4.30.2024 - Sewer Commission

thank you for uh coming in tonight um before we get started I want to um welcome Mr Paul Souza to the uh SE commission um for the benefit of everybody that's out there in the public Mr U suer at one point in time was um was serving with me on the S commission back in um back in the day and um I think we're lucky that we have the opportunity to get Paul back and to um

help us meet the future needs of what the Civil commission needs and um so on that basis there Paul welcome thank you um before we get started I guess I got to go and do the right thing by saying pursuant to the open meeting La 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 imp perceived or un perceived by those present are not deemed acknowledged imp permissible having said all that I believe we've we're graciously given the U the uh package for this meeting which I want to say I think broke a record in terms of the amount of paper that was used for this one um but anyways um my thanks go out to the staff for putting this together because there

is a lot of work to so um thank you eler and Courtney and whoever um first item on the agenda and moving forward is I'm sorry Paul want to do the uh roll call yes please president Alo here member how act did contact say she was running late so she's currently not here member else here member Suza yeah thank you okay first item on the agenda of the citizen input uh it's my understanding that

there's no one here for citizen input am I correct we have not received anything and nobody has signed up okay um then we'll move on to item number two minutes of the previous meeting held on February 23rd 2024 um I've had the opportunity to uh read through it um it's probably one of the more lengthier ones that we've ever had uh but there was a lot discussed at that

meeting and um Paul if that I believe it if that's something that you wrote you got a good memory because um there was a lot that was discussed yeah I can't take the credit for that it's uher and Courtney are the ones that do the minutes prepare them for my review okay well um didto to those to final young ladies over there um if anybody has any questions or want to

make any any corrections say it now if not Iain a motion to approve the minutes of the meeting held on February 23rd I'll make a motion to uh accept the minutes of the previous meeting February 23rd 2024 second all in favor I motion approved okay next item is storm water appeal um we we have a I guess a family that lives at 60 lwood street that requested hearing um they were appealing the fact that they

were being charged the storm water fee um before we get into the real n g Paul um is this something that he was just starting to be charged for or is it or is it because he mentions in in his um in his rebuttal that um he was um I guess he he had an abatement an exemption prior yes all right okay so uh had has up till now has he been paying

the storm water or is this if we to deny him tonight uh would you stop paying the storm water Fe no so storm water fee was uh implemented onto his property he was built for it um not in recent history that's what that's what make him generate this appeal okay all right um we you know use in the past when somebody wants to appeal something in front of us and if they don't show up

then we use our discretion to either um approve it or deny it um in this particular case um I think I think it's pretty obvious that his uh property due to the topography um falls under what we had what we had created as the ordinance and uh this flow of the land that goes I believe under a couple of C uh under couple of covets under what lyw it's not under lywood street is it white

Whitefield Street yeah okay which is two streets over not yeah so so if you want I can do a brief overview of the property again so 60 lywood street is an older property within this area a lot of newer houses were developed on L White Field for Street in this area when we rev this area that's when storm water was imposed seeing that per AUD the current ordinance possible um so this is the uh

subject property right here uh it almost stretches uh lywood is actually at the bottom of the screen here this over here is White Field Street they have a driveway that comes off of lywood see the Red Dot there they have a driveway that comes off of lwood here into their property yeah so they have impervious area which contains of a house the garage uh towards the rear of their property uh this back here is a

separate property um but the water Direction flow in this area is down to a low pole over here um this is again Whitefield Street there are couple of culverts that pass underneath Whitefield Street uh into a drainage area behind the houses on Frederick Street that eventually makes its way down to uh underneath uh Mariana fish Boulevard fish Ro some people know it asant and then into cook C has drainage

to bring it all the way down to the top River and that basically shows that there are there are areas within that topography or that flow where we have to devote attention to it and so forth uh so that makes it makes it pretty academic that um yeah if he was Mr Das was here I'd vote to deny it and I I'd have to agree with with uh Mr ferin as to what his thinking

was about it um anybody have any other thoughts about it or have any other feelings that we shouldn't go in that direction yeah okay um maybe it's going all Al that's that's that's the ordinance is it not yeah again so this is just the ordinance from City of Fall River Ordinance um and it uh states that uh all persons properties and entities serving the benefit from the utilities acquisition management maintenance uh

and Improvement of public storm water management systems and Facilities um and that goes on to talk about one those are storm water facilities uh so those are all everybody that is underneath the uh storm water utility fee um storm water facilities are defined in the ordinance as combined sewer catch Basin storm drains dra drainage pipes culverts streams swes Wetlands detention ponds and ponds that

have control structures such as damps uh and gate houses okay yeah it's pretty pretty self-explanatory I I I just got to say back in 2008 we we took the measures where we expanded I guess you could say the ordin it's to what it was there prior to that which was basically water running off of people's property into a saw yes right so um okay so having um having looked all that unless anybody has any other

thoughts about it I'll entertain a motion to deny the appeal to um Mr Das for his property at 60 lywood Street in b to make a motion I'll make that motion for that denial second all in favor I I motion passes thank you okay request for Hall subes anybody here representing the subers no okay um these are pretty ex self-explanatory yes these are three hul is uh that since uh the last time we've

had this on the agenda item that have submitted to uh be uh be able to haul septage to a wastewater treatment plan had we excuse me we haven't seen these at all though or or is this something that we tabled uh you have not seen these at all um they have uh they have so I did allow them temporary approval um yeah I noticed that prior to coming to the board so that

they would be able to haul um have you had have you had any complaints with them no there has not been any issues with them uh the staff has been billing them on a regular basis and they have been paying uh within the terms required the trucks have been inspected by the health department to be able to travel on the roads okay um there's what three of them right um off the top of your

head Paul um how many people how many how many hallers have we got now roughly we got about 15 yeah yeah 15 about 15 so this would be about 18 then if we added on or they're already part yeah yeah okay so just just on the septage hauling too something that I wanted to mention for the board to be aware of uh back in 2019 we took in about uh 250,000 uh in FY 19

hi Rene you uh so FY uh 2019 we took in about $250,000 uh incepted Revenue into the uh super Enterprise fund uh to date so far this year uh we have uh we have taken in uh 633 th000 and we have about another 880,000 uh in accounts receivable uh so we'll be probably exceeding $750,000 this fiscal year uh our staff has done a a great job reaching out to

