4.4.2023 Watuppa Water Board

all right be okay he appointed our having arrived uh called this meeting in the watapa water board to order um pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are

deemed acknowledged and permissible and number one we take attendance present presidential here item number one citizen input I hear no citizen input therefore we shall move to item number two minutes of the previous meeting you need a minute to review them if not the chair will entertain any corrections or omissions make a motion to accept second all in favor aye aye solo minutes are approved we

have moved item number three proposed leak abatements all right we have a total of nine thousand nine hundred and thirty two dollars and forty one cents in abatements that have been reviewed we have three denial Port oh excuse me we have five denials

that's interesting about top League um are there any questions hearing none the chair would entertain a motion to approve the leak abatements as presented in the total in the amount of nine thousand nine hundred and thirty two dollars and forty one cents all in favor aye just a quick question do um hmm if we juxtapose these numbers for fiscal year 23 total against fiscal year 2022 total

it looks like it's significantly less than and I guess what I'm trying to Beat Around uh answering is does it seem as though we are issuing fewer abatements or at least that monetarily they seem to be less money um no we we right now we're we're continuing to play some catch up with uh with a lot of room from the beginning of the fiscal year um you know there was a change in staff

over there so we've been working to catch up um we were running in the past the first year I believe we did this which was 2018 I think it was excuse me yeah 2018 or so we ran about eighty thousand dollars and it's creeped out a little bit from there but yeah the beginning of the year we were we were pretty familiar with getting them done so we'll catching

them now I just was curious to you know maybe people were not necessarily taking event not not that we want them too yeah you know you know you'll notice some of them that have kind of been to or denials based on they've already applied for a leak abatement there is the five-year mortarium on on that uh program as well so if you're out on a payment within the past five years you wouldn't be eligible

uh those that do come in we do do the calculation out of the second abatement is higher than what their first one was we do give them the difference you know again this is a program that we're trying to uh give the customer the benefit of the doubt for leaks that they do have on their property thank you all right that would take us to item number four proposal from diamond Mr Clark

thank you very much so uh within your packet you have a proposal that diamond is requesting a they actually requested Amusement right-of-way access uh to go across our property uh Diamond Regional Vocational High School on stove Haven Road uh is in the midst of Designing and proposing to plan a new high school construction of a new high school the new high school takes goes into the

place of their existing football fields and some of the baseball fields so they uh they worked with the school department to be able to use the back area of Talbot middle school for their track and field as well as their football practice area from my understanding the the area that they're looking to do so from the back of the baseball field uh at Diamond now there is a gate that enters our property

um that has always been closed and off limits uh to use but that does come through a area that is uh that is you know fairly uh decent walkway through that gate area comes out onto Bedford Street right with a little turn off is I think it used to be uh what type of road that turned off and ran down by the pond or Reservoir if you get the name of that

but the reservoir drive or that might have been it yeah so um you know it turns it comes right into that that turn off of Bedford Street uh if you walk down that that turn off area um there is a uh there is a small path that uh has been used by trespasses to come from the back of Talbot onto our property um so um that what they'd really like to do is

be able to use that path area widen it up better to be able to have their students walk from Diamond over to the Talbot fields there are other options are to provide bus transportation for all of their students that are playing these uh After School sports activities uh which would be a large cost to them to bus them from Diamond uh up Stonehaven and all the way around to Talbot you know

my initial concern when this was proposed to us is naturally um you know you're inviting people to see uh you know a potential unforeseen nuisance inviting people into that area that's that's my biggest concern so as I read through their proposals uh their proposal and I met with uh Bobby Bailey a couple times from uh from the diamond Athletics program to discuss this um you know and and go over that

proposal uh there are some tweaks from that proposal that I feel needed to be made uh first thing they asked for an easement right of way which I don't feel that we should be giving to them um I felt that a revocable license would be the best instrument within our abilities to be able to allow them that gives us that gives them a license to be able to use that

to make improvements to it at the end of the license term they need to return it back to its natural state so I think the revocable license is the best instrument to be able to use it is a revocable so if we find that they're not they're not being good stewards of the agreement or they're in breach of the agreement and we have the ability to revoke that license and discontinue the use of of that pathway

again my biggest concern is um you know uh you know I think some of the members may know about four months ago there was a incident down with you know 2 30 in the afternoon a couple of our guys were coming back from working and they found three uh younger people breaking into the 1875 uh Pump Station in the middle of the day with Crow crowbots trying to pry the doors open

um so you know I don't we don't really want to invite that type of activity uh into this area but again we also do want to be good neighbors and try to work with the school you know the school sports program and the benefit to the children of their sports program is is something that that this agreement will directly uh you know affect so again if you want we could walk through the

license I I've put together a draft uh revocable license agreement for the board what they're looking to do so they would be walking through the gate in the back of the baseball field through the pathway that's already there to the edge of Bedford Street go down Bedford Street and then they would be construct constructing a stone dust walkway from the Reservoir Road I believe it or Avenue up into the back of

