7.15.2024 - City Council Health and Environmental Affairs

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vice president perer here chairos here pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio 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 deemed a knowledge and permissible item number one on today's agenda is Citizens

input we do not have any moving on to the second item on the agenda is the minutes from the April 23rd 2024 meeting Council di yeah I'd like to make a motion uh based on information contained in these minutes um comments made during uh citizen input and a letter that was recommended to be sent to Corporation Council um for an ordinance on the homeless encampments so my motion would

be to send um an updated or additional letter requesting that an ordinance be created motion made is there a second um I'll second that but I'd like to amend it that the letter also be sent to the mayor's office because we we've sent this letter to Corporation counsel before so if we also CC the mayor and Corporation counsel could I have a sure second amend motion made and amended all in favor I I

motion has it so motion to approve the minutes motion to approve the minutes by Council Dion second by vice president all in favor I oppose the eyes have it item number three is a resolution discussing strategies to decrease Solid Waste and Recycling costs tabled January 30th 2024 motion to motion to lift from the table made by Council Dion second by Council Pera all in favor hi I and

oppose the eyes have it gentlemen come on down please and when you get settled down if you could identify yourselves in your positions please

Al alar director of uh City operations Charlie deny director Department of Community maintenance and my name is Matt Thomas I'm an attorney with an office at four Park Place uh Suite 101 in the city of New Bedford and I'm special counsel to the city excellent thank you gentlemen for being here so we last were here in January discussing where we were with solid waste there's been some updates so

I'll allow whoever would like to speak give us an update first Mr chairman if it's okay I'd like to just give a brief update and then we can have a conversation you may councelor go for it so when we were last here we informed you folks or the committee at that time that uh we were going to start enforcing the ordinances with regard to trash collection and the first thing we were

going to do was going to be stopping um curbside collection to businesses and the non-residential portions of the nonprofits so so um the code 622c provides that the city shall collect solid waste and recyclables from single family dwellings and multiple family residential buildings containing up to six dwelling units so we're supposed to be picking up we were picking up a lot more than that as you all know

especially you counc so on uh February 1st 270 letters went out to commercial mixed use and non-residential nonprofits what I mean by that is people link over here got a letter but if they had residential if there were residentials we would still collect from them if it was the church we would collect from the rectory but we're not collecting from the center if it's a parsonage we'll collect from the

parsonage but not from the Parish Hall so letters went out 270 of them um informing this first group and what we did is we split it in half uh that uh curbside collection would cease on uh March 1st amazingly we didn't get many calls I think we were all expecting to be inundated with calls there weren't a lot of calls and I think that's because the expectation was out there that we were

going to stop because it had been said so many times that we were going to stop so when they finally got it okay we stop we then sent out a second letter on March 8th informing 252 commercial properties mixed use properties and non-residential nonprofits um so that comes out to about a total of about 530 aples bpac um 520 pels um that we would cease collection on April

5th uh again not a huge VI and cry from the public on it when we did this we realized the one challenge we were going to have was going to be the mixed uses because in a mixed use property we're still collecting the residential side but not the commercial side and as it's been born out since then that has been a challenge for us and we're continuing to fight that challenge and I'll get to how

we're doing that in a little bit but what initially started happening is after we said we'd stop um DCM went down through the streets pulling the barrels and we've been able to collect most of them uh there have been a couple people that really love their barrels and have been hiding them on us but for the most part we've collected them the issue has been the mixed uses um there's a

particular property I know where the commercial building on the property was putting their their commercial waste in the in the residentials so we've started enforcing that stronger as a matter of fact there's a Code there's a section in the code of ordinances about disposing uh commercial um waste in an illegal fashion that's what that is theoretically and we'll talk about that in a sec so we've been working on that

it's a work in progress but we're no longer collecting from the industrial park we're no longer collecting from the big I was amazed at some of the properties we were collecting from um and we will be coming back to you just to get a little bit ahead of myself here in September with a proposed ordinance change to update the ordinance to get rid of reference to purple bags and other things um one of the things