Hall is letting them know that we do uh receive septage at our plant uh the plant staff has done an excellent job working with coordinating making sure that uh our seage facilities are open on a regular basis and the trucks don't get turned away um what did what did you project for uh for 202 so we budgeted 500,000 um but again I don't like to budget uh revenues that we haven't

already uh seen the uh you know seen what uh what they could project so yeah 500,000 I see it yeah as far as 25 I definitely uh will I we expect to exceed the uh budgeted revenue on the FY 25 and as we all know we need all the cash we can get yes um good okay um do we should we or can we um let me put it this way I'll leave it up to the

commission would you want to discuss each one individually if if you have any questions or would you prefer to uh if you don't have any questions we can go ahead and um approve all three all at once any anybody Paul is there a problem in doing that no I do not see any issue would you prefer we do it individually um however the board you know they're on there as item number

four so they could be approved Al together if there's no independent issues okay um how about you Rene that's fine okay all three yep all right um I have no problems with it uh they appear to be pretty reputable um I think I think they know having been given a temporary uh okay at up to this point and not hearing any complaints and I'm sure if there was some problems with their paperwork or billing or something

like that nature we would have already heard it so um I have no problems with um approving uh the request of the uh convenient disposal is saw sanitation in the throne Depot to um utilize the services of um a treatment plan so on that basis there unless anybody has the objections to it or is anything else preferred they want to say about it um I'll entertain a motion to approve the uh requests for these three

companies convenient disposal sour sanitation and a throne Depot anybody want to make a motion make the motion anybody want second second I'm sorry all in favor I I Paul I I okay motion passes thank

you item number five CDM Smith amendment number one regulatory support $50,000 um go ahead Mr Farland so uh within your packet is an amendment uh number one to a contract that we had with CN Smith this is for additional regulatory support so uh as the commission knows uh recently we've had um multiple different um scenarios where I've had to uh use this contract that we had in place

um with the federal court order um as well as the uh nift's permit National Fu location discharge system permit that was uh draft permit that was issued um by EPA um so again this is a contract that we have in place for those Services um they support on those um Tas as needed have you um have we used CDM for um things of this nature with respect to um our

permits yes so yeah so again with the uh federal court order uh reports uh so there's y report quarterly reports that are due uh to both the federal court uh conservation law foundation and EPA uh so they assist us with putting some of that material together uh to be able to submit those reports um most recently um the response that we did uh the public comment that we provided in relation to

the uh drafted ni's permit was uh was used against this contract that we had with them um okay um so I'm assuming this is going to be very helpful to the staff and to you yeah without a doubt for them to be able to pull in their uh their specialty um you know people that have dealt with these and deal with uh you know these type of um you know permit issuance and

responses to permits for them to be able to pull those in is just uh an abundance of knowledge that uh you know our staff has a lot of knowledge but to be able to pull in people that have dealt with this in other communities in the past and be able to assist us with our response as something that's very valuable to us um what I what I think of on this particular item

here I remember about three months ago there was a report that was submitted I think a copy of it went to clf I went to the I think it went to the feds copies to the state and I believe it was a very indepth report as to what's happening through the whole sewer system and so forth and so on and and I believe it it's it was a requirement of of the um the court order

correct so what and from what I understand that the majority of that information which was I thought a huge amount of work that went into it um it's my understanding a good portion of that information was done by people down at the treatment plant am I right yeah so a lot of the information a lot of the data comes from the people of the treatment plant um you know we we pull in uh the operations

data uh all of all of our federal reporting all that comes in from the treatment plan um you know and then um you know a lot of it uh gets reviewed organized and then uh filtered out not filtered out but ordered in a way that uh that you would you anticipate uh CDM maybe um taking over the ball on that or following up and with whoever is going to keep keep compiling that information

so that it's um you know it's accurate and so forth and so on so would would you anticipate part of the 50 Grand be for something like that uh yeah not for them to take over any of the uh any of the reporting requirements or anything that's required out of the treatment plan um but to be able to uh help pull that information together and put it into the report that gets submitted yes okay

this one's pretty straightforward I guess um anybody have any questions with regard to um approving this amendment for $50,000 of if not I'll entertain a motion to approve motion made second all in favor I motion approved item number six CDM Smith but they're they're r on a roll tonight amendment number three the wastewater treatment facility Improvement now it's this this is in

regard to what phase two Paul yeah this is in regards to contract two yes okay okay so we're looking to give their contract an amendment correct right correct yes um their original contract I believe on this particular one what my memory said me started off at what 4 million correct

so yeah this um what's included with these additional services so currently the contractor is tracking um that they uh are not going to complete on time uh June 30th is supposed to be the completion date of contract number two uh the contractor right now is uh looking at November uh completion for contract number two uh so we'll need the additional rpr services on site uh as well as

um as well as uh construction management uh which has been provided by CDM um currently the contractor does not have a Time extension on their contract uh and there are liquidated damages within the contract uh so and that uh stands whether whether those liquidated damages would be uh could be leved after the June deadine so so let me ask you the magic question because there's an extension to the

project right which I believe was originally supposed to be done this July yes correct Y and you what I'm hearing is maybe the end of what November November okay so as a result of that um CDM has to be has has to keep going with the with the work that still has to be done but I'm ass but am I correct am I correct in assuming that their contract that we have with

them specifically states that if it if the if the project extends that there that an amendment to the the amount required for them to continue on is in that contract so so yeah with the contractor uh do there are liquidated damages per day past uh substantial completion of the contract if they don't meet those days uh again um you know there is they have not uh put in a Time extension that brings them

out to that dat as of yet again I'm just letting the board know that currently they're you know the way that they uh project is tracking uh there is uh you know possibility of uh recovering some of this funding on liquidating damages whether that comes to fruition or not um you know again there's change orders that come in from the contract but uh they have not asked for any time extensions as of

yet so Paul can you clarify so this contract with CDM is to because they're going to need extra time but we don't know yet for sure we haven't gotten the formal notification from Doc we've we've seen their schedule their schedule is tracking to November yeah but again their their contract completion date is still June 30th so they have not they have not proven to us through any type

of change order that their contract time needs to be extended if they go past their contract time of substantial completion then again they pass substantial so when do we notify them do we have to wait till um June 30th to notify them that you we see that they're not in compliance and that we're going to be enforcing liquidated damage clause or so we've notified them multiple times uh

for the past year and a half in the meet construction meetings and in the minutes I who wait a minute who do you not who who you notifying Daniel OK on okay so I've uh in the meeting in the minutes it's recorded for the over the past year I've uh told them that I see issues with their scheduling and they completing on time um CDM we formally uh we formally submitted letters to them stating to

them that uh you know their contract extends past for the past at least six months uh we've given them formal notice and asked them for Recovery plans which their recovery plans they've submitted but still does not bring them into compliance with the contract dat so I feel a notific to them we C so we'll be expending this amount and then recouping from them you know that that is that is I'm I'm not going to say

that that's the case but that is the potential that that we could yeah because I I'm trying to figure out in my own mind here um the way things tend to go with you know negotiation or people you know saying no that ain't through you know it wasn't our fault and all this stuff and so forth but um if we approve you're you're you're saying we should do this yeah I I feel

that you know we need to have the RPS out there for the work uh as as as it goes on and as it closes out that's really not an option for us again with this this is uh uh you know it's an increase to their contract but it's uh you know percentage wise it's very it's very small uh you know a little over half a percent on their on their overall

contract so um you know to be able to have the uh the level of opas on site as well as the construction management you know with the uh especially with the project that we're doing with the dewatering facilities uh and stuff like that all the different uh stuff that we're bringing in bringing online um having to uh have to um coordinate the everyday operation of our plan with uh

the construction activities that's what uh that's what these guys do for us on site I get it I got it but somewhere down the road we got to have some means in which we can possibly recoup some of this again and that's that's you know with the again Paul I'm not trying to put I'm not putting you on a spot okay I'm just I you know this isn't the first time

it's come across you know my spot in all the years that I've been we've done this before and so forth and so on but you know we we looking at a big project here that started off big and is getting bigger and okay it's you know there's there's that was a big project that get started with there's a lot of there's a lot of modifications that had to be made

and so forth and so on but um when it comes to a point where uh the date to be completed has been put off I think once if not twice that when we get to this type of Point somewhere at the end of the project we got to we got to be strong about what we think is you know happened and what is Du us as a result of it so having that's my feelings about it