Talbot's property they'd be required to put six foot high Gates on either side with uh with flanking fence up at the fields to limit the axis the gauge would need to be locked at all times they would have to they would be restricted on who they could potentially give the keys to we would get keys to those gates in case we needed to access them or have any issues

this is about a six foot wide path they were they're talking about constructing um so I did have uh Michael Bossier a Forester go out there and flag out the area of the path that we're looking to do so that would be it the pathway is not to be used for on or off-road Motor Vehicles so there would be no vehicle access allowed they would be strictly responsible to maintain this pathway the

children would need to be chaperoned as going back and forth it would only be able to be used by Diamond students as well as diamond staff so it's not going to be an open public access you know parents want to go they can drive over the Talbot if another team is you know the mind of thinly this is supposed to be practice fields but if there's another team that's going to be there

they would also have to go to Talbot and not to uh the diamond high school as well um you know once the water board does approve this revocable license I will share this with the school department as they uh only Talbot area and then I will share it with the diamond as well if the board does uh does decide to Grant this um it's also going to be sent to the law

department for their review uh in any minor modifications uh the time frame that they want to use it is March 20th to June 15th and for The Fall season from September 20th to November 30th practices they say typically 3 P.M to 6 P.M Monday through Friday so those will be the times that they will be eligible to be able to use uh use this license through that area um uh

the other thing I did require that they would have to hold us harmless as well as uh also provide an insurance policy with the city as additional insurance regarding keys I was wondering Mr Ferlin if you think it might behoove us since we have 25 numbered keys and some non-duplicatable which are non-duplicatable and we have those special locks would it make sense to have them use our locks

that are numbered uh keys and then we would have a permanent record of Who's got what or Diamond provides their own keys and provides us Keys yeah yeah the way that I wrote the license they would be putting the locks on purpose copies of the keys um that is something that can be helpful to do that we could do that as well just I know we have the case available my only concern

are guess I need a better understanding so if they're going to use this field as a football practice field and there has to be a trainer that's going to be taking care of sports on the diamonds on the Diamond Property side and on the Talbot side if a student is hurt on the Talbot side what is because normally like we discussed it's a gator or a golf cart or something that they

bring the student athlete back to um uh the Train the trainers facilities on diamond I I guess I would want a clearer understanding of what their process will be for that so they're asking for permission and not asking for forgiveness because I feel like that's probably what will happen okay no that's definitely something that I can ask them for a standard operating procedure or policy to be uh for them to

put together and provide to us for my review approval prior to it again yeah within the license agreement it does State no motorized vehicles I would imagine that they would have uh seeing that there's such a distance between they would have a separate area or triage area set up at the Talbot fields in you know ambulance or anything like that would uh would respond to the tablet Fields but I can't ask them for

that that may be something where they may have to provide a uh a bus service or a vehicle service that can drive on the road from Talbot to Diamond if they are going to be transferred opponent students themselves oh that's a good point

how late are they um 6 p.m three to six and that's three to six of them until November November 30th it's going to be walking back early dark yeah so the only um and there is no lighting down on that um well there's no in fact before I mention anything else I I will not be voting on this item because I'm a I'm a vendor for the school um and before any mention had been made

of a path between the two schools I was involved in a meeting to use the fields at Talbot for diamond or to do some Renovations at the fields and a four Diamond at Talbot so I I will not be voting but to something that that is going to want to be added here under number five item I it is not uncommon for there to be Saturday football practices there so

there should be someone is at some point going to ask to use that field on a Saturday And to clarify and at tablet there is no Lighting on those fields so they they would have to stop football practice later in the excuse me earlier than the day in the fall yeah because there's no lighting down yeah Stonehaven Road either to my knowledge yeah if you want I think maybe we'll might serve us there would

be to put a half put a limitation that uh um the gates must be locked half hour before dusk or Before Sunset so I honestly I we I may be speaking out a term but I think that the the school might want to re-look at this because frankly I have two high school kids who would never walk this distance to get to practice never mind walk home um so I would hate that all of this work

and all of this money is spent and this path never used and then we're concerned with now we have this path and these lockable Gates that are potentially two areas where we could be getting access into our property for nothing because it's not going to get used so you know I think that maybe more conversation needs to be talked about with diamond about the reality of using this actual path

than the chair to entertain a motion to table this and I would I would make that motion to table this until a little more information can be provided or understood I'd second that all in favor aye do we need to record questions

it may it may um you want to ask for the school to send a representative for the next time I'm sorry maybe we asked for the school to send a representative for the next meeting so my plan yeah just so just to answer additional questions I can't get them more to walk downstairs if you want like that's probably a mile walk it's it's a hike from this from the school all the way over here yeah yeah

