3.8.2022 - Watuppa Water Board

i would call this meeting of the whatever water board to order mr clerk would you call the roll please yes uh president terrier president member ferrer here thank you thereby being a quorum we will proceed and i will read the open meeting law statement pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or a 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 item number one minutes of the previous meeting citizens input there's an input

thank you very much we will move to item number two in a minute to the previous meeting having reviewed them i would sure would entertain a motion to accept the minutes i would make a move made seconded i don't believe you need a roll call vote on the minutes and everybody's voting to approve unanimous and those unopposed hearing none minutes are approved item number three propose leak abatements and denials

we have one denial and we have 57 laroche street 265 north main street 120 hood street 68 thomas 23 northwalk street 1951 pleasant 736 high 216 purchase 86 morton 96 stuart 140 nickels 107 warburton street and 159 saint mary's um i would ask just for a little clarification on the 159 saint mary's if i may yeah so 159 saint mary's that was an appeal that was filed as you know the

requirements to be able to uh obtain an appeal is that your bill must double from an average of four quarters uh the bill that the appellant uh submitted to be appealed was not double what their normal usage is normal daily usage uh per ccf is roughly a point eight to four point eight somewhere in that ballpark just above uh what they submitted was.85 so it was not double their normal usage

thank you i have a question on 96 stuart street memory serves me that 96 stewart has had issues in the past um is this a new situation

yeah so yeah with the review of 96 stewart street the bill that they did appeal um was more than double of what their uh average usage was for the previous four quarters uh there was one bill with an extremely high usage the users did drop down after that quarter so their reasoning for was a tenant's toilet left running they claimed that the issue was fixed it showed in our billing system by the reduction in the

next quarter's bill that the uh that a repair was made so based on everything submitted and reviewed they are eligible for a credit uh there is not any indication from the report provided by our staff that there has been any other adjustments within the past five years because that would make them ineligible it would have been a significant period ago um 96 stuart was yes they had an issue at that point i'm

i was just trying to remember if that was a split service or a front house back house situation at one point but um i think that property may have been subdivided at one point but um that's back in the day thank you for the explanation um the chair would entertain a motion to approve the abatements as presented to the board i would make a notion made motion seconded voting to approve yes unanimous approval

item number four fiscal year 2023 rates in budget mr clark thank you very much um in front of you you have the proposed fy 23 rates and budgets for the water department these rates and budgets uh have been uh submitted um to the administration uh for their review uh 120 days prior to the start of the fiscal year uh which has already passed they did uh review uh and now we're in front of the board for

board's approval uh subsequent submission to the city council in review by the city council the fy 23 budget as proposed is in the amount of fourteen million two hundred and eighty nine thousand and thirty eight dollars that's a total uh of the budget for the water department including all costs the water rate proposed for the fy 23 budget to support that budget is 3.57 per ccf that is an eight cent increase

uh from fy 22 our current fiscal year what impact that has on an average household uh is four dollars and 24 cents per year for the average household um you know this year's budget the fy 23 budget uh has been laid out as everybody knows there are increases that occur um that have occurred over the past couple of years fy 22 without bidding of chemicals and other bits that went out uh it was um it was

pretty stable uh right now we're in a volatile market and even over the past couple of weeks it's become even more volatile um you know one of the major concerns that we're having that i'm having you know this budget i start to put them together in january as early as december uh get stuff together in january and we're trying to predict what we expect for fiscal year uh for the next

fiscal year that starts in june excuse me starts in july and runs till the fall in june but we don't know what that's going to be a basic overall rundown of the budget within the budget we had a reduction of the use of retained earnings if the committee remembers last fiscal year through talks with city council on budgets and rates the city council asked us to use less free cash within our budget uh that uh

was looked at um and a draft policy was made uh for that the draft policy was to use ten percent uh less free cash than we have in free cash uh ten percent uh per year for the next five years to get down to where we're using fifty percent of the free certified free cash i certified free cash actually for this fiscal year this past fiscal year was fy uh 21 certified free cash that was