that we're looking to put in there is that when businesses get their business certificates every year they have to supply um something from a from a trash company stating that they've got private trash collection um a lot of other places require that we don't we're going to start we would like to start requiring that so that's it we're not collecting the the commercial um our second issue was reimbursement from the

schools and we had had a situation where in fiscal 22 we get reimbursed the vast sum of $63,000 which when we looked at it really made no sense that number had been set years earlier and in most communities it's a reimbursement situation and for example in the city of New Bedford the contract that they just signed has a separate section where schools are invoiced separately directly

not through the city and once we get to a future contract that's how we would do it here as well but right now we're still dealing with it so whereas in fiscal 22 we were paid 63,000 the school bill for fiscal 24 was 260,000 now why is it so high because we're actually keeping we're doing much better at getting a handle on what they're actually disposing of and under that old

bill they were not paying for the disposal pot it was or they weren't paying for the collection P it was just one half so again that's a work in progress because schools are not picked up in a um dedicated pickup dedicated route they're picked up as part of other roots in the city although there as Mr denme and and Mr aliver will tell you there are different pickups on on um

containers and things like that that we can do but it's not separated out with as a single so one of the things we did do is we and other communities have done this we sent uh an empty truck to go pick up just the schools for one run then went over to the state Pier wait it and that's how we came up with estimated tonnage that we're relying on so that was are doing a little bit

better on reimbursement we've started a process of enhanced education so the way we're proposing to deal with this issue in the city and every city faces this is through enhanced education and enhanced enforcement the carrot and the stick the enhanced education we met with the school administration before school let out uh the mayor the superintendent myself um and a few others met with them

and we're working to develop an enhanced recycling and sustainability curriculum in the schools they've got one but we're working on that students are the best recycling ambassadors so when school gets back in there'll be contests in the classes we're looking to do a recycling calendar where the artwork is done by the school by children from the schools that will put out um and things like

that so um we're going to work with that with the schools and part of that is that an average person creates 4.9 pounds of garbage a day solid waste a day that's the average 4.9 lbs now you make make less or Le more or less but that's the average um about 211% of that is food waste um and I know that there was a it's funny this is councilor Lee's

resolution from 2020 and he was a big fan of composting and there are programs for composting uh in New Bedford and dment there's a new drop food drop off program um that they've had a little bit of an issue with on on the dment side um a little bit of I hate to say but maggot control but the weather gets involved with that so in total Massachusetts disposes of about 6 million tons a

year the more that we can shift over to recycling the less we can uh we have to dispose of it saves the city money in the long run especially if it's a clean Recycling and we're going to get to that in a second so that's the education part on the enforcement part um I have for you that to the chairman thank you this is the um breakdown for May uh March through June that's of

citations that were issued by the compliance folks and um you can see that June went down May and June because we were dealing with cats at that point in time I'll get to the cats in a second but um overflow placement of over cats overflow so that's when the tops can't close and when you've got it on the side you'll see the number of uh of fines um unauthorized bulky items on the sidewalk

illegal dumping on the sidewalk sidewalk litter trash and recycle contamination and then obstruction I would suspect that if we come back in October or November with the new list you're going to see much different than this because we've met with the compliance people they're really good they're short staff but they're doing really well and we're pushing a new type of enhanced um Co um

enforcement when we did cart maintenance which was the other thing we comp completed was we went through the entire city doing the maintenance on the carts um at the same time there were there were two parts of that one was to do maintenance on the C the other part of the effort was to get an idea of what CS were out there so we've got a better idea of the cart numbers and everything and what we're

doing now is all of that information is being put into Excel spreadsheets so we're able to see which cards are where what is going to happen and it may take a couple of months to implement this totally but when they go to site someone on a cart they're going to scan the the cart number that cotton number is assigned to somebody to to a house that cotton number is going to be scanned there's

going to be a photo taken of it and there's going first timeout there's going to be an oops tag put on it second timeout they're going to scan it take the picture and there will be a friendly reminder letter telling them that these are all of the checking off all of the things that are not right this is being sent the oops tag is being put on the car the letter is being sent