because if you're thinking about they're coming from the field house down the hill through the baseball field through our program yeah I just my plan will be uh no discussion after the table but my plan would be to uh discuss this with diamond uh and then also see whether they would want to send a representative to the next meeting that sounds like exactly the right way to go thank you thank you

that will take us to item number five alleged service replacement contract and based we have correspondents Mr Ferlin based on the attached evaluation and recommendation from Woodward and Curran's review recommendation for a deep Paolini LLC in the amount of four million eight hundred and sixty seven thousand nine hundred and five dollars do we have any comment on this

they have done based on their history of projects provided through the bid package they have done lit service replacement gooseneck excuse me service replacement which through the consultant talking with them some of the more LED service they also had a lead gooseneck replacement contract in another Community as well yeah they did do a lead service line replacement we are just a unique Community I will

say and it's just interesting that um these two contractors because I don't think that dig it's done anything for any Replacements in the city and then bisco who has done many are twice what these guys are so um just my general comment would be there is concern between the the break and those numbers but um if paolini's done this you know obviously they wouldn't be able to bid it if they didn't have the work yeah you

know the plant inspects were provided to all contractors uh and it wasn't laid out um you know all the requirements was laid out within those uh within those provided to the contractor uh Fall River as you said we already Community as all communities of you know the design consultant has done work in other communities as well so that you know we incorporated multiple things our existing contracts uh other communities

contracts when we looked at building these specifications so you know the two low biddens were within uh you know they were they were very close they were above six thousand dollars a pot and then there was one that was uh that was a lot higher so you know through the evaluation the engineer consultant did speak with ad Paolini and uh where where did we estimate this job to come in at

uh so I figured that the job would come in at about well 4.2 once we once we did the addendums and everything else like that our initial uh our initial that we put out there I believe was about 3.4 or so um what we were guessing at originally but after a full review of everything we were about 4.2 so this is within the ballpark of of what's estimated um this is planning to be paid the

original amount uh through our phase 22 allocation which is uh roughly about three and a half million dollars or so but we do have additional funding both from Bristol County our profile LED service removal as well as the wind Grant the 10 million Grand service that will removal that we have so this uh the additional funding above what would be provided through the srf program uh in

the phase 22 uh we'll come from one of those other allocations thank you I have no further questions how many um if I may how many how many people how many packets well these are the only three bitters these were the only three bidders on the project yes uh it was uh there was a number of uh of um you know plants and specifications pulled I want to say maybe uh 15

different contractors uh it was a lot of other familiar contractors that did pull the packets um so they just opted not to bid you know we'll find it right now that the whole entire uh industry is kind of influxes a lot of federal uh monies out there uh there's a lot of work out there and as with most Industries there's a shortage of orchids as well so you know all depending on Independent

um companies workloads I think the uh they decided whether they would be able to bid on this project or not paolini's work in um need them and in Watertown a very small jobs and the question that comes to my mind is that similar to a meter modernization program there's going to be a lot of Outreach required in this I Hope they've taken that into consideration that they're going to be

that's going to be quite a feed in and of itself yeah without a doubt So within the bid specifications it was laid out that it would have to be first Contact second contact third contact contact to try to gain entry I stand in forms that were that have been done were provided within the packet too so they were they didn't know you know what what they would need to get approved by the property owners to

be able to go onto the property to do but yeah there is a lot of there is a lot of public out you know a lot of Outreach to these customers there is a line item in here for verification as well an inspection pits those are two things that we're going to have to do as we go through the project verify that the house does have a lead service prior to getting out there with the machines

and you know looking to dig and then also the test pits would be any that we have question whether there's any lead I would plan to do test pits at the location of the curb stop

okay we've got

they don't Envision having to change valves yeah again how a contract is structured that bids is on the contractor there's a lot of different ways to structure myths wow I know that's gonna happen you know that's yeah I'm just I'm looking at this from the standpoint of meters again you know in the difficulty we've run into in the past with valves not holding and then trying to freeze services and um

that can really get complicated quick it's interesting so they're assuming or someone's assuming that these are all clean shut-offs oh

So within this contract it is a total it is a replacement of 500 lead Services there are Milestones within the contract uh 400 would have to be done prior to November 15th and a total of 500 would have to be done prior to December 15th of this year as everyone knows underneath our acop with dep we are required this calendar year to remove 400 lead Services throughout the city all right it's a lot of services

yes it is you have a lot of good days that you have just as many bad days you do three there are days you don't do once you've got seven months to do 500.

