2.28.2023 Watuppa Water Board

having a quorum present let's call this meeting of the watapa water board to order 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 are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible with

that citizen input uh it's just the role oh I'm sorry we went too far here here thank you item number one citizen input so there was not anybody that signed up for Citizens input then we shall move to item number two on the agenda which the minutes of the previous meeting have continued in your packet if there are any omissions Corrections the chair will entertain a motion to accept the minutes as presented

all in favor aye aye moving on to number three proposed leak abatements foreign we have a total of wow we have a totalized page don't we thank you one moment please we have abatements totaling 8 272.60 I was speaking with director Ferlin before the meeting um over 95 percent of the leaks that we Abate are toilet leaks and I was wondering if it might not be time to make a new

insert in the bills beginning in the fiscal year I was looking online at the awwa they had a single page and it was very informative of things to look for and how to how to monitor your water meter I thought it might be a a handy thing to to develop Tom for your bills going forward so perhaps we could look at something like that for the next meeting and yeah definitely I don't see so our

mailing allows us to add three uh two extra pages to our bill so it could be something that we couldn't serve with the building yeah what I saw was a front to back um eight and a half by eleven sheet but it had some it had some very good tips on what to look for and how to you know the old food coloring and the toilet tank truck and those types of things but

the when you when you see the size of some of these bills and and the the relationship to the bill prior to the bill after the repair has been made it's a significant amount of money so with without any further Ado um are there any questions regarding the um abatements to be approved hearing none the chair would entertain a motion to accept the leak abatements per leak abatement policy

in the amount of eight thousand two hundred and seventy two dollars and sixty cents second all in favor aye thank you item number four bisco Building Systems Water Maintenance building Mr Clerk so in front of you you have a change order about excuse me a increase in the contract for unit price Billings um So within the contract when the contractor bid there was specific unit prices that

were included in the contract for additional gravel above and beyond what's required within the contract one of those was also ledge removal so during the bid in process the bidder gave us a unit price number which was then tracked throughout the construction process and then so this is the contract adjustment for those the other thing included within here was the winter conditions that we

pay in Foster the way that this contract was bid originally the contractor it wasn't anticipated by the contractor or by us that there would be winter conditions for the uh uh all the subsurface work installation and foundation and everything like that due to the time of the bidding and stuff like that when we built this project uh as some of the board members know we originally we worked with the original

low bidder of the contract and was not able to uh come to a contract at that point so they weren't willing to go into contract with the city for the email that they bid we lost about four months five months of construction time uh working with that contractor trying to get them under contract so that put once we were able to award the contract to bisco Contracting they were then into

conditions with things that weren't anticipated to be in Winter conditions being all the self-surface foundation uh groundwork so that's what this is uh this is in here for it's labeled as if not I'm looking for the board to do uh not to not to exceed number of what is provided of 772 638.81 because the engineers are still waiting for some additional uh backup just to confirm all the pricing

so the engineer confirms the quantities so how would you like to handle that so if the board wants to approve the not to exceed 772 683 okay uh 0.81 then the chair would entertain a motion um to accept not to exceed 772 638.81 cents motion made second second all in favor hi proposed item number five proposed fiscal year 2024 budget of 14 million 799 457 dollars

and we are keeping two Massachusetts General Law chapter 44 section 53 and a half that if we approve this tonight we will it will go to the mayor's office tomorrow morning and to comply with 120 day rule to fully fund the amount we are going to be requiring item number six so if there are no questions regarding the budget itself then we could entertain a motion to accept the budget at 14 million 799 457 dollars

for by an act of God we actually get to fill the positions that you're looking to fill yeah so opposite all positions are budgeted as well as there is uh you know there as in past board meetings there has been uh potential uh Labor uh increases uh that has been in negotiations um my best projected uh some before landing on those are included within this budget under uh other Personnel costs in each separate division

just to speak a little bit on uh with the president said the budget is required to go to uh Administration and the student council 120 days prior to the start of the fiscal year which is March 3rd so this will be brought up and go to the administration and hopefully industry down account for approval the admit the council then has 41 excuse me 45 days from that time to approve the approve