certified in fy 22 available to use in fy 23's budget back because we had a delay in the rates um being approved for the fy 22 budget there was 200 000 that went uh in from our certified free cash into the fy 22 budget that still left us with a substantial amount of free cash uh what i did was i took 10 less than the free cash we used within the budget last year

so that will still leave us a surplus within our free cash um we're not using all of the free cash we're using 10 of what 10 less than what we used last year so 90 of last year's free cash is within this budget um so uh that was a reduction in the revenue uh the other increase that we that we had pretty good within the uh fy23 budget was an increase in uh debt service

uh so that's new debt that's coming online had a increase within the budget most of the other things throughout the budget you'll follow through line by line and notice that uh fy 22 compared to fy 23 have stayed flat line uh we did re decrease our capital improvements by fifty thousand dollars other capital improvements uh so we are carrying a budget of 150 000 for the fy 23 budget um

the uh transfers to general funds indirect has stayed constant we still are including within our budget a transfer of a hundred thousand dollars to our stabilization fund so that's still included within this uh budget and revenue calculations um throughout the whole entire budget you'll notice on the salaries we did include a um increases this is a contract negotiation year for the asme union

we have not there has not been a settlement but we have projected a certain amount um if that goes over we may need to come back uh for a separate appropriation for an increase if it's above what has been budgeted running through the water maintenance expenses the water maintenance has stayed again pretty flatlined there has not been much of an increase or three thousand dollar increase uh from last year to

this year and that is uh related to motor vehicle insurance um water and sewer we do uh procure motor vehicle insurance on our vehicles uh unlike the general fund who does not carry motor vehicle insurance or liability treatment plant salaries again are pretty much about the same as the board uh probably knows we did have a increase last year within some of our water treatment operators salaries

uh that was uh that was part of the um that was part of a side letter you know to try to get some more operators in we are still down operators at the plan but we'll be moving forward the next underneath water treatment plan expenses uh that top-line item electricity that's always a big one uh seven hundred thousand dollars is what's budgeted and that is uh consistent with what was

budgeted last year uh i would imagine the electricity is going to have a substantial fluctuation based on the current state of markets but one good thing is that we are locked into a into a rate an extremely good electricity rate right now my hope is that there is no force major on that contract or other contractual change that would increase that but that's why i did keep that electricity

flat line budgeted because we are locked into that that per unit rate that is very favorable to us heating oil and that's also fuel for our generator that has increased a little bit but based on the way fuel prices have reacted over the past three weeks uh i don't know if that will be enough but i feel comfortable moving forward with that budget as we do have stabilization funds available if needed chemicals

so chemicals is yup chemicals is the next thing that i wanted to talk about so chemicals we pretty much uh we went up so all the predictions that i got from uh our distributors uh was a increase in sodium hypochlorite um so that prediction of an increase of sodium hypochlorite was included within within this budget the uh i have been since alerted that our pack poly aluminum chloride may have a increase as well

that was not planned within the fy 23 budget but again as we do have additional free cash available in a stabilization fund i feel that we should move forward with the uh what the budget has proposed knowing that we do have the reserves to be able to go back to if needed i'm actually a little surprised that um it's only going up uh 43 000 you know based upon what we've been

seeing a lot of instability in the market yeah you know again this year is being you know totally honest with everybody the way that these budgets are derived and the volatility of the market right now uh is going to have impact on these budgets but we do need to get a budget in place we do need to be able to move forward into fy 23 and i feel comfortable that between you know some of our

some of our additional free cash that we're not using all of our free cash i feel comfortable moving forward with the budget that's proposed eric pruden barry pruden um it's interesting again i i'm always amazed at looking at some of the line items and going back over a number of years and they haven't changed and it's due i think in large part to tightening the belt constantly and trimming wherever possible

and i i would congratulate the department on doing that thank you very much no it's true i really mean that um based on what i'm seeing here and having looked at budgets almost 30 years prior very pleased very hopeful it's just a couple other things i wanted to touch on may i ask a question water treatment plant expenses item 52 11.