um if you know I I can see where Renee is saying um and so forth and she's right I mean just her background itself lends itself to that and um so myself I um I'll go along with approving this one oh Renee Scott just a clarified as just for the the potential extension to I'll give you a chance in a minute yeah this this extends the rpr uh to to November as

well as the construction management uh constru and then we be doing just construction close close okay Paul um you have any CLS it's been a thing with CDM for for many years I can see that yeah some things never change um okay having said all that um anybody want to make a motion to approve uh what do you want want to say an amendment number one is that right Terry number three Paul amendment number

one to CDM in the amount of I'm sorry amendment number three and the amount of $250,000 to CDM for additional work uh that hopefully will take us to the end of um November be want to make that motion to approve I'll make that motion for item number six for amendment number three second all in favor I I Scott I I okay motion approved item number seven CDM change order number five

now is this is this money to be paid to Daniel okano or is it to be paid to CDM uh Daniel ell this is a change order to the Daniel ell

contract the packet that we have have basically explains what each of the items are there's like 27 of them on there you know some them you know you you talk about tearing down walls and putting up tile and what have you and so forth and so on so just kind of a brief uh recap on this project again the project started out as 45 z075 million uh bid amount the uh total change orders so far

uh today on the project approved uh in Prior change orders to Daniel conell and sun is 774 th000 uh so that's roughly about 1.7% of the contract value does that in does that include the 304 tonight nope so including the 304 tonight that puts us at 1, 79,00 570 would be total change other amounts to uhon so that's about 2.3% of the uh of the total contract okay so far today yeah uh again as you

go through these change orders uh number of these change owners were U are um they've been signed off by CDM I'm assuming yeah so these were reviewed by CDM uh going through uh on the cost um and some of these again the cost has uh has credits as well as addition um throughout the uh throughout the project so those uh have been gone through to make sure that we do get the necessary

uh credits if work has been deleted uh for new work to go in okay um one question I have called perhaps I know you can remember it but we this contract went to Daniel o Con in the amount of approximately $45 million yes do you can you remember who what the second bidder on it was and how much I mean we're we're at we're at we're at what almost we're probably

four 46 and a half million right now right y I I was just wondering I was trying to think in my own mind when I was going through this wondering I mean like you say we're at two a little better than 2% uh yeah I Judah have that off the top of my head I apologize but no it's all right I will make sure I bring that to the next I was

I was just I was just thinking well it'd be it would have been interesting to know what the number two guy was was he up by 2 million you know and does it go in that yeah if I remember correctly this project had three bids on it and there was substantial spread between the three Bs this okay anybody got any questions about this yeah just PA for the uh for the

public uh state law with the the most amount that they can put for change to State contract uh so chapter 149 um if you're talking about uh change orders uh we would be uh Limited at a 10% cap um without unen conditions unless it's an unen condition within the project that uh could allow you to go above that that Gap again with these projects it's it's very tough as the commission knows um

you know sometimes when you get into uh a dealing with rehabing all the facilities uh sometimes uh as buils for uh prior prior documentation uh may be limited or might not be exactly as shown uh sometimes you get into some of the work uh you know one of the things within here is uh additional uh concrete removal on one of the wet Wells uh so they went in the contractor removed the proper amount by

specification I believe it was an inch of concrete within the wet well so that to prepare the surface for Coatings uh they do a test to make sure that the concrete behind that uh meets the pH standards and stuff like that because it's very gross ify is in it didn't meet those so they had to go in and take another inch off um so you know things like that isn't really something you

know you can do testing uh you know either spend millions of dollars up front testing everything and and uh trying to lay out everything 100% exact um take the exactly you know and that's a tough thing with with with us you know some of the other things that were in here and some of them owner requested type things um you know so to say that it's all uh due to um unfor yeah unforeseen isn't

that isn't the case but some of them are requested by us um or potentially things that uh that should have been in the contract and then weren specif within the contract so my only question is so the 2.3% um and how um where are we in the contract phase so we're probably I would say about 75% complete the contract so that's um I guess pretty reasonable the 2.3 out

10 yeah so if we're yeah 75% of 4 46 million yeah if is a good point a good point how much the difference was between the second lowest V yeah yeah that's something I always think about later on as the projects begin yeah definitely I'll get that out to the commission tomorrow um okay unless anybody else has any comments or want to make a point about something um I'll attain a motion to

approve um change order number five uh for the amount of $4,673.14

uh project so uh Sil handling uh building which is the new building that we constructed where the old incinerator building is uh that is uh we will be transitioning into there final inspections are ongoing I know five five Department been in there the past couple of days going through um the elevator inspection was uh scheduled for this afternoon and final building inspection Plumbing in electrical has signed off uh

we're expecting the temporary occup uh to allow uh transition of the staff into that building uh so the uh operators will be transitioning into that building um most of most of the administration will be moving out of the administration building so that that rehab can stop uh all the locker rooms and everything within the administration building all of the staff will transition everything down into the new

locker room locker rooms in the lower level of the facility um and uh that uh that will then be online um the admin once all that transition happens the admin building will be able to uh get start the um the select demolition within that building uh to be able to move through uh the was tank and the thck was tank uh have been fully online and functional for probably about uh

three months now uh there has not been uh there hasn't been any uh issues uh with uh with those um the blowers have been working Auto control has been online and functioning uh there was some tweaking uh with the auto control uh replacement of a pH probe that was B from the manufacturer um so those those issues were work through but that's been online uh have not had any issues uh

gravity belt thickeners uh right now are online in operational they came online last week they were dialed in um they started getting 78 % out of sludge uh sludge out of it we had to dial it back we need to stay right in the five range um the the performance testing of those uh has been put on hold for right now they are fully functional and operational uh but the performance

testing to uh make sure that they can produce the uh consistency of sludge that we need for a standard amount of time that's required within the specifications uh that's currently on hold because we had a back log of thick and sludge in the plant so we needed to get that out before the actual performance testing could be completed uh belt filter presses those are scheduled to go online um within the uh

within the middle of next month uh so that will be good that means that we'll be able to then have the ability to send out uh cake as well uh so those are complete uh the conveyors and and truck loaders underneath are are complete they're just finishing up all the electrical alarming ska controls of those how many belt how many belt filter presses Paul uh so there'll be two belt filter presses and those are on

mezzanine level above where the old garage was where the dumpsters were dumpsters were yeah so the mezine the two belt filter presses will be in the upper level below that there's three three spots for um for uh semi trailers to go in there uh and a con and a screw conveyor to be able to load those trailers um n Bay has a very similar loading facility and it wor it's been working

good for them that's why we modeled our after it um right now we're we're shipping a lot of liquid out yes right you know and I think we're in terms of solids we're shipping what about one and a half percent so if you if we go with this new system we're what up three or four yeah we we were running one and a half% for for the longest time as you

know if you look at more recently over the past couple of months since this since the thick and sludge tank the uh TS tank thick waste activated sludge has come online and now we're separating the waste activated sludge and the primary sludge U we get are sending out thicker sludge so now we're sending out between three and a half and 4% uh which again brings the trucking hauling way down uh

doesn't back up and we don't need to back up as much uh into the plant as we have in the past yeah both gravity thickeners are offline right now the contractor is uh is doing both gravity thickeners uh rehabing both of them at the same time uh so those are are currently offline uh being rehabed and work on by the contractor okay all right very good all right so thanks for that

um takes us to item number eight right Pierce amendment number four planning design construction management various Wastewater and storm water infrastructure projects $2 million and am I correct in stating this is a grant yes so thank God so uh this project is a continuation for the Stafford Square uh design yeah this is this is a big ERA this is the this is a very big item yeah you know as the board knows Stafford

