contract that we're looking at is a total of 506 200 uh the funding sources for this project to get uh 379 875 is from the MVP grant program uh so that's the nestable vulnerability preparedness program which is a grant fund uh and then there's a 25 match which will be coming from the Bristol County arpa funds that
32:33has been approved just recently by the Bristol County Treasury uh fall funding this project so again this is another project that is going to cost our rate pays anything as the board course we do have it into Municipal agreement with both West party intimidate so this was put into MVP as a regional project the other thing actually that I didn't mention about the project we're going to
32:58be doing working with a local group groundworks on a bunch of public Outreach and stuff uh in relation to this as well so I saw that with the using the Atlantis Charter School I think that's outstanding yeah so groundworks uses a lot of different uh they use multiple different schools they hire uh kids from the community to uh and teach them about Freedom destruction teach them about being able to make
33:28their communities a more sustainable area but they really put them to work too so they hire them they pay them to develop and do public Outreach you know to develop the flies that we set down to develop the presentations that we do and stuff like that so it's you know they've been really active and do benefited have done some great things to do bed fit they've been around a New Bedford for I
33:54want to say about five or six years now and originally they were set up to be New Bedford and Fall River partnership so now we start to move them into the Fall River area this is a tremendous tremendous step forward in helping the Southwest Upper Pond to recover I'm I was interested when I was reading of the boat ramp bio retention retrofit I found that very interesting but I found the sucker Brook improvements to
34:34be something that is long overdue and that is going to help that pond immensely immensely they're going to be looking at going up as far as 81.
34:48yeah but potentially potentially yeah yeah there's uh there's another number of benefits that could be uh that could be had in that area you know to do that whole project it's going to be a pretty hefty cost cost but again it's going to be a flood mitigation project as well as a you know enhancement BMP for the water quality uh you know already thinking to the next steps which is how I always try
35:17to think you know there potentially may be some grant funding you through the hazard mitigation program or the flood Management program through FEMA that could potentially from the construction of the future we you know again going back historically two things um we Once Upon a Time actually shipped water from the south to the north although the south is not regarded as a water supply cleaning it up would
35:50certainly helped the other thing is is that with the rowing Center and the popularity that that has brought to the pond and the fact that the pond has an Olympic course that can be laid out and going over the um they had the school championships this year on the pond last year yep that was last year um I think they what was it a thousand competitors yeah I think they I think
36:31they said they they had at least a thousand competitors and twice that in people's ideas yeah I was saying today it was 2 000 people that that for 2 000 Spectators into the into the community that's incredible that is just incredible outstanding yeah you know yeah Southward Tupper is emergency water supply and I don't think it's been since 81 where we've transferred yes so well it
36:57actually was higher than the north at that time okay and that's why it worked but you know again we you know we have uh we do have the area on South watapa for a treatment facility and it's with that property where they were slated for eventually you know again um we show what happened this past year with with the drought condition this past summer uh luckily Fall River we were in good shape because we had south
37:25of Tampa pod we had Copa cut which we were able to Pump from kopuka to the excuse me the north from Top upon so Northwood Pond stayed very well uh compared to other communities uh everywhere around the state watering beds and real drought conditions which cause test issues I mean we got through this year without him water restrictions or or any form of curtailment um that's yeah but as in other areas
37:56potentially dry up we may be supplying for them we are now so you know not to get crazy over it but that is something that has been and discussed over and over and over as the the potential that we still hold in water rights that can be with work they they can be utilized if necessary and although in 2022 we're doing just fine thank you who knows what another 100 years brings
38:35another 50 years brings something we don't know it's just cleaning up the South pond long overdue long overdue and without any further Ado if there are any questions or regarding this the chair would entertain a motion to accept The Proposal from Woodward and Karen in the amount of five hundred and six thousand two hundred dollars for the watuppa green infrastructure Blue Water Project removed sorry all in favor aye
39:21so passed my favorite subject lead service administrative consent order update before the Mr Ferlin goes on to explain um what has been going on I would just like to State for the record that Mr Ferlin has worked tirelessly tirelessly on this ACO and the fact that it is in the shape that it is today as a testimony to to Paul's actions um I followed along with him but I can tell you he has worked tirelessly