other penalty Clauses or anything with them that's built within this contract yeah so there's liquidated damages and then also they'd be responsible for any uh damages that we we would have to pay the penalties uh if we don't meet the requirements of the aclp that was my next question if we don't meet the requirements of the acop because of the contractor that's going to open up a whole other can of worms so

so it's October what'd you say November 30th November 15 November 15th so it's November 15th and we have 350 Services done then what just curious at that point we have the ability to start to charge liquidated damages the acop goes to calendar year so that gives us another month and a half to be able to complete at least if we were at 350 we complete at least another 50 services to meet the acop that's from

our standpoint but once we hit the December 15th liquidated damages uh above what's already been able to think of the Takeover after the first Milestone or so again it's uh it's a very tight timeline it's a lot of work that needs to be done that's when we were uh you know that's why the bids just opened last week we did an evaluation of the engineered evaluation we did what the tonight's in front of the board today

they need it it's actually it's going to be a shorter time frame than you think because just their Outreach is going to take them four weeks by the time they set up notify follow up set appointments they will be handling all of that by themselves and not relying on the administration office right they will be doing that the contract is responsible for doing all that wow through our uh engineered design

consultant they'll be the design Consulting contract which will probably be in front of you the next meeting they'll be taking all the samplings because you need to do sampling within 72 hour of the web service replacement and then you need to buy out acop you also need to do a three-month follow-up sample don't they also have to photograph every one of these before for it for the record this will be so

within here it's all all being documented photographed as well as the new services will be GPS by the rpr so that they can go into the location can be put into our GIS system yeah that that app that I found for the boundary markers is amazing for that um this is with respect very optimistic

just to get them done

you know this is uh a very heavy lift um you know so one thing that we have been doing we've been doing uh for the past couple of months we've been going through the list and we've been uh we've had uh through the consultant Services we've been reaching out to customers so we do have a number of customers that are lined up that have already been contacted that have approved for this

work to be done so we do already have a number of customers so the first year you're really you're going to use the cream off the top in the first year uh the easier ones to get in and get you know we had to within the bid contracts we had to put addresses but yeah we're looking to uh so it is a responsibility the contractor to make contact with the addresses that we haven't been able to

but it is going to be uh you know lift for them uh again you know Administration we won't be helping them but the rpr services uh as well as uh our consultant um you know there will be assistance there we're not doing it for them they're responsible but I think this is going to be a group effort so this contract for this year we're targeting 500 Services we need to have at least 400 done

um next year is 600.

so we need to get this uh we need to get this under our belt and uh do we know if they if they plan to have um a local representative on hand for the to handle the phone calls and uh you know they're going to set up a construction trailer someplace with a landline or yeah I'm not sure you know what their overall plan is for that you know within the specifications there are

certain requirements for them to be able to provide those scheduling services and stuff like that they may sub that out to a third-party company the contractor may they may do that out of there out of their home office but yeah it is going to take a lot of a lot of you know boots on the ground to be able to uh to look at all this yeah this is two of my big concerns were one is

having gone through something similar with changing out a lot of equipment at one time um try as we may to keep it away from the office the office became inundated with phone calls and you know chasing stuff around and I took away from the activities in the admin office um and we changed out what 12 000 meters yeah so the one thing that the admin office will be used for is our initial

contact and approval form will be emailed back to the office the water admin office um so that's the one thing that will be done because it's going to stem multiple phases um you know this is phase one this year yeah so we may be outreaching you know in two months to phase two and phase three customers so we figure the database would be best kept by uh by uh right now the consultant is going to be

keeping it but it's coming back to our email address the water Department's email address they'll be folding on to our consultant to keep the database I hate to be negative but it's going to get very confusing very quickly just know that the Woodward and current feel that this is doable yeah based on their evaluation um you know they feel that it is something that the company is capable of

um you know there was talk of them be bringing in multiple Crews to do uh to do this work so be relying on one one crew do we know if they their primary means would be to pull services I avoid trenching yeah you know again that goes to contractors means and methods but I would imagine that most contractors would uh particularly prefer to pull the service uh dig one trench at

the curb stop area on the long side you would do another one right at the main and then pull the service from the house uh to the curb stop area and then pull the service from the curb stop area to the main on the short side sometimes it's just as easy to dig from the from the curb line out to the out to the main when you're doing a short side

so you know again that that goes into the contractors means and methods of being able to uh to complete their project but I would imagine any contractor that would be the first step rather than having to trench across the whole front yard replant all the grass and deal with everything else related so the one change too of that went into these planted especially locations just so the board's aware of it we are using

copper from the Meda to the curb stop so that will be one inch Kappa and then we'll be using historically we've always done HDPE pipe plaster but we've already dealt from the main to the curb stop the overall issue that we were looking at and having good is having a problem dealing with was typically in older houses like you find in Fall River the water system is the primary grounding

system for the electrical system within the house even though it's just supposed to be bonded to the cold water system a lot of the older services do not have independent ground rods or anything like that when we were developing this contract you know we looked we send an electrician to every single house to verify grounding and that water service is just used for bonding to you know