Square um has flooded probably as long as it's been there I I think there is a time probably where it has not flooded um but uh it does become an imped to the businesses in that area to the general public uh safety has it um you know there's a health Care Facility just adjacent to there as well as multiple businesses um you know this is a project that um when the uh when the commission and the

council first put out uh back in 2015 a couple of different projects that they wanted to look at uh this was one of the projects uh that uh that the commission uh moved forward with uh back then an initial uh preliminary study was done at the Stafford Square uh area um um we have since uh continued on uh with that with that project we've appi applied to multiple uh grants uh and some we've

gotten some some we haven't gotten yet um but uh the commission I think not the last meeting but the meeting before did approve uh a uh contract for right here to start uh approv $450,000 which was arpa funding that provided by the city council yeah I remember that to go through start the survey work uh because we knew that this grant was approved and was was coming on board to be able to support this

contract uh so this contract is $2 million uh for right Pierce will bring us to 100% design uh of a um Mitigation Of The Flood within staff Square are um for everybody outse there uh so Stafford Square essentially we're talking about the area of Cor Street Pleasant Street County Street that all come together at this one intersection which is a low Point um the uh drainage area itself

actually isn't even on this whole entire map it goes as far back as Locust Street um which is way up here Oak Grove Cemetery really B is part of it and then you have East AB uh excuse me EAS a which is over here uh so this whole entire area comes down to this low Point uh and all that water during the rainstorm is trying to push out of that

low Point what's the tie what's the tie into to the quicker Shan River would respected that project so right now the uh all the drainage the separated drainage the old white Brook covet that comes through there as well as the Quarry covet that comes from the Quarry that was up by the small school all come together into in this intersection and there's currently an one existing outfall that goes underneath the

building um where uh popy chicken is and the T-Mobile store and stuff like that it actually goes through that parking lot underneath that building comes out of the back of that building and then comes down this Alleyway uh in between Health First in the mill and then out to the quick a Shand uh so that's that's the one connection that that currently has um so the tough thing is getting all

the water that comes down to this one low point a you know four large CS that come down to this one C that are trying to push all of that out there uh again knowing that this is a low area as well so through the preliminary design what they looked at was uh increasing the uh box CS going as far back as Bedford Street uh up over here uh increasing some of these covets Inlet capacity uh

as well as going up County Street ways to be able to get uh some of that flow uh into a pipe uh you come down into this area uh separated coming down from North ROP Cliffe would be an independent that pipe that would go to an outfall uh that goes into the same uh discharge area behind the uh I call this the Flint Village comage but behind that uh that falls that outfalls to the Bashan River

so essentially this contract is doing 100% designed uh all the way to stamp plans and bidding for this for this project how long do you figure before they're at that point uh so looking at about a year to a year and a half of full design of this project you know they've already started the survey this spring the survey is almost complete uh they just put in some additional monitors with the previous contract that

uh that the commission approved so they are they are moving forward Full Steam on this project um so one of the things that you know uh and we have we have a long time we have a timeline on this project that we're trying to be uh We've applied for a brick Grant so this overall project uh is a a $36 million construction project uh to be able to repair this area uh we appi applied for

a grant um through brick which is through FEMA uh we applied last year uh we didn't get the grant last year but they were very interested in the project they asked us to reapply this year we did apply we got the whole entire appliation in with everything so our hopes is that we'll move forward in the process again no guarantees we haven't heard from them you know sometimes a FEMA Grant process can take a while uh

as we learned on Middle Street when we got the grant for that drainage project but usually uh the payout at the end you know Middle Street was over $5.5 millionar was paid from FEMA uh for that drainage uh drainage Improvement project um so you know I feel has very good uh very good standings to be able to move forward so that overall schedule that we looked at we looked at being able about

a year and a half in design uh and that puts us in line to be able to go right into construction if the if the brick Grant is approved that's that fits right in within that timeline so uh that's kind of the overview so this will bring us to final design and bidding which is what's in the brick Grant uh the other thing that we'll be doing in here uh will be ing preliminary design to do

additional uh uh drainage separation within this whole entire area uh and then we're going to be doing really Advanced topography to make sure that uh we get all everything at the low points to be able to get all those basins uh into into the pipe and be able to get them out um so you know again it's it's a large uh a large design cost but again this project uh is sprawling uh with

hundreds and hundreds of Acres of uh I think it was 396 Acres of drainage area that comes down to comes down to this all came down to that one point and you wind the away cars float at that point yeah you know uh you know it is a troubled area and again this the grant that was provided to us was through the mass Works program um that's what that's what's going to be funding this contract

we've done uh bunch of mass Works programs both on the Water and Wastewater side in recent times uh we have a good relationship with them uh they were happy with this project again there's a bunch of businesses within that area that are impacted uh Health First Health uh facility uh is impacted as well as Mills with potential development uh in that area so uh this you know and the other thing um the

Pleasant Street neighborhood Flint uh neighborhood uh they have a ongoing uh revitalization program within that area and this uh this intersection directly within the we are going to be looking to redesign the whole intersection new street lights new pedestrian access because that's a that's a tough area for pedestrians yeah definitely an old problem at you know it's got so there's got to be a lot of

patience with respect to this project yeah but I think it's something that's long overdo with something I mean we you got to do it yeah it's you look at you look at what's there I think I think of a tunnel you know but everything's above ground there yeah well everything was underground there yeah all right it's very tough one very good um $2 million Grant um very good so um do we need to approve it yeah

so this is a contract for the uh commission to approve unless anybody has any other com ments or we should make those Pro against or whatever if not on a motion to approve amendment number four to WR Pierce company the amount of $2 million to start the initial planning designning construction management of the mitigation project I guess you could say what in Pleasant Street and Stafford

Square yeah this is going to be a biggie anybody make that motion motion second all in favor I I okay motion passes thank you all right this takes us to item number nine the operation management and maintenance contract for the wastewater treatment facility um I there's a note here for infrar I see some gentlemen smiling in the audience I I wonder why I wonder why they're here um

okay we um we're at the point now where um a contract with the existing contract that that's in place is um is finishing up June 30th um um it was a contract that was I believe four or 10 years um we came to the point where and I think rightly so where we needed to go out to bed to see just who else is out there that does this type of work and I believe we

went out out on a um request for qu what they call it quality an RFQ no so we did an ifb and in invitation for process which includes which is basically what looking for the qualifications of a company uh looking for uh the best value it was it was labeled as the best value and pressed all right so Paul go ahead give us your take on it and just what you people went

through to um come to this conclusion yeah so thank you very much um you know we did go out to ifb uh as the uh as um president Al mentioned uh we uh had a bid opening uh for that ifb uh there was two uh two submitt uh and one company that uh said that they uh were not going to submit so um but uh INF infar uh was the uh was one

sub mid uh the other one was our current own contractor of theola um for evaluation of those of those ifbs uh I put together a team of our staff including myself Miss K Mr linkor and uh Mr Garcia uh within within our office uh we each kind of went through the proposals uh as as submitted uh and uh met multiple times uh and the group came with a final decision uh that INF forar