40:12over and over and over this ACO and I thank him for his is effort because without it I think the city would have I I we certainly would not have ended up in the position that we currently are which is the best situation possible under these conditions and this was brought on by both the federal and state administrators Massachusetts having Primacy the EPA sort of delegated to Mass to uh enforce this and they have
41:03and that's where we stand today so if Mr furlen would like to give us a brief overview yeah I don't know how brief I'll be but because I want to be very thorough and make sure um that the board oh I was hoping it was going to be for you you know I know you would try it today oh I was I was I'll tell you what though I have I I I cannot say it enough
41:35Paul has worked unbelievably hard on this this is really I thank you for that but there's a lot of people that would work on it yeah I'd get that but you you you go to sleep with this thing on your mind um so uh as presidentario said we've been working for a while now back and forth with uh dep and EPA to come to a a resolution um and we we've kind of Hit the end
42:10point now where we need to come to this resolution or the potential we may get a unilateral we would get a unilateral order from the uh from the agencies mandating us what to do which I could probably guarantee wouldn't be anywhere close to what's in this ACL that goes without saying yeah oh yeah uh So within this SEO it lays out uh so the first section is the statement of
42:46the facts and law you go through the statement of the facts and uh there's a number of uh there's some facts that they State uh dep in uh in here uh there's some claims that they make which uh claims uh claims that they feel irrelevant but uh may not be uh 100 uh and then there's also uh some other facts stated towards the end in relation to uh to things that we've we've been
43:23able to get done uh so that's the first part of Yoda and I know uh you know this is hot off the press is um I've got this before I forward it to you guys then you get into the auto part of it this kind of tells us what we need to do so to kind of summarize it uh EPA in DP they want us to be responsible to replace any lead service the whole
43:56entire service from debate all the way into Amino they want that to be the cost of the water department and not the cost of the homeowners in Fall River part of the problem that we have is we have a very uh High uh rate of people that are below the medium household income for the state OtterBox 19 tracks within the city uh 17 of the India economic Justice tracks based on the state census
44:35so you know their feeling is that a fair amount of the city the homeowners or residents in the cities would not be able to possibly afford to be able to replace the light service from the curb stuff into their house even though in the past we have offered a credit program which was a program where we issue a 500 credit uh to the uh to the bill for anybody that replaces the service but with the
45:07partial replacement of the service costing almost four thousand dollars per Service uh you know five hundred dollar credit on the appeal is very amenable you know we looked at different programs of potentially taking in you know doing different types of uh of spending and how to charge it well uh you know there's there's a lot of different things that are going on right now uh I've just read the whole entire
45:42uh claim against Providence uh the Providence waterboard by a a couple of uh organizations uh their claims included uh the fact where so Providence had a program where a whole voter could borrow up to forty five hundred dollars at zero percent interested repaid over 10 years back to the water department to use to replace the online service their claims against the Providence water district was that that is
46:17discriminatory uh against uh people that are eligible to be able to pay that back and the kind of what I've heard is that the rulings may go in favor of the claims that have been made in that way so for us to uh disproportionately allocate a cost to potentially DJ household isn't something that uh the Regulatory Agencies were uh we're going to be potty too so this is we're going to have to burden
46:55the cost with the change of the revised leading copper rules coming up uh in 2024 um so this the 11 copper rules right now that were implemented in 1997 and now they have the revised leading copper rules that are implemented in October 15th I think 2024.
47:18um so bored yeah fast approaching within that revised lead and copper rule it also states that a lead service cannot be considered removed from your system unless it is a full wet service all the way from the main into the house the other issue there's also studies that have been done that show that you are better off if you're going to not do the full wedge service the CPA EPA studies that show you're better off
47:50leaving the whole entire LED service and not removing a portion of it because that may Spike the levels of lead that people within the household uh I'm gonna ingest it to their body so again those those are a lot of the cases that you know the discussions that went back and forth through this through this whole time process um so what it comes down to essentially and uh what we're what we're looking to agree
48:25to uh is a number of web services uh to be replaced the numbers that we have would be uh 400 by December of 23.
