The Watuppa Water Board convened on December 18, 2023, with a quorum present, and approved several key financial items and contracts. The board unanimously approved the minutes from the November 3rd meeting and a total of $7,723 in proposed leak abatements. They also approved a $25,000 contract with Woodward and Current for Phase Three of the South Watuppa Pond watershed management study, focusing on quantifying external water loading. A contract with Wright Pierce for the full design of a new fluoride addition system was approved, pending ARPA funding. Additionally, the board approved Santech Change Order Number Three for $191,500 for ARPA water and roadway improvements, which included additional work on Oak Grove Avenue. A $90,000 contract with Heier LLC for a comprehensive water supply yield study, funded by an MVP grant, was approved to assess current water resources and potentially avoid new state regulations. Finally, AD Pini Change Order Number Two for $85,000 was approved to increase lead service replacement verifications and associated work, with a new contract for lead service replacement expected to go out for bid in mid-January. Following the formal agenda, Council President Tero provided a historical overview of Fall River's water supply, noting that January 5, 2024, marks 150 years since the steam engine began pumping water to the city. He highlighted the rapid development of the water system after Mayor Samuel M. Brown's 1870 inaugural speech and the system's role in mitigating the 1874 Granite Mill Fire. The board discussed plans for a Water Department Community Day in the spring to celebrate this 150-year milestone and dedicate a new building, offering public tours of facilities.
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um I have 3 minutes after 7 appears that five five I'm check that I have about 3 minutes after five would you like to president 10 and uh it appears that a quarum is here um so we'll call this meeting to order would the clerk call the role please uh presal present member Ferrera here member Collins here thank you having a quarum we will proceed to item number one on the uh
0:36pursuant to the open meeting walk very important any person may make an audio or video recording of this meeting this public meeting or may Transit transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible we will move to number item
1:06number one on the agenda is citizen input uh so I don't have any formal citizens input I just want to make the board aware so prior to the meeting today I did receive a call uh from a concerned citizen about the uh leak of batment and how they're displayed on the agenda um we will be uh reviewing that policy uh and may have uh may have adjustments to the leak abatement policy
1:34in the future for the board to approve for the administrative end of it we could bring that up um in the coming year um at a meeting all right great yeah that's that's fine with me um we want to make sure that we're handling those properly um nothing else under citizen input uh item number two minutes of the previous meeting motion to approve second all those in favor I I
2:06I minutes of the pre of November 3rd meeting are approved um proposed leak abatements um why don't we since we're going to change that um the way these are displayed why don't we just jump to an approval um of the total or do you want to dissect them yeah if there's any questions of them individually um the board has been provided the uh the sheet um basically it runs through with all of
2:35the uh ones that meet the minimum criteria of the abatement policy uh have a calculated uh amount uh for credit based on the policy amount uh ones that did not uh meet the minimum requirements of the policy are recommended for denial we have a total of $772 3 of a bait ments um chair would entertain a motion to approve the abatement of $ 7,723 if there are no other questions um motion approve as listed
3:14motion second it all in favor I um leaving that one behind very interesting Woodward and current now item number four is the Woodward and current if you could just hang on for one second okay um South wupa P Water excuse me getting ahead of myself South wupa Pond watershed management study phase three $25,000 Mr Clerk so this amendment uh continues on the work that we've been doing on southw tuap pan we've done a
4:05lot we had a uh public Outreach meeting uh this past fall um to kind of let the residents know what's been going on uh we've been lucky enough to be able to get a uh a fair amount of grant funding arpa funding um so this so far uh besides our staff time and assistance that we've provided really hasn't cost our R pay as uh much to uh work on uh improving the water quality of the South
4:30wupa Pond uh this uh this small $25,000 contract what we call them phase three uh is going to look at the and balance the external loading uh so that's one of the things that's that's been talked about a lot so that we can really uh narrow down to see what's inside the pond we did some sediment sedimentation sampling this past year uh and some different things so we really need to we've identified the point loads
5:01that are coming in the streams or drainage areas what we really need to do is quantify that potentially what comes in and how much comes in in those particular areas to balance that off and and essentially you you end up making a bank where all right you figure 75% comes from your settlement 25 from your inflow or maybe a 40% from inflow 60% maybe you know however that works out