whatever our different options and we wait out the cost of doing that and having to install ground rods at every house compared to what the cost was to run that service pipe from the meter out to the curb stop area in Coppa and it was most economical to run that section in Copper I'm sure that would take place of the existing lead service at X potentially acts of the as the ground

um and the copper would have the same conductive reactants that the lid did contempted to um I'm going to yell I'm tempted to ask do we have to replace meters along with some of this um I wonder if any of these old lead Services correspond to some of the residences that haven't complied with the water meter modernization yep you know so anywhere where we were going through that program anywhere where we entered

the house and there was a lead service the meter was not changed so we'll be watching the program while entrance is made to the house if there is uh the ability to be able to swap out an older media we will be looking to do that probably go in with our staff to provide amida in place of the old one um but uh so left over from the modernization project since we did do

the full-scale project you know there was issues uh with responses to entering a lot of the houses you know we do have a uh in stock availability of meters to be available for that we may want to plant some valves too high before and after the meter yep so within the contract they need to put new uh new valves before the meter uh there is a uh anything after the meter Falls

underneath the plumbing code that's why there is an allowance within the bid items for a diploma God help them they got to drain the house

wow questions uh well based upon the recommendation from the engineers the chair would entertain a motion to accept the recommendation if it's any consolation before anyone who makes a motion I have worked in both Brookline and Newton excuse me I didn't need them not directly for the town but the subcontractor through other companies and they have you know it does seem like they do have

a good reputation in both of those towns and they are not I don't want to say that they were difficult neither of them are difficult towns to work in but I don't think you're going to get away with anything in either of those those towns while the size of the project may be um exponentially smaller than the size of ours is I mean that I guess that does say a lot that they

it does sound like they are highly recommended based on that well that's very helpful because some references you know I there are certain people um who you know I will not mention that will never work in some of those towns again that was brought to my attention years ago um so I guess that you know if I can add anything um positive I appreciate treatment positive faking that comment I really do my my

comments have been more based on the difficulties I've went through with metering and acquisition and then you know getting it and it it gets very complicated and this is the first time that we are quote unquote actually engaging private Plumbing so they're just a lot I I understand and I I understand wholeheartedly what you're saying and that it's a huge project and and there's a lot to do in a very small

time frame with a contractor we know what so it's I think it's understandable we mean I don't think any of us mean any disrespect to to failing um well uh it's just this is uh there's a lot going on here this is big and it's complicated and more so it's important because our entire Bona fetus with the state and the FEDS is riding on them I I think you know on our end it would just just

require that we um just have to keep a watchful eye on due diligence will be employed on the end yeah not not necessarily on the contract but on on the engineering end of it you know on at the end of the day it's it's there so I would make the most sorry I as time being of the essence for this project I would make the motion to um succeed with uh Woodward and Karen's recommendations

motion is made and seconded all in favor aye motion passes unanimously good luck update on fluoride I knew her well so I just wanted to give the board uh an update on a situation with fluoride uh as uh has been explained to the board of the past we've had supply chain issues in relation to it originally started in 2019 we had a supply chain issue we were able to research the country and our past

director and myself find out found out a lot of a lot of stuff we didn't need to know where the floor I came from and from around the world in different places uh we were able to get some uh Ella fluoride in 2020 brought up from Alabama for us to use within the plan uh to test that did was not compatible to our feed system feed system that we use is volumetric

feeda with the Sodium silica fluoride that's fed into a tank and then pull it into it bled into our system the material that we used to get was a uh almost a table salt consistency it was a granular correct exactly all of the stuff that's coming across now in sodium silica fluoride is more of a flower consistency so a lot finer material the way that our feeder works with the hopper above

coming down and cone shaped into a screw volumetric feed on it just clumps up just clumped up especially with the humidity we tried multiple different things to modify our feed adding vibrators to the uh to the Hapa to be able to progress the uh the material down view windows um you know we had every 20 minutes the operating we tried multiple different things at in adding air shooting air up into it uh to

see whether yeah exactly to keep it fluffy um and but it just kept on having the same issue yeah uh so we discontinued use um you know we made all the Proxima notifications and that was in 2020 late 2020 we discontinued use again in 2021.

um we made all the pro notifications throughout this time frame uh which is uh notifying the local Board of Health notifying the subsequent Systems Port of Health uh notifying the State Department of Health and notifying dep that we would have supply chain issues through that whole entire time there was multiple surveys that came out from dep as well as State Department of Health in

relation to chemical supply chain issues because this is when we were coming out of covid 2020 2021 so there was other chemicals that had supply chain issues and things like that I filled out all the surveys that were available to us and didn't get much feedback from any of those agencies to assist us in securing a product we bid the product out every year and we do receive bids last year I believe it was