uh would be uh who was the lowest bid would be the best value for the city um again over the 10-e uh just um so everybody knows uh the contract value uh is 88 M1 153,00 uh $549 uh and that's for the full uh 10year uh length of the contract so again through our evaluation that's why our recommendation on through uh We've issued a uh letter of uh uh intent to

award uh of the contract to him for Mark we've G through a contract discussion with them and that contract is fromont of the commission uh and as you mentioned there are some members from in from Mark uh here U and they did uh present some PowerPoint they did put together some PowerPoint slides uh if the commission would like to hear from them um okay um with respect to the contract itself um looks like a good

contract you're going to be a lawyer to really know it ins and outs and so forth but but um is there anything that that's in this contract that wasn't in the old contract that is let's say beneficial more beneficial to the city um so so for the contract is structured uh primarily after the old contract um the uh one thing a couple of changes is we naturally removed everything in relation to the

incinerator um because that we don't have the incinerator anymore there's a a bunch of Maintenance uh requirements within there um one other change that was made uh to this contract compared to Old contract so uh rebate uh that the city gets uh every year we have the ability to take and put that into a special account with infar uh and reinvest that rather than taking that as

a revenue um so to be be able to use it for Capital Improvements um rather than rather than taking it as a revenue um within our system again that's something that we really don't budget for in the revenue so I think it's best to be able to have that available for improvements uh in the facility that that we deem NE that the city deems necessary to be done

um uh any uh so let me can I just ask you with respect to that who's doing the investing them or us no so the uh so it would be the rebate that comes back to us after they do their audit every year so at the end of every year uh they do an audit if there's uh if there's labor that's not used or other uh savings that were in the contract um those those come

back to those come back to the city um so in the past we we've taken those back as a check cut to the city uh and that gets deposited within our revenues um so we would be able to leave that in in a special account with him fromont uh and reinvest that into Capital Improvements in the pl that we need necessary okay good yeah that sounds like a good that yeah um some other

things uh also uh we're looking uh Mark is going to assist us with going out to PID for uh sludge disposal um so that's something that's managed uh by the ownum contract again we probably best if we go to bid for that to uh to see what the best rate we can get out there for that disposal is so okay that's something that uh that we're going to be working together on moving

forward what was um what was the difference with respect to uh you said they also came in low bed yes they were um for my memory Serv to the T of about 600,000 was it yeah just about 600,000 last for the 10 year period okay um so again you know and and in review of the two contracts you know um they they're uh both very good contractors they did have value ads that

they that they were uh that they that they proposed within their within their proposal uh and you know it comes down a lot to price you know uh even though it is a little uh it's not a huge difference but it is the difference you know you average that over over the 10 years and that's two and a half set a year three okay um gentlemen the floor is yours is is do

you have anything you want to well maybe we can introduce ourselves yes then we had we did put together just a couple slides just a little sure the commission would be glad to see what you got to offer all right uh so certainly want to thank you for the opportunity to be here in front of the commission today and the opportunity to potentially um move forward you know with the Commission in the city to

operate the facilities good you know for you uh my name is Jason O'Brien I am regional vice president for inmark and I oversee projects uh throughout the Northeast and U the Fall River Project if we for would would fall under me oh good so you'd be the you'd be the guy the call to guy I am the call to guy um what's your name Jason O'Brien and his cell phone number

is but um I've been in the business for 29 years uh second generation in Wastewater my Dad ran wastewater treatment plant um nothing Rong with that running around PL since I was five um but uh in he he worked for me I do uh contract operations actually my first job was a shift operator at at a waste water treatment plant and I just moved uh through my career uh throughout the

years where do you base yourself out of so I live in Richfield Connecticut um so here it's about a 2 and a half hour ride for me um which I'm used to driving 35 to 40,000 miles no problem um but a lot of experience uh in Massachusetts and um just looking forward to you know assisting Paul and the commission here with the the new draft permit that you have and then really operating the uh

the facility and kind of getting the staff on board and welcome them in and and uh moving forward with uh with everybody here do you have any other facilities in under your realm where any of them are built right in a residential neighborhood yeah so uh Bridgeport Connecticut uh um you can look at houses right right across the street okay all right yeah much like Far River yeah okay

well you know what the challenges are can be with with respect ERS and and um you know uh traffic and trucks running in and out and so forth and so on and so um yeah that's I'm we're hoping you have a lot of experience on how to handle those issues yeah and as Paul was mentioning with the upgrades and when you're when you're hauling the cake product you're actually making the

solids to like 20 22% so you're going to have a lot lot less Vehicles going yeah hopefully of course there's a lot less to it should good um did you gentlemen want to make a presentation yes so just let uh Jen you want to introduce yeah so I'm Jennifer Anders I'm a senior vice president with infar and I'm um the executive sponsor for this project so if can't get what you need from Jason and

his his cell phone number I'm always just a phone call away Paul knows how to get a hold of me um so but but again just kind of echoing what Jason said and I don't want to pile on but we're just very grateful to be here and we are super excited about this long-term partnership with Fall River um and just I'm just really excited to to get going and then the the real man that's doing

the important stuff is at the end of thanks are you are you are you going to be the site manager so I'll be your startup project manager my name is John Marson and I'm I'm the point of contact for you on our proposal and I'll be the first one who's already been on the ground had a chance to go through the plan a number of times I am a um I work

with both Jason and Jen ad for Mark I've been a career um operator in wastewater treatment facilities I'm a born and raised Massachusetts guy with the northeastern I grew up in Lex I still live there now my family so I'm very close by and um have a lot of experience with the operation of Wastewater plants actually spent about the last three years three and a half years in in Norwalk Connecticut where I was uh in

charge of the transition of that project as well as the operation very similar operation to Fall River it was a Oceanside Community we had csos similar size staff similar size biosolids where we had option they call cake and liquid um so I'm excited to bring the the successes that our team did there hopefully bring some of those people with us as well we have a not to talk too much but I'm very engaged in in New

England and the operator associations we know a lot of people um so we're excited uh we hope to bring all of the staff over if we can but we know inevitably there may be people that choose to retire or or take a different path right now so we've got you got a great bench of people waiting to uh to come to follow well there's a lot of good people down at the fre plant people have been

there for years and so forth and made it you know it's not a pretty job but they've made it a career and and they've done a very good job U like we you know like I just said to you a partner here we got a big operation sitting in a very residental area and which is occupied by people that remember the old days when things were real bad and they they're

you know they're they're always ready to to pick up the phone and call you guys and say hey what's going on you know so forth I can't put my windows up in the summertime and so forth but uh yeah um I I I wish you could gentlemen your company um ladies the best naturally um you know you we want you to think of us as your number one customer all right absolutely

absolutely and actually I was I was I know you got a lot of others but myself one yeah well I was mentioning to Paul earlier you know um do we do we does the current operator give like a little five minute report on how the facility ran at the at the the meetings and he said no that hasn't really happened in the past that's something that we'd like to do so we can give you

like a monthly report that has you know how the plant run and then we can kind of just give you a little summary of the of the high points that happened throughout the month going forward yeah we'll work that up we work that up but just a a little bit of an overview um on infomark here so uh we have about approximately 560 uh facilities that we operate uh throughout throughout America you can

see it's kind of broken down between uh waste water and water facilities so it's 279 uh hopefully 280 Wastewater facilities and 275 uh drinking water facilities um we are the largest American-owned uh contract operating company uh and we operate in uh in 30 States um have about 300 or 3,000 uh employees uh in infrar and uh it would treat quite a bit of water you see like 1 billion gallons uh per day of treat