48:38600 by January 1st of 24.
48:49now excuse me by December 31st and 24th okay 600 by December 25 of 25 and then another 400 by December of 26. that's 2 000 lead services within a four-year period that's that's a pretty big number that's aggressive yes it is but I was like to think that I don't propose an issue without a solution as you always do I try to not always but I try to um this is this roughly totals up to
49:35about 17 million dollars um which is a hefty chunk of change yes it did uh there's uh there's three funding sources that we're looking at is uh one funding source uh very loud that's uh to be announced yet um but uh it is a funding source that's going to come through um as long as we don't get a unilateral order essentially um this which is going to have no cost to the rate payers
50:14I would propose to the city council the city council has allocated six million dollars in the Bristol County Alpha funds to go towards Water and Sewer projects uh I would uh recommend to them that three million of that go towards lead service removal yes I'll also be coming back to the commission with looking for an authorization of 4.6 billion dollars um that 4.6 million dollars and that's an
50:48authorization pools of that 4.6 billion dollars what that allows us to do uh is be able to use the bipartisan infrastructure law funding um so all of the bipartisan infrastructure law funding all the funding that's coming down from that bill full water and sewered stormwater projects is being funneled through the srf program as a principal reduction um so the principal reduction uh that
51:19will be uh that will be getting uh kid very uh anywhere 30 30 60 who knows what that principal reduction will be uh I don't think it will be any less than 30 based on standard principle reductions that we've received in the past with the bipartisan influence structure law of principle reduction SunPass so essentially for these first four years we'd be working with a 17 million dollar project with my estimate
51:53right now would be maybe three billion dollars in loans that will wipe out over two thousand Blood Services within the city currently we have uh 3 800 or so uh full-ed partial ledge Services throughout the city so 756 full within our inventory and uh 2000 2800 change in partials then another hundred and so that's whole motor partials and a hundred and died from the main to the curb stop partials so
52:39again uh you know it will have to deal with those so after 2027 we'll still be committed to another 400 per year uh the other thing that we're doing right now in this process has also helped us uh is we're updating all of our inventory so for the revised 11 copper rule by 2024 we have to have a full inventory of all of our services throughout the city so not we've always added inventory to lead
53:09services this needs to be every single service that feeds a house or property in the city and what the material is we've been able to get a uh we've been able to get a principal reduction load so it's a it's a load of 750 000 dollars which the board previously proved a contract for uh but it's a hundred percent principle reduction so essentially it's cost against nothing to be able to do that full inventory be
53:40able to do that full search um so by 2024 uh prior to 2024 in it's laid out inherence in six months we'll have the inventory for that for dep within 12 months we'll have the lead service plan uh so we'll have those inventories really hard doubles where they are what they are you know the whole entire inventory process that I set up actually includes people knocking on the door going into
54:14the house to see whether because we need solid numbers we can't be guessing anymore moving forward we need to know what's in every house so this program helps us get to that point some of the other things that are so that's the big one is that's the big ticket out of the video how many let services are we going to replace um 3 800 that includes residential and Commercial properties
54:46yes do do we also have to incur the cost for the commercial properties we would have to incur for any property so lead service is a bidable uh commercial properties uh just due to the size of the services you're typically smaller 5 8 Services would be the lead service so yeah we would need to take care of for both and property it'll discern you to hear what it is foreign with both the state and federal on
55:28conference calls and there was no yielding whatsoever by the state or the feds as to what we were going to do we were going to replace the lead Services my biggest fear or concern was replacing or paying for Blood Services as part of the user fee and I believe we are going to be very successful in not incurring costs that would be passed on through the user fee for the removal of lead services
56:16there'll be they'll be greatly minimized greatly minimized um to does anyone anybody else have any questions at this point all right uh so just some of the other things that I already hear uh within 90 days will provide them a uh all the forms that we'll be providing to residents um for information about lead service customer notices access agreements and stuff like that because essentially