reject or deny or reduce the budget so to act on the budget the council has 45 days from that time so I expect over the next month and a half I will be having hearings in relation to the budget and the rate in front of the uh in front of the city council following up on commissioner Collins is the question is we have nine vacancies in this budget for maintenance five at the treatment plan

how do we look to getting additional Personnel in the treatment plant that is a that is a question that we've been battling with for a couple of years now that's a tough one so uh it's a five five at the treatment plant which includes uh uh excuse me five five and maintenance but oh I'm sorry did I hit that wrong no five Dimensions but since then we've also since this budget was fully developed we've lost uh

two of these staff members so it's actually increased from here so how do we get those positions filled again you know treatment is one thing that uh highly concerned about being able to get the licensed operators down there um you know I was actually on the phone with uh dep the head of the Southeast region uh drinking water program today and he was telling me uh about a huge said that there's a couple other

communities that he spoke with that are also a dire need of operators you know we've been able to maintain we're down one shift operator right now but in the rest of the time the rest of it is staffed um you know I think one of our really good ways to do it is uh internal growth there is a couple of uh individuals from the maintenance division that we're looking to cross-train and hopefully get

licensed as operators there's also uh an open position that will be advertising uh hopefully put somebody with either D1 or t1rt2 to be able to come into in the lab and then be able to work their way up to be able to be a fully licensed operator to operate our plants so I think I think right now internal growth is one way to do it you know in the whole entire field

it's something that needs to be uh that needs to be done the whole entire region really um you know I was just a diamond a couple of weeks ago speaking to some of their students uh about a water sewer uh and you know one thing that I always emphasize when I'm at uh talking to schools and students and stuff like that is the emphasis of the careers within this field

coming into this field you can make a very good living in either the water or the Wastewater field you know water is a little bit cleaner than Wastewater but the you know it definitely you can make you can make a good living and make and make a career out of it you know following up on that and you often hear the chatter on talk shows and whatnot there are no good jobs there are

none of this and we're looking at 65 to 70 000 range for these positions that is significant money in this community and we've got three of them open three operators and one laptop yeah without a doubt you know that's uh uh it like I said it's it's definitely a career where you can make good money uh and that's the base salary plus overtime yeah plus uh other benefits uh for licensed

stipends health care benefits vacation sick leave fringe benefits vacation health care just it's and it's a golden ticket right now to have it really is what an operator's license or a Wastewater operators license right now you can be employed almost instantly it's an amazing sixty nine thousand dollars starting salary well 64 728 before for 65 000 to start and we can't find them

any other questions on the budget thank you hearing no questions on the budget um chair would entertain a motion to approve the budget that the amount of 14 million seven hundred and ninety nine thousand four hundred and fifty Seven dollars removed it's a motion made seconded all in favor aye we move to number six which is the water rate of 3.77 per hundred which is mandatory to

support the budget that was just passed correct so without any further Ado if there are no questions the 3.77 per 100 as of July the first or the first fiscal first day of the new fiscal year would then go into ordinance yep um without a doubt so uh that would be the uh the new rate um the impact to the average household is roughly 10.60 per year that's based on the average household that's based on

the 53 CCF that we've used historically and have calculated as an average for a household um if you combine both the water and sewer increases on the on the rates are you talking about uh 61 cents per per week be the increase to the average household so it wasn't a cup of coffee listen I think a cup of coffee is a lot more than five dollars now sometimes I don't drink coffee but well that's what

I'm saying it's less than a cup of coffee Loveless so chair would entertain a motion to approve the rate of 3.77 what's made motion made second second all in favor aye good item number seven article 97 protection for properties located within the city's drinking water area excellent thank you Mr levossier yes on this so this was a uh this was a CPC grant that we were able to obtain uh there was

a number of properties uh that are owned and managed by the water department that uh were bought prior to uh the implementation of article 97 uh so it was uh possibly there may have been some question whether the article 97 provided the protection for those lands or not some people say yes some people say no we say yes what this is doing is providing an overlaying Deed on those properties uh

just to determine that there actually is article 97 protect protection to these properties and I'll let Mike talk a little bit about the properties the area sure what it's actually doing thank you Paul so when the um when the con when the buyers are occurred and the City recorded a conservation restriction on most of the what's upper reservation and that was exactly in keeping with the