140 40 000 range one years before it was in the 40 000 range meal three four years ago to be able to provide fluoride for a year so as it stands now a couple of weeks ago I received a letter from dep stating that we needed to provide a plan to them within two weeks to uh of what we were doing with that fluoride uh them in the State Department of Health uh didn't uh

agree that it was a critical supply chain issue that we were having a problem with um you know our product I did provide them a plan for use of fluoride as it's known fluoride is not a required chemical of water addition it is a chemical that's added to our water for the public health benefit you know it helps you know children and people absorb that fluoride into their body for stronger teeth stronger bones

um so I've been in front of the City Board of Health a couple of times talking to them about the discontinuance test current from the Board of Health has been helpful in notifying uh Health Care Facilities about discontinuance so they can provide supplements to their uh to their patients the plan that I proposed to dep was to uh was for us to discontinue the use of fluoride within our system I feel at

this point I've seen the age of our equipment that we have down at the treatment plan for fluoride addition plus our inability to be able to get the product that works with our equipment we would need a major Capital upgrade for the fluoride Edition at our plant um so I uh told the in my response letter to dep uh that would be uh explore the idea of discontinuation uh how discontinuation of fluoride works as

explained to me from the State Department of Health was that we would have to uh make a proposal to the local Board of Health they could either approve or deny that that proposal and then if they approved it then you would also have to get approval of the city council to discontinue the use of fluoride so that's the process that we're going through right now my first step within

that is to figure out you know a is there any way to make a covered system work which you know I think we've exhausted all options uh B what is the capital cost of improvements needed to do an updated to update our system so that we could switch to uh either we use sodium silica fluoride there is silica floor ride and then there's also uh what's called a silica fluoridic acid or ciliacin it's

also known as that's a liquid product so there's other products out there and then added in different ways liquid is added by direct injection the silica fluoride is typically through a saturator or some other appellate addition so we need to really get an idea of what the capital Improvement is needed for the fluoride Edition so I've brought in right PS to do a basic technical memo with an order of

magnitude so they'll be looking at Capital Improvement cost potentially what what uh product we should be using how we should be adding it um you know there's I do have some water uh quality concerns with some of the chemicals when you talk about celiacid um you know that's essentially an acid that you're adding to your water so it adjusts your pH which could potentially impact uh bleaching your blood into the

water or copper into the water so you know that's something that has to be looked at more depth but I've really brought them in for you know almost an 80 000 foot really look at it so that I'll be able to uh put together a proposal to the Board of Health explaining to them what type of what caliber Capital Improvement we're going to need um what are cost per year would be for

these chemicals different from what we're using because again the chemicals that we used to use were the cheaper of the three of the three chemicals the addition chemicals so what order of magnitude we would need to Budget on a yearly basis for addition of whatever chemical is chosen so they're working right now to put that together and then I plan to do a presentation to The Bona Health asking

for the discontinuance of it you know uh my my thought process on it um you know nowadays with the availability of health care um yeah you know uh yeah you know the ability of Health Care Public Health Care to people um you know there may be you know it may not be as needed as it was back in the 70s and 80s uh when when that was but I'm not a health professional that's my

own personal opinion I leave that to the health professionals to make that determination again you know this is an overall public health benefit not necessarily a required water treatment chemical so um overall I just wanted to give the board an update about that let you know about the letter that I did receive from dep the response that I provided to dep that was a couple of weeks ago I

provided that response a week and a half ago two weeks ago and I have not received anything back from the letter that I I sent them so I'm planning on moving forward with uh with uh my plan to be able to get a proposal together or at least an order of magnitude idea and be able to put a proposal in front of the Board of Health very good yeah no vote required or anything like

that I just wanted to update the board on the status of if there were any questions that would take us to item number seven other potential matters so the potential matters I always got one I know I should have stopped at Florida yeah so on the agenda I did with some other potential matter that we need some discussion and it is in relation in relation to diamond high school and the

construction of the a new High School scares me the uh it's come to my attention uh from multiple channels that diamond is looking at doing uh geothermal heating and cooling Wells on this site so this was brought to my attention a while ago you know I've I've had multiple emails two Diamond um you know because I'm on the site plan review committee as well as you know they're making major modifications to

their site that's directly about our properties you know we would like we would have like to know what's going on throughout throughout the process so I started you know last year in 2022 reaching out you know asking them to uh to make sure that we were part of it I was originally on some of the original planning board uh public presentations that they had that that went out I saw

that and then I didn't hear much from them I was came to my attention that they were really looking at geothermal Wells uh I sent them an email originally hey you know this was uh last year I want to say potentially November um hey I heard you that you're looking at this technology I'd like to have a discussion with you about it um I did not get any response from them

um then I heard that they were uh further in depth looking at it and designing a system um I again at that point kind of send them an email saying hey this uh this could have some serious potential impacts we need to have a discussion on this and then it was told to me that they uh that they did approve uh geothermal wealth field for heating and cooling at the school