56:49we're going to have to have a contract to go on to the private property so that contract will have to get consent to be able to go out to the private property the homeowners will have the ability to opt out of Replacement Service which you know I don't think it's beneficial you know the whole point of this whole type program is to get the lead out of the drinking water system keep children
57:14safe keep people safe at you know uh let down Within stop it from getting within people through the drinking water system so people that want to opt out they definitely can will be required to cite it and uh they'll be taken off the list of that point and put on a Duda uh to the you know replace list it will continue to set the public education information about their wet service to try to get it
57:47you know uh so uh within the 90 days we need to get all that stuff to dep within 120 days we need to provide them alleged service removal plan which a couple that will be able to uh to achieve uh as I said the six months for the uh service inventory 12 months for the uh uh for a lodger of lead service removal plan and then uh apply with the October 16th 2024 D for
58:24the full uh inventory uh there will be uh annual reports due in quarterly reports due quarterly reports will be due uh you know quarterly throughout the year on the 15th after the end of the quarter the annual report will be due with us 10 degree products done January that took uh after the close of the year uh what are the other things that they're requiring in here is whatever a
58:57lead service is replaced which this is a requirement within the revised leaded copper roll that we would have to do uh in October of 2024 anyways and we would have to provide anybody uh that we change the lead service out with a a water pitcher a filter pitcher uh so uh you know by Fall River accent is Coveted there a little bit but uh you know so like a Brita type filter picture
59:28that will allow them to use with six months worth of filters uh because the EPA has had studies showed that right after a lead replacement with disturbance of that and the other plumbing system around it it could be an increase in lead so we will provide that to one to each uh each household within a building either us or the contractors so we'll be providing that uh they'll be uh sampling that'll be required after
1:00:01the web service replacement as well but pretty you besides that uh you know it goes into uh boil a plate so this is an acop um which is a uh consent to order uh an administrative consent on a with penalty so the penalty that they've assessed is 25 300 of that penalty though uh will be stayed and as long as we don't violate this order within three years uh it will be vacated
1:00:45three years of 2024 or three years of when the order Begins the execution of Leo thank you so uh that kind of runs through again if we violate the order that's when these penalties of 500 per day um I don't expect that we're going to violate this Automotive this is uh you know this is this is a big whip this is a big burden for the city but I think right now with
1:01:21a lot of the resources that are out there it's going to be a good time to get this done get lead Services out of our head and just be done with it yeah um 17 million dollars is certainly a large amount of money but buffering that large amount of money is the availability of funds and again a lot of hard work in applying for Grants and different funding sources so I
1:02:11we need to get this passed because this has been hanging and hanging and hanging and it's not going anywhere and it could have resulted in some serious penalties it could have resulted in some very serious action from the governing body that yeah so so let me let me talk just a little bit about that so if we were not to go into a consent order with dep if we would go with the unilateral you know
1:02:46until the EP though we don't want to do this uh give us what you're going to give us so essentially they would they would develop a unilateral order I expect this that the service levels would be somewhere between 700 to 1000 per year would be my guess uh that they would require us to replace a lot of the other things would be a lot more estrogen in here as well uh the problem with the unilateral water
1:03:16so some people might say okay you know take the util go out of water just to peel it but the problem is with this type of unilateral water it has to do with public they say it has to do with public health and safety which it does so even if you appeal the order of the order stays in place and as you're going through the appeal process you still have to follow the order
1:03:49so and then you're in front of a potential judge and everything else like that the other concerns that I really have is what that would do with our ability to get great but if the water departments uh you know our capacity rating which dropped last year for uh from adequate to conditional if we were dropped it inadequate that could potentially seriously her our ability to get current Grant funds that are allocated
1:04:26to us or any type of future grid funding that we would apply for so you know just going through tonight the amount of grant funding that we were that I went over you know that we applied tonight to its different projects we might not be able to get that if if there's no doubt in my mind we wouldn't just a little historic pressure reference here when the state revolving Loan Fund first developed Fall River