to the property owner second time third time out they're going to be cited and it's going to be cited to the property owners the letter says if we if we have an issue again you're going to be cited and they will be cited and it's going to be whoever that cat is assigned to now what tends to happen is on Windy days cats tend to end up going places they don't belong or people trade them

off all those games that have being played the cats are assigned to a location that's how it's going to be fined if that person comes in and says this isn't mine and or we looking it's at the wrong property we'll deal with it we're going to have the database capabilities to do that but that's how we're finding and the fine is going to the property owners why because the ordinance says the property owners

secondly by law the property owners are all responsible for everything that happens on their property so it may seem a little unfair at first but we can't find the tenants outright we have to go through the property owners because we don't have a contract with the tenants we have the contract so to speak with the property owners well similar to Insurance exactly uh issues can ask good question before

you go further when you say that the carts are assigned to that property so we've had a lot of property that's been sold it stays with us so it just to the to the address address so then you'd have to look up who owns that property which we do yeah we we're creating a database we're getting the records from the Assessor's Office Cross referencing that with the reig the rig uh data which

is the the information on there and there'll be a database that cross references it so that eventually you'll put in the Cod ID and it'll pop up on the screen and eventually what we'd like to get to is have handhelds out there and well we'll do it first with phones and stuff but handhelds the same way that the um traffic enforcement people do and the idea is to it's it's not to

be pejorative by any means to people but it's to help facilitate people complying ability right because um as you'll see I mean this is a hefty cost and so what we're trying to do is in the most cost-effective fashion possible while we're protecting the public health because that's what this is all about really it's about protecting the public health so um you'll get the o tag the

friendly reminder then the enforcement letter one thing I would note is that the municipal empowerment Act which is working its way through the state legislature right now and it's at the Senate side and we're hearing that it's going to be passed by July 31st has in it a provision that makes it easier to take fines and put them on the tax bills um we could do that with Municipal charges like water and others very

simply fines have always been a couple of Hoops you have to jump through the idea is it's going to make it as simple to put them on the tax bills as as Municipal charges I'm sorry okay so so well if I could just interject what but um Mr Thomas was talking about we are looking at updating our software our uh our scanning devices we want to make sure we we're brought up

to a new new standards at this point it will help the inspectors it will help us so we have to automate um as best as we can at this point and you know some people say well the city should act like a business I don't think it is should act like a business because you have a different motive a business has a profit motive a city has a motive of providing

services and at the end of the day at the end of the year having $1 more than they needed okay but that doesn't mean that a city can't act businesslike and so slowly but surely the way we handle Solid Waste in the city is going to become much more businesslike we're doing analysis as you'll see in a second which is similar to the analysis that the private sector would do on trash

collection because that's only way we can the city can make um decisions informed decisions my role in all of this is to try to facilitate all this and then hand it off to these folks I'm I'm not looking to be the trash Z but my goal is to try to help facilitate the different pieces of it so that we can get to a point where all that happens so for example the easy disposal contract

this year starting July 1st it's $47,000 a month for a total of about five approximately $5 million a year we we have two more years left on that contract we've looked at the number of Halls they do so there are 5 days of collection they were typically six six Roots a day they defitely we've looked at the disposal from the Republic side of what they've been dropping off there to determine a total number of Halls

when you look at that versus the 417 we're paying about $700 per Hall when we picked this up so that's important because as we're looking to do things you know the comparison is $700 per hall now they're also not disposing fully they're not disposing full trucks a truck is typically about what 16 tons anywhere between 13 to 16 tons depending on the size of the truck in the age of the

truck okay so 13 to 16 on average they're disposing 10.5 tons a trip now that's because Republic is right here but it also means that we're getting more Halls because they're not filling the truck up before they're sending it okay part of that could be a function of the route part of that could be a function of the day but those are things that we're looking at now that quite honestly we never had the ability to

look at before and that becomes something when you're talking about somebody talking to easy about doing something and they're saying well you know it's costing me more well the question is if it's costing you more why aren't you sending full trucks okay so it gives us the ability to be able to have a conversation with them so that's on the easy side Republic is charging us $13.20 a ton um for disposal and that'll