5:29that's really going to be a key po uh for us to be able to explain uh and understand how much we would want to invest in the Imp Pond um treatment uh for a short fix compared to how much we're going to need to do on the long-term logic fix of the water shed you're looking at sediment and chemical analysis of the sediment or uh this is actually taking and really quantifying
5:55the amount of water that's that's coming in quantifying the water correct exactly so so we're looking at big things sucker Brook uh Stony Brook uh the Interceptor drain some of those major Point sources and how much water they may be carrying in um at the end of the at the end of the um agenda um I would like to take a couple of minutes and just talk about something that um the um other
6:22Commissioners or I could just mention it at this point I've been going over um the old records of the the U Department going back to 1870 and I've been making lists of um highlights and at one of the things I discovered and we'll get to this in a little bit uh briefly um is that they had a wear of some sort and they measured the Interceptor drain and they would include that in their annual
6:55report it'd be very interesting to see exactly how much comes out a while Terry doesn't go in there but sucker Highland Crest and the catch basins along the highway be very interesting to see this yeah without with without a doubt some of the reports that I would diing through to show things like that uh actually I found a report prior to 1915 that was showing uh how much water we'd
7:21be losing when the Interceptor was was built how much water the you know input the northw Tupper would be losing yeah stuff like that so and it's a large amount yeah Y without a doubt cuz that's a big drainage area that comes down into that intercepted R you know when you look at it topographically and it you look at it topographically and then you look at the old FST map that showed you
7:49where all of the Brooks came in it's an incredible drainage from basically Robeson Street East yeah yeah talking all the way from Valentine in the you know the cemetery up north there robis in all goes down in yeah and then East or north of that it goes uh steep Brook steep Brook that way this is going to be a very interesting study I I'm looking forward to this so we have a um we have
8:21a proposal in the amount of $25,000 um could I have a motion to approve move second all in favor I I thank you uh item number five right Pierce this is theendum number one on our floor ride and Mr clerk we're proceeding along yeah so we had uh we had an initial uh study done by uh R Pi on uh fluoride addition to the water treatment plant um and updating that
8:58system system this is including the full design of that uh new uh fluoride system for the water treatment plan uh I put this in front of the board but I'm still waiting on uh arpa funding to be approved for the use of this um but uh so uh if the board does approve this this may sit uh for a while until I have that arpa funding secured until funding is secured okay um entertain a motion
9:31motion second all in favor all right moving on to item number six santech change order number three arpa water and roadway improvements in the amount of $191,500 Mr clerk so this is in relation to the OPA water main replacement Cod contract that uh has been undergoing uh the end of last year this whole summer uh and we'll we'll finish up in the spring uh through the contract we added on a lot
10:05of some additional work for the contractor which also adds in additional time needed for uh our inspectional services uh we added on the balance of Oak grve Avenue to go all the way from uh Locust all the way up to New Boston Road including the New Boston Road intersection um which we went out into that intersection just due to the fact that last year we had a major bre intersection and that's one of the Reas
10:32that we end up do that so that's why we go into that new pavement there uh CU I know some people have asked but uh that will be redone when we repave that section of oakrow from way big foundation going in on that corner yeah so there so that uh project on the corner of Oak grve in New Boston Road came in front of site plan review it's a commercial a smaller commercial building
10:56that's being put in there um but uh yeah so you know this will be uh additional Services required for uh all that additional inspection time uh as buils and other things that are required of for the uh engineering consultant to do on the ARA project all right are there any questions concerning no questions uh chair entertain a motion to approve some moved second all in favor I I okay
11:29now we are heyer LLC contract water supply yield study so this is an interesting one uh so we went out to RFQ uh this company uh was the uh L responsive responsible bidder um the only one uh just for the record uh that did that did Supply uh a uh proposal uh this is in relation to an MVP grant that we got uh last year um Municipal vulnerability preparedness Grant um the Grant application that we
12:05submitted uh is a partnership between us and sered um and uh we rewarded the grant of a little bit over $130,000 um this is to take a look at our whole entire yield uh study so uh they don't call it a safe yield anymore they call it you look at more firmi firmi U and there there's other there's other plays on the yield but what we really want to do so this is kind of