um you know so at that point I uh I called one of the one of the people on their team as well as sent uh additional emails to make them aware that uh I don't think the water department is uh is in favor of this so when I spoke to them on the phone uh what was explained to me uh was uh 240 or so uh Wells that are drilled 500 feet deep down into the Earth

um this would be what was explained to me is called a closed loop system so it would essentially they would drill a well down with the casing have a pipe that goes down Loops water through comes back out uh and then uh so you'd be in the summer essentially you're taking the cooler underground uh and using that to cool the pre-cool all of your cooling system for better efficiency in the

winter deeper down it's naturally warmer than what the air temperature is so you pull the heat out of the ground to be able to preheat of your heating coolant it drastically reduces your heating and cooling loads that's needed for compressors condenses uh boilers those types of things you know when I spoke to this person my major concern is that right on the other side of the highway Route 24 is northward Tupper Pond

we all know the ledge info of a highest point of the city top of Bedford Street we're talking Ledges two feet underneath the ground surface there so under there we know that you know that runs through all the ledge is different type of Aqua Fizz that that go all all sorts of ways Northwood Tampa Pond is spring fed from underground aquifers as well as from The Watershed that comes down into the pond

you know so my major concern is that they're you know less than a mile away from uh drinking water supply Drilling or proposing to drill over 200 Wells was their original proposal I have heard that their design has decreased the number of Wells but the 500 feet deep down into the water aquifers that potentially feed the Northwoods up a pond and then possibly pumping either treated water that has some type of

Inhibitors or chemicals within it down in within those Wells and then put them in Pacquiao so you know that that kind of set off a little red red light in my head saying uh this this isn't something that we would want there um you know my initial discussion with them was uh you know I told him I said you know we have major issues with it he said you

get a look on the other side of the highway that's drinking water supply for a hundred thousand people um you know the water to spot Department we've spent 200 plus years you know we've been in business 150 years but it's been protected for you know 200 plus years um for protection of that drinking water supply you know we look at the different things that have occurred in the city uh you

know you have the land fills up at BFI and what what went through when when that was originally done uh the monitoring that's in place and things like that um that to make sure that nothing feeds down to the Northwest up upon that was before that was put into place so you know it's just a major concern that I have in relation to the Northwest up upon the depth of these Wells the size

of their well-filled to date they haven't scheduled to me meeting with they've scheduled a meeting we are I am meeting meeting with them next week um but again this has been six months that they haven't talked to us or consulted Us in relation to this um that's not being a good neighbor no that is definitely not um that's not being a good neighbor or a good Steward of one of our most precious natural resources so uh

my plan is to meet with uh meet with diamond in relation to this um and see what they have to say I haven't seen plans on it I haven't heard of designs I haven't heard the most up to date you know all I got for that from them was well this needs to be a lead building a Leed certified construction building and this G this geothermal well system is going to help us get to that

lead certification I said the lodge buildings are built everywhere all the time that a lead certified they all don't have geothermal I said it has I said I want to know has a geothermal system been installed this close to a reservoir you know that is not something that they could answer to me um so I'm I'm really interested to hear what they have to say uh in the meeting next week

um you know I don't think that we're going to be the only ones that have issue with this uh potentially Regulatory Agencies uh May uh have issues with this thing that we are you know we're a public water supplier we do Supply to other communities as well where the sole Supply to other communities so I don't uh you know and it's going to take a lot of swaying of me to be able

to ease my mind that this is not something that could impact our water supply you know it may not impact it within the first 10 years of doing it but you know you look at these systems and every system has is designed you know as you know I'm an engineer by play school of an EIT every system you've designed in a factor of safety to be able to you know a certain percentage of it's going

to fail so chairman Terry before you I I actually full disclosure I am on the school building authority for Diamond um so there have been some very honest conversations about this because while diamond is a community school Fall River is 70 of that and there are some concerns that this is to my knowledge the first geothermal system that's going to go in in the city it is a ginormous system

um I'm not sure that's a dictionary term but um and uh it's very close to the water source so it has been brought to their attention um not only in addition to you but they have been board members who have voiced our opinions just to make sure that again that we're good stewards of the the Water Source that's been provided to us so thank you very much saying that um I think the

the rule of thumb that we should always employ is how will this improve the water quality and if it won't improve it then why would we entertain it our job is what our quality protection and I but does the city own the property do we have do we technically is that private property do we gave it to them well just just so I guess that would be one of my questions can they just say well tough

luck uh I don't that that's my concern you know again they they uh it is a private property private property owners could potentially do anything that they feel within uh within regulation requirements or what's able to be permitted um but I think the overall bigger thing and this is potentially where other agencies may become involved is uh protection of our aquifer seeing that

our intercepted drain runs on that side of the pond to protect any runoff that area of the city is not part of a watershed protection area but once you start going 500 feet deep into the aquifers you're not dealing with surface you're not dealing with surface water anymore so is that all part of the uh you know this feed system that's protect it you you don't know yeah and there's no