be till October 14th that contract is up October 14th when we spoke to them about trying to get a longer contract and a better price we couldn't really get anywhere so starting October 15th we're going to be going to crepo Hill D which is the greater New Bedford Regional Refuge District so that's where dmouth and New Bedford dispose of their garbage and um the contract for the remainder

fiscal 25 is $116 a ton market rate out there about 125 so we're getting a decent price from from crepo Hill the issue there is it's a little bit of a longer Hall okay than going to Republic and so that's why the issue of how much they're putting in the trucks becomes a bigger issue because if they come back and say well I need more trucks to do this well you you're not filling the

trucks fill the trucks and you might not need as many you might need a little bit more but you might not recycling is a bigger issue for us because unfortunately what's happened is the difference between Municipal Solid Waste and Recycling is getting worse here in the city the more you recycle the less you dispose that's the idea payers you throw forces you when we had pays you throw it forces you to recycle more and

dispose of less the fact that the barrels are a certain size used to serve a double purpose it was you didn't want them more than 50 pounds because somebody had to lift them up and put them in the truck now you're at that size that gallon size because you don't want more than that amount of garage because it encourages you to recycle with the rest of what you have when you're putting it over filling it or

when you're putting it on the side of the road you're frustrating the purpose of the size of that so recycling is a very important thing and if you look at just between um 2018 to now the disparities become much worse Co had something to do with it but right now we uh household is disposing about a ton of garbage a year here in Far River and they're only disposing about a quarter of a ton of

recycling here in Fall River the idea is to get the tonnage on the recycling up maybe by the goal would be 30% more recycling if we can if you know that's where we want to try to get to now on the recycling side of this that's eavy that we're dealing with so what's going to happen now is right now everything goes to Leon Street we've been doing that because we were trying to pick out

the contamination which is actually what gave rise to this resolution in the first place uh we're trying to do that unfortunately the building that we're doing it in is not really watertight and we've come to realize that in spite of our best efforts we may be making some of it worse so what is going to going to start happening in about two months is the Monday Wednesday and Friday routes on recycling are going to

be direct hauled to zero waste the they've done a um analysis Monday Wednesday and Friday is a cleaner recycling so if it's a cleaner recycling there's no need to mix it with Tuesday and Thursday with which is a much more challenged Recycling and it's reducing the quality of the Monday Wednesday Friday so Monday Wednesday Friday is going to be hauled directly to zero waste in Rochester now that's a longer

haul that's about a 40-minute Hall as opposed to going to Leon Street but when we go to Lewiston Street it cost says $500 a hall from there there's typically two halls a day so it's costing us $1,000 a day to take stuff out of Leon Street to get to send it to New Bedford where it's then mostly disposed of because it's so contaminated so here it's going to be $125 a ton to go

directly for disposal directly to zero waste if there's more than 20% contamination in it will be charged $160 a ton uh the Tuesday Thursday Halls are going to continue to go to Lewiston Street um until we can address that through enhanced enforcement enhanced education and that's going to be disposed of at $125 a ton if it's clean 160 if it's more than 20% contamination but you have that Hall

issue there that we don't have because under the easy contract there's it's a fixed price contract and they can't come back now in all honesty when we've talked and we've met with E and talked about these changes e is going to come back to us with price change price increases as increases in their cost and the mayor has informed them that while we're under no obligation to pay them more we're

willing to consider a voluntary increase in the payment if it's going to help us do this with going to kpo Hill and doing it's not so much Creo Hill it's the zero waste deliveries which are the bigger one so that's pretty much where we are right now and that's updating what we told you we were going to do last time and for the most part we've pretty much delivered on everything we said we were

going to now we didn't do it perfectly it's a challenge but a city is a living thing and like any living thing it's messy and so it doesn't always work as as neatly as we'd like it to but between uh Al and Charlie and their staffs they're doing the best they can and I think we're doing a pretty decent job in addressing these things um we're still seeing some challenges but that's it so