purpose of owning and holding the land which is to protect the water supply and land surrounding the Northwest upper pond in the copacet um when that occurred some of the lands were actually omitted from the conservation restriction and from the Biore Reserve Land on the west side of the Northwest upper Pond for example land surrounding Pond swamp and this is our of course the Northwest type of pond

is our primary drinking water supply a couple of parcels down along Blossom Road and then the Copa Cup Rifle Association property which is off of copper Cut Road itself so article 97 is is basically a constant a constitutional uh part of the mass Constitution which states that lands that were required for the purpose of with public funds required for the purpose of recreation or conservation in

this case drinking water supply those lands require permanent protection any lens that we might acquire through the community preservation act requires a conservation restriction again permanent protection so this is merely an overlay of the existing Deeds which are already into the department and it's an overlay which is a which affirmatively states that these properties now have the full force

of protection under article 97. a lot of these properties were bought in the 1800s I mean we the city began buying properties in 1895 so these acquisitions predated article 97 but now article 97 is very clear and we're simply stating that we recognize that these parcels that were required with public funds for the purpose of watershed protection will remain protected it's a it's a deed of

just a couple of pages it overlays existing deeds and we got a CPA granted through the legal fund for it which included title work and the creation of these um documents so that's in a nutshell if there are any questions good answer no not really how far up Wilson does the um how far up the Pond Hill right um there's a little subdivision called it's called Pond Hill Drive right so the

the original what type of reservation boundary a budget and so that's for that that's it that's the boundary right there and and most of the the Jigs and Jags here are part of the original layout that goes back to you know 1908. most of the parcels that were acquired in the early 20th century were along the west side does that include Davis playground okay that is not ours at all

I'm not saying it's not art I'm saying yeah this does not yeah that's a piece that's uh designated for Park use right not forwarded phone okay that'd be similar to the ball fields uh yes and I would assume that it would have article 97 protection but this through the park Department um potentially depending on how right so so that's this is not this project is not addressing that this project is addressing

Parcels that are in the water supply watershed strictly you may ask a question so tracks 11 and 12 of those are those owned by um the city or those owned by private properties this all of these are owned by the city okay okay thank you that was yeah that's a good question because you know we're we're not sort of we're staying in our lane yeah okay that yeah so just the process for this it'll be uh

you know waterboard approved that's released into the ones that oversee uh these properties in particular uh but then it'll go for uh Council approval as well and then be recorded okay are there any questions concerning this hearing none the chair would entertain a motion to approve the move to article 97 protection for properties located within the city's drinking water area we have a motion to that effect

second all in favor aye that moves Us in item number eight updates on ongoing projects so our water maintenance building uh construction is pretty much complete as of right now we are waiting for a National Grid to provide a transformer for power they they have had a uh they have been unable to uh to get transformed into this region my understanding uh so we're waiting uh waiting for that to come through other

than that it's pretty much facility startup and then we'll be able to transition into the building uh national grid for the new budget project over a year and a half ago when we signed the original contract with them to supply power so again waiting on National Grid at this point the arfa contract uh water main replacement and Street reconstruction uh the contract is planning to start up uh

probably within the next month again to be able to move that forward as far as lead service removal contract we're in the design we expect within a couple of weeks to be able to have that out to bid so that we can start with the 400 removal of the 400 lead services that are required with the discount of the year is there somebody currently doing Outreach yeah so currently we do have uh one of

our uh Consultants uh so Woodward and current uh and stantec are both working together um to reach out to the uh homeowners that we have listed the the ones that we expect to replace their lead services this year uh what we want to do we want to be able to uh get in and actually verify that they have a Lynch service we don't want to send the contractor to the property and then find out there's no

much service so yeah it's it's better for us to be able to do that ahead of time make sure that the property owner is properly educated on why we want to replace the lead service make sure that we have the property owners permission to be able to go on their property to replace their side of the lead service so we do have a you know one of our resident inspectors from stantec