electricity nmc x what is that yep so that's the uh that's the separate line item that's in the budget it's for uxbridge solar uh who is the company uh that provides solar credits to the city yeah uh so our electricity bill comes in in multiple parts there's a standard electricity bill that we get from national grid a portion of that electrical bill gets shaved off uh and goes to this other company that provides

us credits onto that bill but there's a payment that needs to be made to oxbridge separately from what's paid to national grid is that similar to i have trinity solar on my house i'm is that very similar to that type of uh it is but it's a municipal plan right so right there's a lot there's there's different solar things throughout the city and as the water plan is one of the largest users within the

city we we get some of the benefit of that yeah thank you yeah um so some of the capital improvements that we budgeted for within the fy23 uh we do have a new utility body truck uh for the water maintenance division uh equipment for the uh vehicle maintenance garage within the new water maintenance facility a new asphalt roller for the for the water maintenance a medium duty pickup truck

uh some osher equipment and training for the staff as well as four skimmer pumps for the water treatment plant that's what's budgeted within that 150 000 other capital uh line item one of the other things that i wanted to talk a little bit about um is the uh over the past couple of years i've been asked a lot about this is the uh average ccf used per household um you know we've had the average ccf that

we use per household that's been in place for a number of years it was derived by my predecessor and there's there's multiple different ones that that are used epa likes to use one dep uses one rate calculators use the other but the best way for us to figure this out is to calculate it you know so see what our actual customers use because what our customers use is very different from what westport's customers

use or from what somerset or swansea's customers use um you know based just on you know the the household and the amount of people so last year what i did i took a very small sampling um and i broke it down so i took a 20 different houses um which we knew the amount of people that lived in the houses uh we knew you know we took a mixture of single-family multi-family uh and all residential

uh and we broke that down um per quarter cost uh excuse me per year uh so the total household usage uh based on those 20 properties that we calculated last year was 55.25 ccf per year 55.

0.25 55.25 ccs per year yes yep 100 cubic feet so we've always used 53 ccf as as the number when we calculate what it costs for an average household per year for their water and sewer bills um last year people said well that was a tour that was only 20 houses very small sample set how do you really know that that's any good this year we we went and we did a calculation

based off of what was used in 2021 the calendar year and we ran all residential properties excluding condos large apartment buildings so this was uh single families two families three families and four to eight we pulled all the usage based on land use code there was over 16 000 properties um numbers of accounts 16 000 accounts uh 31 000 households was in this calculation so we pulled that we pulled all the usage um

when you divided them out we came with 50.69 ccs per the average household right so up 53 ccf per household you know we're looking at 16 000 accounts you know so it's not a small sample cell anymore it's it's not this is everything yeah again we excluded condos we excluded large apartment complex is that anything over a family and this is only residential um so you know i really wanted to get a good handle on whether

our number was good for what the average household would be you know when we say average household and that's if a single family average household you have a three family it's times three naturally um you know so it was just interesting to go through that exercise you know the water department staff was great and pulling up pulling all those numbers together but to actually see that our number

still holds good uh for our community yeah without a doubt so that's how we base on the what it cost a household per year for water and so on what the average increase is per year for the average household so when i say that it's 4.26 increase for the average household that's based off of 53 ccf the average households based on the numbers is 50.69 ccf a dollar and six cents a quarter yes yes that's

pretty good and that's about 112 gallons per person and that's pretty good too excellent so that that must have been interesting for you to to do that and then come back in with almost the exact same number yeah you know and and you know i i gave this and you know i didn't want it to be influenced in any way i gave the staff the directions yeah what i wanted done and they did everything i didn't

want people to say well you know you monkeyed around with stuff nope i gave the staff directions what to do they didn't really know what ultimately i was no to the way that the numbers fell out uh question one just started curiosity what were your expectations prior to seeing the results have you expected a increase no not really maybe a slight increase you know based on the small sample set

that we had um the that i did the prior year with the 20 houses you know and again with those 20 houses i tried to do a very variable mix of of what what was there you know a couple of single families couple of multis all the way up to eight family so i was pretty confident with our number um you know and again this is for an average

household if you have a a family of five living in a single family house and you water your grass every day and you um you wash your car once a week yeah your cost is going to be higher um if you're a single person you know if you have a three family and it's three single people living in the house and there's never any outside water use or anything like that your