what's coming next the next thing that's going to happen is we're going to enforce curbside collection on the units above six so for example we're only supposed to collect up to six units there's 43 properties in fall river that are seven that are a seven unit or more a seven unit of those 43 we're collecting from 29 of them there's 42 unit properties in Far River that are eight units we're

collecting from 20 of them they're going to get letters as of August 1st telling them that as of September 3rd which is the Tuesday after Labor Day that we're no longer going to collect we're right now going through an analysis of the what we call the the cess is called 112s that's anything over eight units now that could be an apartment building like Royal Crest or those that could also be

a piece of property that has two buildings on it and if you have a six in one and a three in the other that's nine units on that property and they won't get collected anymore either so we're doing that analysis so de sorry I'm sitting here thinking a lot of information so I don't want to forget any of question so that would so a property that that would pertain to specifically would be for example Troy

Street I don't know Pro I I don't know by addresses like they're all four unit buildings but there's like eight buildings on that property right what a lot what it all depends is the the assessor map if you have if you own 12 units and those 12 units are four units on one Assessor's property four four on another four on another you're fine if they're all on one property you're not because that's the way it's

written yeah so you could have some properties that seem like complexes but because they each have a separate tax bill for those properties that's a separate property and I I can think of some that are like that on the other hand we have properties in the city where there are two there's a bunch of them in Fall River New Bedford 2 where there's two units on the same property two buildings one's a ones a three under

the way the ordinance is written that's six and the three are nine units on one assessor map one property that wouldn't be collected so what we will try to do is as we go through this process we're going to try to put out as much this this is why I don't have the numbers on the 112s yet it's a lot more of a complex thing of going through the assessor records looking at the gis map

going through everything and just trying to be fair about this and those will be they'll get the letters and we'll look at it from there um one one thing I forgot to mention is on the enforcement side we're also going to work with um for government TV and we're going to do some Outreach by videos so one of the videos is going to be following the enforcement guys as they go down the street one

day to show them what what what it entails they go down to look at over over fills first then as the trucks come down to pick up they look at other things and so they are out there we want to make people aware that we are in the process of doing this it'd be great if we had 15,000 more enforcement people but we got what we got yeah I don't believe I believe there are separate um

assessors maps for this particular property but somehow I feel like there's at least two units on each property yeah if not more well we're going to look at that right and we can and I think they have common utilities too somehow we're going on the way it says is on a property M so that's an property SS is ma so that's what I'm we're looking at when we go through and do the rewrite

and you have a chance to look at the new ordinance ordinance that could be addressed but for right now the ordinance is written that way and that's how I'm advising that it be implemented um mattresses the goal is to get out of the mattress business mattress collection business we're Charing about $50 $50 um we spoke to handup today and handup is a company in New Bedford on uh Rodney French boulevards where a lot of

people go they'll they will they're willing to start doing curbside collection on a call basis for $50 so if we can do that it's even better for us to get out of the mattress business because once we go to Creo Hill Creo Hill doesn't allow mattresses we don't want to be in the business there's no there's no sense if we if somebody will do it privately we've got to look at that so that' roughly be around

October 15th um we're talking to a couple of companies that do textile pickup uh because that's a band waste now as well textiles where you'll call them it's like it's like what the big brothers do big sisters but there are companies that'll do it and when they do it they'll cut back to the city a percentage of what they sell so it's a way to help it's not a huge amount but

it's something and then it helps us with our recycling credits with the um so that's something that we're looking at um and we're going to look at that as well we're going to look at Food waste again food waste is always a real tough issue in cities um there's that Urban myth that you do it it and you're going to get rats in your yard that doesn't really happen even in tight areas but

it's a matter of trying to get over that and trying to figure out what to do and to do common collection is is a problem that we don't really have the ability to deal with yet um as I said sometime around September you're going to see the proposed amendment to the ordinance and I would encourage you to look at it and and consider it and if you have ideas please let us know and

share them with us and then I mentioned the scanning of the bins so that's going to really start in Earnest in probably about two months where we're going to be scanning the bins to go from there so that's pretty much where we are I can answer any questions yet Council she have the floor um so in terms of the ordinance I believe we already took purple bag out of the ordinance not still in there then