capacity uh 13.4 billion gallons of water delivered to customers to uh daily which a biggest Wastewater Plant you you're operating Oklahoma City 8 MGD uh Waste Water treatment facility yeah yeah so we have about 31 projects uh in the Northeast um you can see you're going to be our farthest project you know to the right but we're very excited about putting the putting the flag here and uh

continuing to uh to grow uh in this area um but we have uh you know over over 10 years of providing om andm services in just very good and then uh the last slide here is just to um give you a little bit about a uh seamless what we call a seamless uh transition process um here we actually have two people that are responsible for it we have John who is like the startup project manager be

focusing more on the employees and then we have another yep right here and then we have another person who's not here tonight uh Dennis who is going to focus on all the systems and procedures that we put in place with our technical teams and that is like when you were talking before the existing data that's at the plant we get into our data system so we have somebody kind of managing those

systems and software is to make sure that that that's all transitioning as well yeah so you basically have we have two extra people focusing on it but about 30 people assisting you know as part of that transition uh process but we do find that you know the people are the you know the most important part of the process kind of walks you through that like those six step process of the you know uh the

introduction to the company we'll have a meet and greet you know with the employees we actually have to give them you know an offer that they have to accept and and then we kind of move through with the project and the startup and everything associated with did I hear any Union involved did I hear you say uh yeah there is a union that represents majority of work now on the there is a union there's a Teamsters

Union that's there um so if you move forward with INF remark and then once everything's done we'll reach out to the Union to the local yeah the local to meet with them yeah good

Bri yeah it um just in my in my discussions with um with Paul during the time where he was doing his evaluations with uh old Courtney and John um and I believe there was somebody else on the committee um Paul was Paul was very excited about some of the things that you people have been proposing and that you you people spent a lot of time down at that plant looking at

it making in your I guess making the plan to in effect make it into a first class operation and um I'm a little excited about it myself not just a little but I am I'm very excited about it um because um we're moving for the future and um Now's the Time to to jump on the wagon to get things moving so we're uh looking forward to having you people put your best foot forward and

we're here to help you guys out you know um if you're looking for more money you may want to go somewhere else but but we'll worry about those times when the times comes but we you know you know partnersh you know um we just finished putting our budgets together and it's uh it's got It's a challenging year coming up for us so um we uh myself I can't speak for the other Commissioners

but I'm glad to see you guys coming on board I'm looking forward to working with you so I guess we can all sit here and 10 hours un expound on you know what's right what's wrong and everything else but now let's just get this thing moving forward and I believe we got this has to go in front of city council yet right yeah so this does have to go in

front of council so since it's more than a three-year contract Council doesn't need to approve yeah is that has the council date been set yet they do need to approve the counc so uh once the once the board takes action on this uh if it is to approve and move forward with the contract I'll send it up to the mayor and the mayor will send it down to the councel hopefully it would be on the

next meeting that would be my expectation again this is a bit of a timely matter um to be able to get this uh approved and underway because in June 30th our contract does expire with our current owner contract uh and uh they get on board uh starting to transition as soon as possible you guys don't have any problems with that time one do you absolutely not okay good that's what I expected you to say okay good

um all right the only note I had I'm looking at 3.6 so 50 qualified Personnel that includes everybody that's there um so it said they don't need to apply and you said you you're going to be offering how's that work yeah so I've been through these before so just a little disc they actually have to be like laid off or terminated from theia they have to be hired by us right so

they kind of go through that process so they do need to go through okay they do they do but it is more of a formality okay um but it is they get actually offers from us you know we we sit down with the the teamers union to negotiate the contract um but as the RFP stated we have to recognize all the employees bring all the employees on I can't force

them to come on right you there's always the potential that the existing contract operator tries to keep a few of them right um that's why we were getting John prepared you know to to be to be on site he's planning to be there for as long as he needs to be um but it is it is a pro it is a process that they that yeah because there are a few jobs that I

don't think are union there are there are there are supervisor so those are the ones that would stay basically or must maintain their current positions I'm just curious how many not Union it's about from my memory it's about 10 nonunion out of the 50 okay employees yeah so they don't get the boot I'm just U we are meeting your RFP requirements was to interview and hire all the existing stuff right so but they have to

want to come work to right I can't can't force them to okay so that's just part of the process yeah I I yeah I got no problem with that you got you got your gentleman of new company you got to do what you got to do you got you got your own company policies you have to you have to abide by and just as long as you're abiding according to the contract like

you say the RFP you know you should you know you should there you I'm sure you're going to run across some some people or an individual that may have some questions about what about this what about that or you know I I got to sleep on it or something like that and uh but this is this is what happens when you have a transition of this nature so well and that's you know part of why you

know John is one of the best doing this and and Jason as well as to he but it's it's part of why what infrar does is we have this other person dentist that is able to focus on all all of the other behind the scene kind of nuance things that have to happen as part of a transition but these guys can really then focus on on the people and keeping

the dayto day up and running while all like while cell phones and computers and the phone lines and the data transfers and all of that we have somebody else that offloads that from these guys they're still aware what's going on and they'll participate as necessary but I do think it's one of the unique things that infomark does in handling our transitions that help them go smoothly

um because honestly this is this is the most important part of our contract right here is being able to transition smoothly and make sure we bring on those employees yeah and I've done this probably aund times and you know you do have maybe those one or two employees that you aren't sure what's what happens but you know it's not like the existing contract operator has 50 opening someplace to go put these people they

kind of like working here right you know if you really have a good staff they you know the the logo is while it says inmark you know they kind of feel like they're city employees right and that's what we want them to feel like here um Paul would we SP respect to the company that's there now um and assuming that everything runs smooth July one comes these people come on board and so

forth those people that are with the existing company now that'll like to leave for whatever reason um um they is there any any major items that that somebody can take that they own down there that would come as a surprise to them or to us that oh my God they're taking this and it and and and they're um you know we I thought that we bought it and it with let them use it

and stuff like that but um just just throwing that out to you just so that um you know the I I I'd like to see this be as smooth as possible without people being um you know uh accused of stealing something and uh just because I've seen it happen in in some of the transitions that I've had to deal with personally and and they always it always always crops up at the last minute all of a

sudden oh my God yeah the guy the guy's pulling out with three computers and whatever this case may be and everything else so I thought that was ours so just just as a as a matter of uh information on it okay yeah thir it out it out no you know and understanding that's something that we're going to you know us as the city naturally we're going to be protecting our interest down there

yeah I know I know we have inventory that of taken in annually and everything else so just something to keep that in mind Mr chair I just comment on it briefly we've been through this before you know we've transitioned from competitors and we've got a process that we go through it it starts early with us being there you know I was there last week I'm going started being there more

frequently and and the other thing is it's people that you have involved with with the demobilization on their side you know we know we know project managers there we know people be involved on the other side we've got relationship with them and we'll make sure that that's managed and it's professional doesn't get get Petty or anything don't want anything Petty and if if there's a you if there's a

situation we'll certainly brief you on it and you our inclination on these things is just to be the better person move on and and uh start fresh John um I just want to understand again your position am I correct in assuming that you are not going to be the side guy you're you're you're setting it up you're you're you're going to fill all the gaps and everything else and make sure it's all running