cost is gonna be a lot lower so um you know this was for an average household based on averages so it's like the thermostat you control your water and sewer bill in in the uh you control the tap and um you know waste is going to cost and being frugal or or being using common sense is going to say i mean i've been saying it for a long time but that's pretty interesting

that is really interesting that it came out that way yeah and that's something the council has um wondered about over the years you know what is the direct impact on the average home and with that information i think they're going to uh they're they're going to be very interested in hearing that yeah i think so it's it's a question that like i said that's come up with the council oh it comes up all the time a

couple of years and sure and i think we we here on a regular basis that that it only continue the bill only continues to increase from the average property owner so it's refreshing to see that that the usage is still similar to where we've expected it to be yeah you only hear the horror stories so i guess that's my my logic behind well you know we've sort of shifted over the last 30

40 years we've we've gone from an industrial based water system to a residential based water system and um you know that's both a blessing and a curse because our system is so oversized but um geez that's great to hear it really is i mean we we are so fortunate i went by the pond today and it was minus five inches i mean that's just fabulous at this point in the year

spring rains are coming you're going to be a full pond going into the summer or right about fall pond going into the summer that's god that's great how many communities are you know sweating whether or not they have water and we're blessed with an abundance of it that's excellent without a doubt that is one of the lucky things that we do have so um i just want to talk a little bit while

we while we're on the budget i want to talk a little bit about the budget process uh how how it has been done in the past and um you know how we're moving forward and i know president darrell mean you have had multiple discussions and you've provided me with a lot of information um you've done you've done a lot of research on this uh and i thank you for that it's been a great help um

but what what the we're doing right now so the uh state law says that the budgets have to be submitted to the administration 120 days prior to the start of the fiscal year so these budget days have been presented to the administration um and submitted to them for their review that was 120 days prior um which was prior to march 3rd i met with him uh at the end of february um to let them

let them know where the budgets were where we stand and how we're going to move forward so that so that part of it is complete the next thing is we need to submit our budgets to the city council city council it's the mayor needs to submit our budgets to the city council that's the next step the charter states that the budgets need to be submitted to the city council any rate increases need to be submitted by

may 1st and the budgets need to be submitted by april first for enterprise funds um as we do our rates and our budget at the same time we can't figure out what our rates are going to be without preparing our budget uh everything is prepared at this time so i'm currently prepared to submit my budgets uh to the council if the board approves uh we have sewer commission uh tomorrow night if the sewer commission approves

we'll be prepared to submit those budgets as well have the mayor submit them to the council the um the state laws also state that an enterprise fund shall be treated as any other budget that's submitted to a tool council or legislative body for approval that's right um within our uh within the statutes it also says that a budget must be acted on um within 45 days of receipt that's correct so that gives the council

a 45 day period to take our budget review our budget hand rate increases they'll have both parts together the water budget with the increases sewer budget with the increases they'll be able to look at those budgets deliberate on those budgets and increases and then act on those budgets within a 45-day period as it stands now my expectation is i would like to have the budgets uh um packaged together uh have the mayor

submit them to the council by the 15th of this month by march 15th so then they'll be able to start their deliberation uh in uh in action on our budgets and our rates um so that's kind of what we what i plan to do moving forward the actions that can be done by the council on the budget would be to approve reduce it or reject it that is within mass general law what's

what's said can be done with uh by a the way that the form of a government is set up by the legislative body which is the city council um so that's the actions that they would need to take on our budget within 45 days then you get to the part where it says well uh you know the rates okay so your budget's approved and now you don't have the rates to support it

also within the law it states that the um that an enterprise fund must be fully supported by its rates if it's not fully supported by its rates then the uh the delta the difference of what the uh what the revenues do not support compared to what the expenses are must be made up on the tax levy or the cherry sheet so that means that if the rates are increased a certain period of time

then that gets shifted back to the cherry sheet and when they do the tax levy in the tax certification that money would have to come from the cherry sheet to the water department for full support of their budget again my recommendation is to increase the rates as proposed that way it does not affect the serious city's cherishee or or the tax certification at that time um so you know this is a lot different than the