permitting per se no regulations in the city of Fall River for um well because they don't exist yet correct so like realistically they could pull a building permit and get a permit for these Wells and start going well I get it you know we've got to see what the permitting process would be you know is there environmental impacts for this uh is there a conservation requirements that need to be met in

relation to these types of systems those are those aren't things that I know the answer to you know that would fall underneath the conservation is there special permitting for these types of systems or anything in relation to that is there uh you know through dep and EPA is there any type of Permitting that's required for these systems we would have to go on record saying to the Department of inspections

that we would be in opposition to any permit for this without a doubt you know the one thing that we do have is the site plan review committee uh and that is say plan review is required prior to issuance of any building permit um I sit on the site plan review committee so I would imagine that any geothermal system would have to be approved by safe plan if nothing else I mean

commissioner Collins is raised a very interesting point since there is no thermal geothermal system in place perhaps at this point didn't he uh proper authorities here and Government Center ought to entertain some conversation on geothermal 500 foot you have no idea what you would run into the other possibilities you know the other I mean it's like it's like the veins in a body I mean the water is is

they are doing these they are doing these in multiple municipalities they are doing these at multiple schools but they were also well failures I don't know what a welfare failure is though does that does the well it wouldn't dry up because it's closed loose loop system so a well failure to me sounds like the sleeve fails and if the sleeve fails then it's pollution so I think it's just

I think you should be prepared with a set of questions which it sounds like you have um going into this this meeting with them yep so I plan to be in the meeting I've invited Corporation Council uh to be at the meeting as well uh you know again another option uh could potentially be an alternates filed by the city um for protection against uh things like this of geothermal Within

you know again if if if the board wanted to do something like that closer in a mile you could task me with uh with proposing an ordinance to the board that would go through a rock yeah throw a rock 504 200 I would propose that you entertain the meeting that they have and then come back to us and then maybe then at that point the commissioner we talk about maybe asking him to put some kind of

ordinance or common sense ordinance not nothing but right yeah yeah again you know they were there are multiple ways to uh to go about this but I think it's something that needs to be uh that needs to be looked at and dealt with uh you know right away uh again they've they've they've pushed me off for for a long period of time uh from what I had with a I did have a site plan meeting

with them last week in relation to their site um they uh planning to get early permitting and stuff as soon as June on their construction yeah it's interesting that they didn't get back to you so um that's the only uh I I agree that we kind of we kind of need to wait for the meeting I think anything that other other than waiting for the meeting first would kind of be haphazard

decision on Aaron but uh it is really disheartening um that it took six months to return a phone call for something that's pretty darn important pretty darn important that's right yeah that's that's partially um you'd like to make that in the form of emotion and we can take that up that that um that there'd be time set aside for the uh that the director's earliest convenience post the meeting for us to discuss

yeah you know again I I just I put this on here discussion if you guys want to file a motion if you wanted to just give me direction to attend the meeting with diamond and then report back to the committee I think if we could put that in in the form of the motion then um a second absolutely all in favor aye so moved any uh further business to come before the board hearing none aboard dinner

um sorry no that's okay speaking of what top is uh what's the status of the southwest of our um uh design review study that we've been doing on there in relation to uh algae and cyanobacteria so just a brief update um you know we have been working through uh we have two years now of information on the south what type of pond so we got last year's data from SMS again s Mass

has had a change of Brian Howe who uh was leading up the project for us uh unexpectedly passed away a couple of months ago but the SMS team has put other people in place to uh to take the place of uh you know to help fill the shoes fill the void and keep the project moving forward so we have received all of that information uh so you know we're moving into our third year right now

uh third year of work will include again monitoring of the pond to be able to get three years of monitor which is what they like to see for any type of Permitting work um and we're moving forward uh with that I was able to secure a mitigation Grant from a shellfish mitigation Grant from Liberty Utilities to use towards the south of Tampa Palm project so that'll be funding s Mass work as well as some

full monitoring of incoming streams into the pond also our MVP Municipal vulnerability preparedness action grant that we rewarded uh that is underway the design so in that project we are designing three bmps uh one at the boat ramp in Davis Beach uh one near Cherry Lane where Tiverton has a runoff that comes from a detention Pond down Cherry Lane into the pond uh and then we were also looking at a site

on tickle Road working with Westport Westport requested the move Paving of typical tickle Road up so they requested that we not spend the money to design that location we found an alternate location with westpaw uh and we're looking to move forward with that alternate location so we are we are in good standings there coming up probably sometime in the beginning of the June I'll be looking to

schedule a uh update meeting as we have in the past uh probably one of our local centers uh uh you know one of our local Partners whether it be the UMass building or rowing Center or maybe the Rod and Gun Club um you know we'll be having a meeting at one of those uh one of those places to update all the public on what's going on thank you any further business no hearing none

motion to the gym like it all in favor aye thank you