1:05:03applied and we were denied every year every single year and the reason was we weren't an Enterprise fund our rate didn't support our budget we were constantly using the general fund to run the water department and the state came down and said no you cannot do that you've got to do this the way we want it done and so we did and immediately after that we began to get srf funding and we started the 42-7 point
1:05:38and the rest is history the state is not fooling around on this and they would in my opinion have had punitive action towards the city we know what happened and again you know we're sorry to bring up past history but we know what happened when the city walked at a CSO order and ended up in federal court and what happened then so what in my opinion what we have here is an outstanding agreement
1:06:23hammered out we gave a little they gave a little everybody came to agreement and we're going to have to proceed that's all a restore can't say enough there I was kind of shocked at the percentage that was referenced in here that Fall River is an environmental justice Community with 77 percent of the population living in an environmental justice designated block groups often we don't
1:07:08really realize exactly how the outside looks at us you know from the state and federal level that's that's a real eye-opener and um in this case it's going to help us so without any further Ado unless there are any further questions concerns the chair would very happily entertain a motion to proceed with the ACO um the need a vote to go forward with the acceptance yeah okay so then we would need a motion to proceed
1:07:51with accepting the ACO as presented this evening second all in favor aye that's tried to be as brief as possible no and and please I know I'm sort of Meandering around on a couple of things I cannot I I just I can't tell you how happy I am that we've just voted on this because this is this was really serious and thank you Paul for your efforts and your staff's efforts um
1:08:34geez a lot of work a lot of work okay moving on rapidly to item number eight updates on ongoing projects our first is a letter of award for flowable fill to Preferred Concrete the amount of fifty thousand dollars preferred was the only bidder okay so this is rather straightforward so the chair would entertain a motion to approve the bid total in the amount of fifty thousand four hundred and forty two
1:09:06dollars for flowable controlled density fill and concrete for fiscal year 2023s so so has these up under the fifty thousand does it need to be a fourth boat oh well information a lot of these did you say under 50. well this one is 50 yeah so it was 50 000 400 code okay so we don't need to vote on them yeah all these are for informational for the board but we can still run through them I
1:09:44definitely more than happy too Chris what do we use the flow about that I mean Paul what do we use the flowable fill for uh so the city has an audited that uh any trench that is less that runs perpendicular to the street that is less than 20 feet long yeah or excuse me runs parallel to the street it is less than 20 feet long or any trench that is
1:10:08perpendicular so if we go out and we have a break of the bait we would not longer than 20 feet so we need to flow fill that hole if we go out we have a service week that runs perpendicular to the street we have to use chlorophyll in that hole so this is like a not to exceed this is just like a yard a yardage price that we use to quantitate
1:10:28all right thank you we uh just a little bit of reference um for years and years and years we didn't use flowable fill and as you get down yeah yeah you could tell uh our trenches were notorious now we use flowable Bill and our trenches are acceptable I think we had when we added Donuts like 10 years ago maybe yeah yeah at one time it was only on what we averages on really
1:10:58code six into sections so a major intersections we were using it but then the city passed the Audits and everybody's yeah much better thank you um are you reviewing yep so the next one is just uh regulatory debt inspections Park operation 60 300 so these are required every two years for a high Hazard devs uh phase one study that is required to be done by a PE foreign the next one on here is a change order
1:11:41number three uh for CED Corp under the phase 20 water made replacement uh his change order is in the about of thirty six thousand dollars so uh on pit industry we did a a little bit more uh painting uh just to uh we didn't want to leave the patchwork so the payment quantity went up and then there was an increase to the allowance for adjustment of diesel fuels of the oil-based products in the
1:12:23contracted that's required buddy by the srf funding program and um Fall River electrical Electrical Services oh yep so that's where I standed annual yeah uh electrical service contract
1:12:51and then uh have a controls for uh annual Escape maintenance contract
1:13:07are there any potential matters to come before the board any questions omissions hearing none the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn secondly all in favor