process that we've gone through over many years uh over the past um i think it's gonna be a good process it's gonna give the council ample time to be able to discuss deliberate and uh talk about our budgets and our rate increases uh and then they'll be able to move forward onto other budgets and other rates but um so i prepared a uh i prepared a memo to the law department uh and i've had

discussions with them uh it's it's still under rev you know it's still in the review but they haven't said that they're in disagreement with uh any anything that we've provided to them um so i think that's excellent i think that's excellent and i think i think the budget is reflective of like i said earlier the belt tightening that's been going on for year after year after year but i think i

i would be remiss if i didn't say that there is always room to spend more money to improve various items we've got a good budget here that will keep us stable and keep us moving along but we need to do something long term for treatment plant especially yeah yeah you know the capital cost you know we've been very lucky with the uh continued water main replacement project over the past 22 years

and the arpa funding that was excellent news this evening from the mayor yeah 17 000 foot of maine is significant without an unleaded service replacement which is even more significant yep you know there is a revision to the lead and copper rule that has been approved by epa and there will be uh costs associated with uh with additional regulations uh unfunded mandates that are coming down

in relation to lead and copper um you know we do have uh other asian infrastructure though as you said we do have a treatment plant that's over 50 almost 50 years old now just about 50 years old so uh you know luckily our staff between our maintenance staff uh that we currently have in patch maintenance staff the facility is in good condition but you know there are things that are showing

they're showing their age and there's always continued maintenance that needs to be done in those facilities i was in the plant today and it really looked good it really looked good and and they're working hard down there you can see it yeah we have we have uh right now a phenom phenomenal maintenance staff as i mentioned earlier we still are missing some water treatment operators

that's what i was implying actually is that we need more people i mean how many employees do we have right at the present time so so we just lost one operator so we currently have two staff operators um yes two two staff operators uh we have uh one um contract employee um that is uh operating for us uh also assistant with the administrative down there as we don't have a director currently at the time the

water quality manager is filling in some shifts uh the lab tech who's a licensed operator is filling in shifts as well so again even though we've done uh some increases we haven't uh you know we haven't drawn in any new licensed candidates as to as today that's a shame i think i think i think it's going to be a battle and i think it's going to be uh you know

again the volatility of the market as a whole is going to be something that we're dealing with for i think years to come you know you look at just uh what some you know basic jobs are paying and trying to compare those rates to uh you know a licensed qualified individual you look at what what has happened with inflation you look at what has happened with the cost of living just over the

past two years uh that all adds to this market volatility that we're going to be dealing with for a number of years doesn't get any easier does it no it was easy everybody would do it okay i think you're right that concludes your uh budget presentation yes it does then based upon mr berlin's presentation on the budget sure would entertain a motion to accept the budget and the water rate to fully fund the budget

and the amount of one moment please three dollars and 57 cents 57 cents 57 yes 3.57 motion made seconded i think we should have a roll call on that one yes libertarian yes thank you thank you

item number five water maintenance building sub-bitter increase uh so within your packet you can see a letter from uh a consultant william stock architects so underneath chapter 149 which is the procurement laws for dcam in the state of massachusetts which deals with any vertical construction uh you have what's called file submitters uh and then you have a gc that bids the job the gc is responsible

for the whole entire project how the bidding procedure works you have all these sub categories so it would be roofers window guys plummets electricians is a whole list through the decam process of all these sub-bitters if you have the project in a cost associated with uh with this certain sub-trade is over twenty thousand dollars there needs to be separate independent bids submitted by those

sub-trades um so all those subfitters are opened on a particular date those subfitters then those amounts from the subfitters then go to the gcs the gcs pick this up it is put the numbers put the subject's numbers into their bid as well as any additional cost that they have in relation to the project uh and they're able to uh and then they submit their bid at a public opening and the bid is opening

what happened in this case is that the gc the submitted process went through the gcs submitted their bids with the typically the low bidder of the uh of any subcategory and that's plugged in within their bid um so we originally had a uh a little bit of on the gc uh that we were back and forth with for a period of time um and they eventually backed out and were unable to perform the work uh as