parts of it are out but parts of it is still in okay in terms of because I remember that um at one time it said uh had to be in a re in in a receptacle a city a city how they refer to well we still want to have receptacle with a purple bag we still want to have if possible you still want to have garbage put in plastic bags in the in the in the

bin it helps keep the bins cleaner it helps dispose easy here but there are sections in there that still talk about pay as you throw and things like that and we have to we don't have pay you throw so we have to get that out yeah but the actual wording the verbage purple bag that was removed I remember that being when I talk purple bags I'm talking about pay your throw okay so the

idea is to do that quite honestly the other thing too I can tell you right now that I'm going to propose is doubling the fines a business that is in a mixed use property that is only being fined $100 to dispose of their commercial waste in a residential bin that's easy that I'll do that any day of the week it's cheaper than having a dumpster and so the fine has to be at

such a level for that part of at least that it's not that you there's no uh there's no incentive to use the city via cash flow so okay so that's the yeah yeah I know that verbiage was changed so but okay but it makes the other part of it makes sense um in terms of compost have we sold all the bins that we had for composting did people ever jump on board with that what happened

with that we we sold some uh but we have the majority of them still in stock we uh we were hoping that would take off a lot uh a lot better than it had we uh constantly bring them out with us so we have them on a frames up in the lobby uh but but um we just didn't have the participation that we anticipated so we have uh probably 60 maybe 60 compost

bins 50 60 compost spins still on stock with you know I think we had 100 originally didn't we we had 100 total we purchased so but that would in those sales were over the course of two years close to three years so there really hasn't picked up no they haven't picked up that's part of the education it may be possible that uh through working at the schools we could encourage that

because the benefit to a city of pulling food waste out is that it reduces your tonnage um if you're a landfill it's a mixed bag because if you pull the food waste out you're getting more capacity but you're also getting less methane and since a lot of them will use the methane for waste of energy you're getting less of that but from a city's point of view with just collection it's

worth doing something with it and then uh trying to deal with it in an agricultural fashion um whether we use the people in um Westport um yeah uh where where the yard waste is going um there's some proc programs out there that have enhanced uh composting with yard and and leaf and yard where they actually put some food on it some food waste on it and mix it in and it helps it dispose

faster um or or degrade faster so that you get a decent compost out of it but that's a that's a challenge okay now I I don't remember um I originally I remember discussion about uh $25 a bin but did we stay at that number or did it go up when we purchased them we purchased them through a uh D Grant and we have to sell our stock right now with

$25 a b it is 25 still 25 um let me see so how many fines of these fines have actually been paid I don't know yet that that's a number we're trying to work through right now the ability it's we're trying to walk before we can run So eventually we're going to be able to give you a spreadsheet that's going to tell you these are the fines these are the ones they're outstanding

by property right now there's a lot of pencil involved and so I didn't have a chance to follow up on the collection side uh they were doing year- end stuff with the collector's office I that was a little bit more important to get the year- end closed um but we will be getting that information for you um I know I'm jumping all around as the I jumped all around you gave me the

luxury of going through this and I appreciate it so in terms of the number of Halls so is that number has to be I'm sure it's not huge but has to be there has to be an offset because you're not hauling at all from Industrial Park anymore right but the pro the issue was Industrial Park wasn't a unique Hall it was part of a bigger Hall okay it was

part of a day's worth so we are seeing more waste up to a certain point in the neighborhoods and that's because people are not recycling as much as they were recycling we're also seeing much more recycling cardboard and that's why the cardboard process in the North End and in the far south working now um one thing that we are looking to do is to have a conversation with Amazon okay because Amazon is probably

the biggest producer of cardboard Amazon and Walmart and um we are going to have a conversation with them about possibly trying to get into some kind of a program where as your Amazon packages are being delivered you leave out your used packages your cardboard tied up and they take it back with them kind of like the old Milkman used to do when You' put out your milk bottles um there's it's