smooth that's correct but you're not the psy guy well he is the site person but not the longterm site person because the r did even say that we had potentially offer and hire the existing site person right so we're not sure if that person who's going to come work for us um so prepared we're prepared for Plan B okay okay okay I got it and I can get I understand what plan B can can you know

could could result in if it had to but all right okay I I'll be around a lot I'll be no I I get it but I just want to see long term that there's a potential he could be somewhere else taking over another plant or whatever the case may be at some point potentially some point yeah yeah okay I always you know my experience I've been doing this for 30 years I still have sentimental

attachment to projects I worked at 25 years ago so you know when I'm involved with something well one thing we got that may keep you here longer is that we go to a lot of good restaurants right right and we can probably show always some of those yeah we're looking forward to that CU we're all about food too we won't talk about too much tonight part of our unique approach on

morale is is food and cookouts and really getting employees engaged good through that process so it's a lot of okay anybody have any other questions you like this for quick question I know you're here for the waist side but you mentioned that you're here on drinking water side just brief the board on that may something all is the city looking to bring in a private entity on the water side or uh

we have somebody on hand possible you know currently we we are not looking for an onm contractor on the water side um again is uh things change in the future you never know um you know when we happen you know when we were down Staffing for five four years ago it was an option that we that we explored um but uh we've been able bring our staff and back

up you know them as well as how the omm contract is Du water we would certainly be interested we we're actually engaged in the city of KCK at rhod Island right now they just released a RFP for the operation of you do both we do oh yeah we are not here to encroach on your water operations let me be clear U but we look at us as a resource that can

help PA and the team if they have questions and we're just another person that can help out yeah right now we're trying to find people to buy water you know we used have a real big sale at one point in time but yeah our problem is we don't we don't get rid of enough of it um Paul do you have any questions um anybody else have any other comments okay if not uh we're at the

good point now of uh putting probably Smiles on these people's faces so um what Terry I mean I keep Paul what is the actual number 88 million 88 M1 153,00 549 uh and again with the approval um I did add in my letter here and I do ask the board if this is uh under review by law Department if there is any minor um you know uh changes within the contract based on

water Department's review prior to execution that those forward if there's anything substantial that would come back to the commission okay so um would anybody like to make a motion to approve the open the operations management maintenance contract for wastewater treatment uh to the infr mo company company for a 10-year contract valued at 88 M1 153,00 $549 I'll make that motion for item

number nine change operation management for the uh wastewater treatment plant facility for second all in favor I Paul do you want to do a roll call on that just for the record yes please roll call vote on the uh omm facility uh contract uh for wastewater treatment for the wastewater treatment facility being wired to infomar uh in the amount of 88 m153 549 uh roll call soua yes M elves yes M haak yes

president Al yes thank you congratulations thank you wish you the best be careful and uh you're going to have a good bunch of people to work with you if not down there the offices these young ladies that are over there and the people that are in their staff in the so Commission Office they're there to help you all right um okay gentlemen thank you very much um I guess Paul the next

item is item number 10 response to the draft National pollution discharge eliminating system the mpds permit yes so again uh I just wanted to uh bring this to the board we've mentioned it at prior meetings that a draft permit for public comment uh was out a public comment was do by April 16th which we work with our team which consists of CDM Smith myself um CDM Smith staff member we brought on BS lingon as a special

counil uh as well to be able to uh to uh review the permit which was uh draft permit for public comment uh which uh everything in the supporting documentation was was over 30400 pages so uh we did do that uh our group met a number of times uh and we've drafted what we feel is a very solid response uh to their per to their uh draft permit that was issued there are

there are a number of things within this that uh know we've been uh that has been discussed um within the commission uh as well as within studies that we've done um we feel that uh EPA did not um review a lot of the studies that we've done done uh or uh a lot of the timelines that we put together things that they required us to do uh and we did provided

to them uh and they didn't use that in input when they drafted uh this permit um so I'll just go over some of the highlights uh of uh the uh fit some of the uh some of the highlights of things that we did comment on um so highlights uh nitrogen un limits uh unfounded uh basis and are are far too low so essentially they gave us a rolling uh uh

average over a period of time uh it all works out to essentially a five milligrams per liter um is is what they ended up giving us uh which we feel is far too low for the mon hope Bay uh mon hope Watershed which is where discharge um you know it's there's no real science ific documentation that supports or um anything that supports currently that the monop bay needs that type of liit in

place uh posos testing posos is kind of a newer key uh uh word or acronym that has come up um so on the water side there are regulations uh Mass the state of Massachusetts has some of the strictest within the country uh which are our drinking water side uh actually we are below the uh below the limits within Massachusetts um the EPA just recently came out with health level or health advisory limits which are uh pots

per trillion now um which is extremely low on nine different compounds um they I think they may have just approved the first scientific method to be able to test that low they haven't even been able to test at as low as the uh Health women that the EPA has put in place on the drinking water side um the Wastewater side is currently are not any limits uh EPA wants us to explore uh our

waste water to see what they want to set the limits at so that's why they want us to do a bunch of testing and see where it's coming from that's usually the normal protocol yeah we do we do the work they set it set it up for them and then they right then they take it and cut it in half and say there's your limit exactly so we feel it's far too

restrictive and far too free frequent in the draft permit that they issued uh co- permit so they listed uh uh the uh subsequent systems that feed to us being uh Idan Freetown uh and westpaw as co- Peres which we feel that that's outside of the grounds where they uh are able to do that um we feel that they uh should have their own lipy permit but not discharging to a water way or water body

um they're trying to group Co permites in to be able to uh grab uh restrictions on their system and then make us as the permit police those communities um so we feel that that is not within the the um within the grounds of the Clean Water Act to be able to do that adaptive planning they're requiring us to go through an Adaptive planning process which essentially is to go through uh

look at all of our systems uh look at climate change and impact which we've done on multiple different studies that we've done haard mitigation study Municipal vulnerability preparedness study uh our integrated plan all of this was looked at submitted to them they're requiring Us in this draft permit to go back and do that again um so that was one thing um so back to the nitrogen limits the

nitrogen limits to be able to meet what they're requesting is roughly a 200 $250 million upgrade needed into the plan they're saying that that should be done within a fiveyear period um they say they're going to pay for that was one of the things come with a big check we'll get started tomorrow um but I've been checking the mail every day and haven't seen Che nothing waiting for though yeah that is a big issue it's

been I mean I remember when Terry was on board we were talking about the perit yeah if that that the EPA and the and the red guys out of Bost and everything else are are trying to put the foot down on nitrogen limits and it's like oh my God yeah exactly and you know the problem is so our plant you know as everybody knows it's it's it's a dated plant but it's in good condition

operating function um but to take and throw a $200 million tertiary plant on the pretty much rebuild the secondaries of our facility without touching anything else within the facility without touching csos without touching our collection systems without spending any money anywhere else isn't something that we can do you know we've been very good over the over the past um over the past 20 years of

looking at a holistic approach you know the last last uh amendment that we've had to the federal court order and the current consent order we're under you know allows us to do a couple of pump stations address collection system is issues address some flooding issues um and also address upgrades needed at the plant and our other treatment facilities so you know that's the approach that we

need not just this is what we want you to do because then we're still going to have clf that wants us to do another $40 million of C so abatements then we're then on the water side we're looking at you know $30 million of lad service abatement which is mandated by EPA as well so the burden on the rate pay is overall between water and waste water is something that that just uh doesn't

become affordable and you know I provided you I provided we provided the comment letter uh to to the commission um the appendix was probably about 2,000 pages of appendix um and uh I don't know if that was sent over to the commission as well but all of that is available uh we had uh raap Tellis the company that was in here during the budget time uh rate setting they did a financial