the board knows we went to the second lowest bidder and that second lowest bidder sub bidders within their bid that they uh carry a particular number for um the summer so the gc cannot go to the submitters and go under contract with the submitters until the gc has an actual contract we went through procured the contract with the gc when the gc went to do uh want to secure

um the file sub bit is some of those sub bit is either packed out they backed out so they were left going to the second submit or the third submitter um at that point after some discussions with the uh ag's office and stuff it was determined that there was cost on uh fully related to the um to the uh to the gc and they are required to be paid by the uh

by us uh that's what these two are this is in relation to a the glazing storefront and aluminum glazing submitter as well as the glass subpitter there was two amounts that they did not carry within uh that the gc did not carry within this bid because the low sub bit is backed out um so this is a uh required change order by mass general law in the amount of 96 425

dollars this is just bringing it back to uh neutral so to spec so to speak yeah uh chair would entertain a motion to accept uh the change order in the amount of ninety six thousand four hundred and twenty five dollars it just i don't know on that yes it's a sub-bitter increase not particularly a change order although it will be late i stand corrected you're right it is a sub-bitter increase

rather than a change order so the sub-bidder is increasing ninety-six thousand four hundred and twenty-five dollars correct um motion improvements

yeah that's what i actually was trying to say in a rather inarticulate way that this is just bringing us back to where we should have been or where the submitter would have been yes okay uh item number six sandtech counts uh consulting services arpa water main design contract number one thank you very much as you mentioned earlier tonight we have been awarded a country a an award through the opera funding for

water main replacement as well as street reconstruction on over 17 000 linear feet of streets within the city of fall river it's almost three miles of over three miles of water main streets that we'll be redoing this is the this is the design contract so as opposed funds were federal monies we had to go through a full rfq procurement process for the design engineer as well as construction oversight and resident

inspection um stantec was uh out of that process the rfq process stantec was determined um to be uh they were listed by the we used the designer selection board as the qualification um as a qualified qualifying committee um so stan tech was number one on the list a uh negotiated price of 330 000 was was done for the uh stantec um so there was there was a number of uh streets that we already had survey for

on the list of streets that we are doing uh these are streets that we've surveyed in the past and either got pulled from uh being replaced for some reason or another so we are being able to take advantage of the savings within the survey of only having to survey about half the streets um so uh within this contract we are also uh replacing uh 36 lead services uh although if you can go to the next

slide there is a list of the streets but the streets if you would like okrobab from locust to bedford moorland street from bay street to end president ave from highland ave to ellsbury that's that's a long stretch the uh cross street from merchant to orchard north belmont street hood to vestal vestal street from north main to north belmont redding street from valentine to harvard and then picking up from langley to

florence sterling street from napoleon to stafford welcome street from napoleon to stafford archer street from highland to the dead end to the west excuse me to the east atlantic boulevard from pembroke to title uh and then off of atlantic boulevard to the dead ends would be moody hasone byron duke and pembroke so that's a total like i said a 100 feet of water mains to be replaced uh size uh from

two inch private services a lot of six inch all the way up to some 12 on president avenue total based on our records of 36 lead service replacements we will be looking to do a full lead service replacement potentially all the way from the main into the houses on these streets as that is a requirement of the new leading copper rule um so that is uh his design so 330 thousand dollars is designed survey

uh this also includes the design for the pavement as well because the this will be one contract going out for um for water main replacement as well as street repaving and the sidewalks that are affected by the water main replacement is it too early to ask um what the anticipated size of the main and president avenue will be you've got a real mismatch yeah i'm shocked to see six inch in there yeah it's

it's an inter it's an interesting setup um you know we probably won't be running with one size it'll probably be uh it'll probably be a variation to size from different streets as as the trunk lines feed through the area um it's it's really interesting it starts out um you know comes down uh northeastern avenue into the rotary and then heads towards the hood street tank ellsbury street has a 16