I'm not saying that's going to be an easy conversation no IO it with them already they are aware that that's one of the things that are trying to do and they initially were amendable to it but the uh our U representative was going to get back in touch with me but we have approached that to them so we have a pretty decent relationship with them in general because they're under a tiff

agreement and um so every year we speak to them the assessors do telling them okay this is what the assessment is going to be and we work through that to make sure that we reduce the amount of Potential abatements from them um this is I know I've been in conversation with their attorney twice now already because this is a year where they're going from a 75% exemption to a 50% exemption so

you're going to see an uptick and New Growth this year because of that um and uh the coners we're going to have that conversation if they're producing the cardboard they should be taking the cardboard back it's that simple I'm Ser it's their it's their policies it's their practices you get a cardboard box that has one thing in it and it's because of the way they they package and it's how how we buy right

it's how we buy I understand that but if they're going to do that and if that's going to cause costs for a municipality it's only fair for the municipality to speak to them to try to get them to be partners and so maybe it seems silly but we're going to try no nothing silly nothing ventured nothing gained right I mean they have they have a compactor right in the back of their building so

worse comes to worse we we we get a happy medium so we went when that first opened we had the opportunity to go look at it inside and it was kind of like walking in the uh warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones when you walk in there um but they I remember them explaining to us they have one area which is the receiving area where all the packages come in and cardboard products come in

cardboard that they unpackage and then they have one which is their shipping area where where they where they're packaging it based on what you ordered and then they have their shipping area which quite honestly look like North Station where you've got trucks and they don't package on shelves in the trucks they package they get stuff to fit in like a puzzle in the trucks based on where it's going so they're very

efficient and I don't see why their efficiency should lead to added costs for the city if we can do it we're willing to try that's like I say definitely worth the shot so originally um in terms of now I know I understand it's not the pickup it's the disposal where you were saving money and originally was said we we'd be saving about $100,000 a year but it sounds like we've doubled the number of

properties um cuz it we were just around the 300 mark on on the businesses original right so we pretty much doubled that so that number should be increased to about a $200,000 savings think we would think okay so what we did not originally account for is additional disposal by some of the properties in the city Residential Properties and things like that so uh we're working through that right

now to see what the number is going to be so we really don't have a number yet cuz it really did not fully hit until May right okay so we're waiting to see what the May June July numbers are like and then we'll start to see a trend and then we'll be able to start to look at it my goal has been in this process so far is to not make any representations B

on a based on a guess MH we and driving these poor people nuts because I'm trying to force them into Data we want statistics we want data we want stuff we can depend on if we're going to say something to the public or to you folks we want to be able to stand behind those numbers yeah and we want true numbers you know in the end result in the end result did we save 200,000 and also

create 200,000 in in Revenue because of on the school side well I think you're going to see a savings and I think you're going to by the time we're done I think you're going to see enhanced um you're going to see a savings on the recycling side you're going to see more Recycling and you're going to see a savings on the trash collecting side we need help getting the message out there to people on the trash

collection people every so often you'll see a dirty diaper in a recycling bin well you can't just because of something is a piece of plastic does not make it recyclable you can't recycle single use bags right right because they get caught up in the machines that's the only reason you can't recycle plastic silverware you know Fork spoons and knives you can't recycle those because they get caught up

in the machine single stream is not the best way to go with recycling it may be the cost- effective way to do it but in my mind it's Pennywise and pound foolish because you put a bottle you're much better off taking a bottle to a recycling facility um you those centers remp Redemption Center because you give it back to them it goes back to them in a whole piece you throw it in a single

stream it gets broken if it's mixed in with cardboard the shards get into the corrugated that cardboard is not worth anything anymore that glass isn't worth anything you're basically made trash MH in in a recycling bin so that's the education we've got to get to we've got to get to the point of people thinking twice before they throw stuff out um people will throw out old clothes that

they that are ripped because they don't want to give them to anybody well there are companies that will take the ripped clothes and what they'll do is they'll either fix them or they'll shred them okay but anybody there was a there was a reuse market for every piece of textile even these mattresses with hand up if they're really soiled mattresses they won't resell them but if they're