Capacity Analysis uh and they provided us with that's within the appendix uh some of that was touched on within the letter that we provided you know uh public comments but it is we do have the full letter in the appendix and just looking at that burden uh was very um is anybody is any is there any facilities that that you know of or you gentlemen know of where where nitrogen limits are

in place yes yeah yeah a number of facilities do do have nitrogen limits um Brockton has nitrogen limits and has has had them for a number of years um TT and Upstream has has nitrogen limits now they're doing upgrades to their facility uh what's very tough with our facility is the type of facility that we have the purox facility uh within the secondary component of the plant so the purox

facilities essentially you do that you pump in the oxygen into the uh into the into the into the Wastewater stream to try to build up that waste activated sludge and you pump that oxygen in into a confined space and get it to interact with the water so that you can make a smaller footprint uh for the treatment area make that bacteria grow faster uh so that it'll set settle out in the

secondary clarifiers well nitrogen removal you kind of need a longer slower process um so you know the overall look at our facility we'd be having to look to triple if not quadruple the size of the tankage that we have within the secondary area of about PL so uh you know that's that's that's one of the that's where a lot of that cost of upgrading facility comes in to be able

to meet the limits that they put within the draft permit that we feel doesn't have a scientific basis the last study that they did that they provided us within the draft permit um still had the power plant across uh the bay operational um didn't have any of the improvements Upstream with Brockton and titon so none of that stuff was obser observed to be able to fully understand how the bay is you know healthwise and

what it may need to be able to improve to get to a healthy point where where it's sustainable so all of that is kind of mute within the limits that they put us you know U one of the early conversations I had with the permit WR I said well how did you guys come up with a five well Upstream they have a five it you know that that was their response to me which

yeah yeah didn't make sense I can see why Paul who um who wrote this response uh so again it was our whole entire team that worked together uh myself um Burns and levingston and uh and CDM Smith you know we worked uh initially we were given a 60-day period uh to be able to respond um the normal period is 30 days I requested um that they issue you know uh more than that

right off the bat I did ask for an additional 30-day extension uh they did not uh issue uh a full extension they issued another 16 days uh so you got it in in time we did get it in in time uh it was submitted and received by them um so uh again they you know we just you know we've invested a lot of money into uh you know you go through the

integrated plan and we didn't ignore nitrogen within the integrated plan in and our planning all of our planning we've included nitrogen we've did special studies that are appendices to the integrated plan looking at the nitrogen um you know you go through the SE through the uh facilities plan that's done for the wastewater treatment facility and we went really in depth with nitrogen removal but again there's

a whole process that's laid out of upgrades that are needed throughout all of our fa facilities and that doesn't fit in the next five years um so uh that's kind of you know we we asked them um to we asked them a couple of couple of things so that's kind of what we run through affordability becomes a big issue again for us we just saw some of uh the highest rate

increases that we've ever seen uh to be able to support our uh Enterprise funds um so uh so I request to them uh first was to Let's redraft this permit sit down with us let's come up with something that's manageable everybody knows nip permits of for five years our last one you know did expire in 2006 it was number of years ago um and we've been running on that permit but uh you know

sit down with us and let's work and Hammer something out that works for you guys uh works for us you know and I think you know speaking for myself um I have no issue taking an investing money uh into our system as long as that money is going to show the return on what it's meant for if they're telling me just to dump a bunch of money in to meet a five nitrogen limit and we

don't need a five nitrogen limit that just doesn't make any sense you know um so sit down with us Hammer through let's redraft the permit put it back out for public comment uh and and go from there makes sense so and we really need to observe what the betterments of other improvements are you know that's that's my first ask that would be my first ask let's take a look at you know let's uh let Tartan

finish up their their plan let's see what the bay looks like with ecosystem looks like at that point and what it might need um so that's kind of what our uh our requests were from there uh so the next steps where where we stand now um and we got issued a permit just before uh o was issued uh Somerset was issued uh a draft permit for public comment as well uh there a lot of their

stuff was was very similar to us uh and they have a Long Hall of uh upgrading uh upgrading their facilities because their facilities are very old and don't meet the requirements as well um but uh you know we'll be reaching out to so right in my cover letter I told them that I'll be reaching out to that EPA to discuss uh how to move forward um so what EPA could do they could redraft the permit

uh they could modify the permit based on the public comment that re that's received so that's public comment from us but then anybody else I know uh T and Watershed Alliance submitted a letter in public comment that said it's been far too long for us without a permit they need to issue it as soon as possible so there are the other side um to this uh there was a number of uh you know ident

submitted public comment CU again they there Cobra permit uh there was other alliances that submitted for us other ones does mass per um um participate in this in this discussion I'm not not familiar with that yeah no I I haven't seen the full list of they haven't released the full list of public comment that's been issued um for anybody so you know uh I know they've been pretty active in some

of northern northern cities and towns above for this reason yeah okay yeah all right no problem wa for the Coalition um for us submitted a very nice comment um so there was a number of uh of ones the other thing that they could do is they could just issue the permit the way that it was that it was drafted um you know where does that where does that leave

that leave us what we could do um we can accept a permit uh if they issue it um depending how they change it how they modify it what they do um would determine that um after that our next step uh if we didn't like the permit would be to appeal to the uh environmental appeals board um got it and then you know that goes and the potential um litigation of the permit

and stuff like that so uh you know these are options that a I wanted to be prepared for to know what the next steps were I wanted to let the though um cuz you know those sometimes those uh those things do need to happen in in a in a timely manner to be able to be deadlines with the appeal Sports and stuff but no they haven't provided any indication on when when they'll be releasing uh any

anything any next draft or final permit or anything I haven't heard anything since you expect uh conservation law Foundation to get their um get their put their input into this as as to what they're feeling thought uh you know I would expect that they would have submitted uh public comments but again I haven't seen the full list of public comments you know I have searched the web a couple of times that's how I found

the to River Watershed Alliance public comments they post on their page but I haven't seen anything from the record from the EPA on every conservation law Foundation very well may submit may have submitted some to it so Paul do we have a copy of the draft permit uh we do I think I don't know did we get it what the draft

per we I'll make sure that the whole entire commission gets probably my email I think I saw it some place yeah it was emailed maybe it's a pretty involved thing that was what you emailed um week okay no no the actual draft permit that was issued by by as long as it was emailed that's fine yeah I'll make I'll make sure it got out if we'll get

you I think I sent I sent it out a while ago sure but again that's I just want to kind of kind of wanted to run through um you know again uh comments middle was uh uh 50 plus Pages um and uh in our attachments were significant but it was a lot of uh a lot of things a lot of the reports that uh EPA just ignored to look at when they TR

out well Paul thanks very much appreciate you the input you're giving it to us yeah it's this is a big deal coming up you yeah this we've been operating on a Sho string permit since I the whle pup 2006 already 2006 2006 was was the expiration of last permit and we've been uh you know we applied for a new one at that time and it would has not been issues

takes a lot of work though takes a lot of time a lot of effort yeah this was uh this is pretty substantial so all right I guess that takes us to other business or other potential matters does anybody have any other matters they want to discuss if not I'll entertain a motion to aurn motion made second Paul do you have anything you want to bring up all right okay um all

in favor I motion passes thank you