right then it goes up ellsbury uh but from that point up to uh up to i think almost ray is a very small main so that's that might even be the area that's a six or an eight it's it's interesting how it runs then it upsizes with from the hood street tank yeah coming in it upsizes to a 10 and a 12 as it runs further down there's six in ray yeah i'll bet that's

exactly where that is yeah so it's it's it's in in it's interesting to see how it's divided up but yeah the um the two inch services you're gonna replace with eights uh that's something that we're gonna look at through the design um so that would be the general practice to replace it with an eight for fire protection because typically um typically that standard for uh fire protection will be

in eight inch main now dep standard but the other issue that we're running into and something that we've been starting to do over the past four or five years is actually downsize and correctly size the mains for what they need because of the water quality issues that we run into at the extents of our systems or the dead ends you end up having issues with uh with thms or other disinfection byproducts because the

water stays in the main for too long um so i'm thinking on some of those dead end streets they dead end from atlantic boulevard up to the railroad um there's really no possibility that they'll ever be crossing the railroad right um so there's a couple of houses that are serviced um from those small private services uh we've always kind of been under the impression that you can almost do up to four houses from a two

inch service that's what we've always that's the guidelines that we've always found no more than four houses from one two inch service running up the street it's not prime it's not ideal um but again we are trying we do have to manage our water quality within the system as well and to have an eight inch main of water sitting there two houses on it is an issue that we've printed to in the past

so that's something that's gonna be looked at design wise you know again we make sure that there is ample fire protection fire hydrants close enough on the main branches atlantic boulevard to make sure that there is ample fire protection and it is only a 250 foot run so that's a 200 down foot hose down low with higher pressure so they must have excellent pressure though yeah i would imagine that they just

just based on their elevation yeah that's excellent very good all right um so if we entertain emotional yep chair would entertain a motion to accept let me get back over to this right um okay chair would entertain a motion percent consulting services uh of the arpa water main design contract number one in the amount of 330 000 dollars ocean metal maintenance seconded and just one thing on that that is all

funding from oppa um so there will be no cost to our rate payers for this work that's excellent with that we've done uh we've done president from one end to the other at this point yeah that'll be exactly that'll be president that will be 100 complete you got an estimate on uh how many cents that would using the r for funding how much that saves the citizens uh

i do have that nut off the top of my head i can provide that to you i'd be willing to bet a nickel anyway if not more well without a doubt yeah that's an excellent one i believe all right moving on item number seven santek consulting services incorporated for phase 20 water main improvements change order number three in the amount of one hundred and fifty nine thousand five hundred dollars

uh so in front of you that's change order for the phase 20 water meeting uh automated improvement contract for stantec so stantec the phase 21 main uh project is shut down for the winter right now but there is going to be some additional work needed as it comes up in the spring they also have a very good inspector who's very familiar with our city he has been assisted with some inspections on our water maintenance

facility so that is also included within this change order excellent oh the chair would entertain a motion motion to approve the change order to accept its motion made seconded on voting unanimously that brings us to item number eight updates on ongoing projects mr furlong so within your packet you have a couple of change orders that were done to the uh these uh to the uh phase 20 contract they were eligible to

be approved administratively as per the board's policy uh saying they were under uh under a certain threshold so to keep the project moving and keep those inspectional services available those were approved um the last change order that you just approved was over that threshold and that's why it needed board approval for from the board after that we do have a um up the update on the woodwind current

temporary staffing support for the water treatment facility uh this was in the amount of uh 25 000 which provided us additional uh an additional period of time for support of woodward and current to provide us managerial support down at our water treatment plant average we this was underneath the threshold as well and was administratively approved just to note on that though the uh

as i mentioned earlier uh we are still without a uh a director of water treatment in resources at a treatment facility um my hope i would hope that we are able to get uh some applicants there was actually one application uh one a resume that came across my desk uh just yesterday that i need to contact the person to to talk about their background and their skills but this is a continuing issue currently so

woodward and current was a great help they they helped us out in a time of need when we uh when we were transitioning from losing our current director uh we were down multiple uh operators at the time um they came in and helped us out providing uh administrative staff to be able to keep our plan running uh keep our staff going and we're able to get into some a couple of additional staff at that time