primarily is doing the Outreach now I believe he's been through about a hundred homes made contact with the homeowners and had he schedules an appointment with them and then it is a you know scheduled to the time where he came into the house into the house and Visually inspects the material of their service if any customers ever do have any question if somebody contacts you or and

they want to gain entry to your house if you have a question if it's related to Ashana uh you know they say they're with the water department feel free to call the water department we can verify that we sent somebody out there to verify your material service they can contact the water department at 508-324-2330 just give us a call and then we'll verify that somebody from our department is uh you know the one that's

actually trying to uh you know see what the your service material is but yeah we have we've had a couple of deadlines with dep in relation to our acop so we have provided them all the information we actually had one that was we have one coming up on the 8th so all the paperwork we're getting that together to be able to submit to them for our lead service removal plan all of the access information and informational

pamphlets and everything in relation to the project was due about a month ago we submitted that to them so uh working with the dep and EPA to stay on time with both requirements within our ecop that's excellent moving right along yeah this isn't something that we can mess around with you know the one thing that I'm battling right now is the srf program where we get most of our funding from

we are approved for this year to receive funding they did come out with the draft iup which initial use plan intended use plan excuse me they came out with the draft where we're above the line without project but they will initiate a funding contract with us until they come out with their final iup which by their schedule should have been out already to date but it's not so trying to work with

them to be able to make sure that all the work that we do that is eligible we will be able to be reimbursed for and uh they're making sure that we're we'll be able to use that program but you know it's got a chicken or the egg what comes first yeah second um but uh we need to get the work done too so a resident says that they don't want the

their re their line or place they don't want us there what's the process for that so if somebody uh says nope I don't want you on my property or uh Hey I just repaved my driveway there's a possibility that you're gonna have to dig it up I'm not letting you do that we will leave the whatever's in in place in place if it's a full wedge Service uh we'll leave it in place if the

departure-led service for the curb stop in we'll leave it in place through our requirements with dep we're going to have a list of people that did is access essentially you know we we don't have the uh current right to be able to go into their property uh and do this work so what we're going to do over the next couple of years as as and I think we will have you know a number of people

that either fully non-responsive or fully just say no we one year in our basement where we don't want you to they'll potentially dig up our lawn we may have a number of those we're going to try to educate them on what the benefits are replacing the wedge service why you don't want to let service you know I think education with those with those uh you know those customers are going to be the key to

make them you know really understand what the benefits are being able to change out that lead service that's going to be the first step that you know we're going to work with them hopefully over the next couple of years hopefully maybe two years from now they'll say all right yeah I'll allow you you know I see the benefit now I understand why it needs to be done we'll

be able I'll let you come out and do it so that's going to be our first step to be able to get through to some of those customers because I just my concern is the EPA EPA comes back and says well you didn't it's 100 services that you didn't do and we get penalized even though we made every effort to make sure that they were educated and it got done and

yeah exactly that's laid right out in the acop to be able to track anybody that denies access so that's that's laid out right in the and we will be tracking that very closely we'll be tracking everything that we do very closely because there are a lot of prying eyes on us we're being watched of EPA dep um and uh we want to uh we want to make sure we we're a shining star at the end

of this so the biggest incentive I would think is the fact that it's being paid for by someone else without it though without a doubt you know two years from now you say well I don't want the service and then let's say the Board of Health says uh well you've gotta get rid of lead water services in order to rent apartments or something along those lines now you're talking about paying

for the full cost of this versus the federal government underwriting parts of it yeah no 100 you know as we get further down the line with the uh changes that are going to be required in the revised leading copper rule that fully come into effect in 2024 uh and potentially any other future changes um that may come down for me the HUD standards or other uh you know organizations uh it may get to the point

where we may have to uh you know those people that are really holds outs uh you know we may be looking for this border some somebody to potentially uh you know if somebody doesn't want to change it they may have you know want to help me make it a condition that we discontinue Water Service you know I don't know those are speculations right now I'm hoping through education that we'll be able to reach out to everybody

and you know help them understand the benefits to them of replacing their lead service thank you excellent uh brings us to uh item number nine which is other potential matters do we have any other potential matters hearing none chair would move uh to um entertain a motion to um leave a journey so moved second all in favor aye thank you hi thank you very much thank you