12:32building uh also on another prior study that we did the uh interconnect study that shows how you know the potential to be able to supply Somerset in Swansea uh and other surrounding communities with water um we know North wer uh our yields right now are based off of what was uh what was designated back in 1984 uh when they did the yield study for our registration uh and they took the prior years and kind of grouped
13:01those together and said hey this is this is what we're calling the safe yield um copaa uh has had uh has had uh a basic study when it was originally uh generated back in the 70s when the when the dam was built um 2011 there was uh there was a real rough update that was done by DP on some of the Water Supplies South wupa has never really been looked
13:26at uh and South wupa is listed as one of our emergency Water Supplies um so our primary is the north wer Pond uh secondary is Copa uh on our registration South wupa is still listed as uh an emergency water supply um in the future and again that's why we bought the uh property um uh the old Daves Beach property off of Jefferson Street is for a future water treatment plan so um you
13:59know if we ever need to tap into that resource to supply other surrounding communities um what would what would our yield look like what would we safely be able to supply um right now our registrations are 14.9 um so there's a lot of things that play into this uh I think I've talked to the board about the change in the Water Management act that D made last year that we're appealing to the Supreme Court
14:29um but uh there is no decision whether we're going to win yet or not uh that that filing uh along with a bunch of other communities um but that really kind of we need to know what our current yield is and how it uh impacts it back back at the napkin calculations right now we have 1.96 uh times our yearly safy yield in storage if we can get it the Water Management
15:02the changes to the Water Management act says that if you have two or greater you don't fall underneath the new changes in the regulations so we're 0.04 off if we're able to do this study prove that we have more than two times the safe yield including southw which on our registration then we may not have to fall underneath those uh water restricting regulations would you during this
15:32examination would you have them take a look at what was classified as an industrial water supply of nooke um which was so nooke is still listed on our registration as well okay um and nooke was used in multiple different it was looked at I think originally back in the 20s and 30s as supplement for North wupa yes it was finally put in use as supplement for South tuer for the industrial use of the water that's right
16:01um currently there is nothing attached to no choke um we we'll kind of investigate that a little bit but we're not going we're not going to go in full depth because uh some of the Upstream circumstances within Lake nooke I would be a little bit uh potentially concerned of of you know the quality uh there and whether it is actually usable yeah well be something to look at anyway yeah you
16:29know there's a lot of different things out there Dartmouth isn't very far from copicut their water distribution system uh you know which uh they I've heard that they've had issues with their Wells they're not far from Westport connection to Westport uh which would get come directly from our treatment plant so uh you know there's a lot of different options out there and we have a lot of
16:50resources and I think we need to position ourselves right now while we can uh to be a uh a good supplier within the region I think that's an excellent plan um any questions concerns all right the chair would entertain a motion to approve uh $90,000 for the water supply yield study so moved second all in favor I I uh which brings us to item number eight ad palon change
17:25order uh number two in the amount of 800 $5,000 and I don't think anyone will be shocked to find they found more things than they had originally anticipated yeah so uh just in relation to this change order this change order is increasing uh a the amount of verifications uh to be done by ad Pini uh and the amount of ledge services for them to replace and Associated work uh you know sidewalks with and some other
17:56things so uh D Pini is the contractor that uh that won the bid um about 6 months ago uh for the lead service replacement contract uh they have been moving right through um right now one of the toughest things that we're having trouble finding uh is actually finding the lent Services um these numbers uh they were the low bidder when they came in uh there was three bid is two of them
18:23were very close together a third one was much higher than uh the other two uh and pale was awarded uh the numbers are very uh competitive they've agreed not to in no increases for these uh for these increased quantities um so I feel that we uh to keep this ball rolling keep moving with the lead service replacing investigating web services uh this change order will be well well well
18:50suited um we will also be going out for a contract where under design uh probably uh mid January so it'll be out on the street for uh open bidding to continue the L service replacement um excellent excellent um any questions on the increase I hear none uh chair entertain a motion to so moved second second all in favor I that brings us uh to the end of the U meeting agenda but I would like take
19:28minute here and just bring you up to speed on some things I've I have researched and found and I think this is of great interest so bear with me on January 3rd 1870 mayor Samuel M Brown in his inaugural speech said that the goal of his administration would be to bring drinking water to the city of Fall River and they formed the water board they found uh they formed the reservoir commission the Water