um you know currently uh we do have uh my predecessor terry sullivan who was working as an operator a uh contract up operator uh he was filling shifts since some of those shifts were filled by uh by actual operators um some of his time has been shifted to those managerial skills of managerial activities down at the plan and he has been filling in as the interim director currently based on a contract manner

so that is currently you know what's going on with the management of the plan we have been we have been compliant with all with all the state and federal regulations uh but again this uh continues to plague us as a uh as an issue terry has come full circle refuse i i think i forget what he said it was 1982 yeah yeah i was just gonna say it's 1982 all over again

thankfully he's uh you know there and terry is uh let's face it he's a licensed operator his knowledge is just awesome yeah just awesome and he's he's a great leader to have down in that plan yeah he has been he has been you know excellent with with the operator shifts uh you know when he was taking the operator's shifts and now uh filling in as the director um since we just lost another operator he's even

he's even working some night shifts in um assisting with the managerial is it is there any interest at all over at bcc and some of the young people in the environmental field you know what are treatment plant operators a hell of a profession it is a hundred percent you know i've i try to reach out to uh to the youth as much as possible um you know i'm on uh the environmental tech uh

advisory board at durfee i attend all of rob racks through the blue center bcc i attend all of his job fairs and all of his different outreach programs that he has to try to stimulate some some um you know excitement for the industry it's both water and wastewater we're not alone in the water field the wastewater field is the same so we've uh you know we've definitely made some headway this past year there was uh two

students from durfee uh that were in the environmental tech program and they were dual enrolled uh at pc and pcc and robrax program um to hopefully become licensed operators you know for uh and i tried to go to durfee and diamond and talk about this um you know for derpy or a diamond student coming out of school being able to go into a career it's not just a job this

is a career you can move anywhere across the country and if you're a licensed operator you can find a job the salary even at our humble rate here in fall river is very good when you compare the local job market for for a young person coming out of school and then look at what they could be knocking down with two weeks of paid vacation and paid holidays and personal days and sick

leave and all of the benefits that come with it we're talking about a 65 000 package basically for a young person and that's hard to find in this area yeah no without a doubt you know um that is that is roughly the package um and it is it's it's a good paying job yeah um you know i always sometimes can be tough because you know we're staff 24 hours a day so

factories are tough too exactly exactly but you know it's it's a career it's a field that you'll always always be able to find work in and you know again you know we're willing to work with any young we've had co-op students from both durfee and diamond uh work in our facilities at our treatment plant and also on the reservation um you know i think the youth trying to get somebody you know somebody could come out of

durfee or diamond if they're interested you know we have open positions within our within our water maintenance staff or somewhere else if a water maintenance staff and we currently have um one staff member that is looking to get licensed as a treatment operator you know we pay for the classes for untrusted individuals we pay for the testing once they pass the exam so there's no cost out of their pocket to be able to

get license even right now through bcc through the blue center they have a one year certificate program through bcc that you can go for and i believe uh last year and i think i don't know what their status is moving forward but so far all their classes have been free to become a licensed treatment operator they had a grant in place so that uh to actually pay for people to be able to

know something loans come together classes it is right here there's no commute yeah so um you know i think for anybody that uh is interested in the field contact myself um and i'm willing to give tour to the plant uh willing to let people spend some time with our operators to see what a typical operator does on a shift um willing to give them i'm always willing to give anybody a

tour of our facilities because most of the time people come into our facility and they say wow i never knew what it took to get water out of my faucet the most important building in the city yeah because without it there is no city right right correct and that's one thing that always needs to be remembered good water good utilities that's what that's what is the you know foundation for a good community

it's the foundation of life thank you and thanks for going the extra mile with the uh with the program do you get involved in the career day at all up there uh yeah so i've i've done there uh i've done their career days we've set up a table uh prior to covert they haven't had any they've had a couple of virtual ones recently uh both in the environmental program and through the whole entire pcc

uh program so excellent i have been involved thank you excellent all right um that brings us to item number nine other potential matters don't have anything nothing the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn motion made motion seconded voting unanimously to adjourn at approximately 7 34 p.m thank you thank you very much thank you