20:06Commission and on January 5th 1874 or 150 years this coming January 5th the engine the steam engine was started and on January 8th the water filled the 2 they put a 24 and an 8 in down Bedford and on the eth the water reached Main Street so from that time forward there were hydrants laterals and following that in September of that year was the granite mfire and one of the reasons the granite
20:50mfire didn't take out everything was they had they had water there was a loss of life I believe there were over 25 fatalities but going over the old books um one of the things that I I I found not lost they're here but um there's some very interesting history and going over it I found two things that I I thought I'd just like to share with you this evening one is the plant was built in the
21:27pond they put a copper Dam out into the pond and cracked through 16 ft of granite and excavated got down to where they could pour Foundation they put a couple of feet of concrete and laid granite in there and built the water pumping station and that's why I always wondered why the driveway went around in a horseshoe well it's because they were out in the pond the other thing that they designed was
22:01that they were going to pump the water up the hill to where the tanks are in Bedford Street now and build a 30 million gallon reservoir on Reservoir Street and the idea was to shut the steam engine down at night and gravity feed the city from the 30 million gallon Reservoir they elected later to go to four stand pipes they built the original tower which contained two stand pipes a high pressure and a low pressure and
22:34then from there they constructed I think in order it be Townsen Hill hasell and Bedford in that order but it's fascinating so one of the things I'm doing is highlighting each year number gallons pumped rainfall yield and we'll have that for 15 50 odd years but the um the history is really something the fact that we've been supplying water for 150 years I think is I think it's a big deal
23:13so we get a party we get to have a party in the office office party I people we have they deserve we have a new building to dedicate this summer I'm perhaps uh we could come up with something um yeah so just to touch on that you know 2020 was 150 year of anniversary of the water department and I was planning out a celebration kind of that year that year um with the
23:44which what happened we kind of got squashed um but uh you know with with President Tero finding out this this information I didn't know that the you know 24 is 150 years of us applying the actual water uh to the residents of the city of Fall River for domestic and Fire Protection um so I think uh that's kind of good uh point to be able to kind of piggy back on since we got stolen from
24:12the 2020 celebration to be able to hold a celebration uh my hopes is in the spring because I've had some inquiries about the about the new building uh as you know they just demolished the old building Pavements still got to get completed as well as some other work um so they're finishing that up my plan is in the spring to have a water department Community Day uh open up our building to
24:36uh to the public as well as uh tours of our plant or our older facilities down there uh and allow the public to be able to come in wonderful idea and view what we have so that's a wonderful idea and I think it's the kind of a thing in which we can we can all take a great deal of pride in but I think Community awareness um in Reading over the history especially the concern that they
25:05had in researching lead as the proper service material even uh they checked in with Paris with the Paris water department uh who were U outfitting the City of Lights with um new le service and the U the French uh scientific establishment all agreed that that was the way to go and so and there was no uh because the buildup of calcium on the inside precluded any lead poisoning which was rather an
25:39interesting thing back then but I think that would be a terrific idea to to do something along those lines and maybe speak to some of our vendors about chachis or something maybe a dunk tank for Mr Tero to be in for a couple I I think I I think a a a a three seat dunk tank with the Commissioners do you really think that's a useful use City Water City
26:07Water Well we could we could take it from the Interceptor drink I I guess we we should deny that yes you can always vote against it but no I think that's a great idea Paul is to have a community day and Community awareness I mean it yeah I I I I get really hung up in history a lot but I was thinking how much easier it was after January of 1874
26:39for somebody you know living in an apartment or having a business or having I mean just a fire protection alone but um the delivery of water and it's really interesting at the speed at which the system I mean we're talking 4 years years they went from a proposal to being fully operational as far as they were and then each year afterwards this um this report takes us from 1871 to 1878
27:12and the explosion of services the demand for services is just incredible um so we have a rich history and um it I think it'd be nice to um inform people about it without a doubt definitely is there anything else to come before the board this evening if not chaired entertain a motion to adjourn it so moved so moved second second all in favor hi bye