not reoiled mattresses if they're clean relatively clean they'll clean them and they'll resell them and you'd be amazed at the amount of people that will buy a recycled mattress I would be I I was amazed I went in there once my uh we were getting rid of some mattresses from our house in the Bedford and we drove down there with them if you deliver them it's $50 if they pick it up if you

deliver it's $25 if you take it yourself we took them in paid 25 bucks that was it they were gone and these were clean mattresses I'm sure they get resold well I think part of it as I'm sitting here listening to you is to somehow put together some type a pamphlet or something listing the companies and what well we are in the process of doing that they're working on

that um yeah I mean a lot some of what you're saying i' personally I've never heard of it and uh they're going to we're going to they're going to be working on stuff our goal is for right around September October to start putting out information and it's going to go out through the schools and it's going to go out additionally but we're working towards getting it out through the schools and I can't help but think

over the years cuz we've been talking this has been going what 5 years now so you're right people have been listening they listen at council meeting they listen at at committee meetings so you're right when the hammer finally came down they weren't shocked um it was just a matter of how long it took to get there so even yeah having the conversations people I'm sure you know people are going to say wow wow

I can do that oh that's great I'd rather do that or whatever the case may be especially with the with clothing and stuff yeah that clothing is a thing old plates old cups glasses blankets blankets there there's a company that we talked to uh today that will come pick it up from your doorstep just make an appointment to them they'll pick it up they'll reuse it and so the idea is to

try to get people to reuse as much and that's not a bad idea for sustainability either um try to get it so that they can reuse it I mean years ago we did it all the time with Goodwill Industries with with Salvation Army um and then things kind of fell off a little bit and you know so that's not it's something that we've always done in the past and it made sense the explosion of Municipal

Solid Waste is such that the Commonwealth is not going to be able to deal with it the mayor and I were speaking to the lieutenant governor about it not too long ago new Massachusetts has a zero waste policy what that means is they're going to put it all on a train and Center to Ohio that's our zero waste policy well the day is going to come where Ohio's going to say no thank you we were send

uh soil up to Maine Maine said no thank you anymore uh contaminated soils you've got to come up with a way to handle it and we're trying not that we're going to solve the problems of the Commonwealth here um not that we're going to probably be able to solve all the Far River problems here but if we can make inroads in it it's much better than it was yeah absolutely so everything we're trying to

do is we're just trying to take it out of the waste we're taking it out of the waist stream add more recycling the textile take that out that's there some that just lowers our municipal waste and it saves everyone but that's the goal that's what we're trying to do and Matt's doing a great job as leading as leading us and we're we're making it happen I'm just kind of facilitating it

so my last question because I know other people have questions is what did you say about the private haulers well no I said we've got to start acting like private haulers oh being businesslike a private hauler knows exactly what a hall is costing right okay and we need to know that too we need to make business de business-like decisions on whether we're going to go with this or we're going to

go with that whether we're going to implement this or we're going to implement that it's not just a matter of years ago the seafood industry used to go out and catch as much as they can they could and then sell it and then stop and shop started saying hey that's not such a great way to do it Stop and Shop started Contracting with seafood companies with fishermen saying in 3

weeks I want to sell poock in four weeks I want to sell Cod I I'll buy this much of it from you and they would start catching to demand rather than catching to create Supply so you've got to be we have the the business models we have the ability it's just a matter of changing how we think about things and cities don't typically think this way with that I yield thank you thank you vice

president perer some of the questions that I have um one of the places to is my brother's keeper that comes and up um a lot of stuff that you would have uh as far as the textile there was a company they spoke at one of the um Veterans war council meetings and father Rob's church has one they have a thing in the back do you remember what company that

was I have the name of it at home and the the woman's contact because I had told him about it and if you don't mind if you could get that to because we're trying to figure out I mean there's nothing wrong with having more than one and people can put them in different locations and then you get so much every month for the tonnage that's there yeah um a lot of what I heard you

talk about uh was the education and different fines the education the state has an entire booklet we're working with them on exactly how you do the education P Missy Hollenbeck was in about a month ago yeah and she's the municipal coordinator of Le on on Recycling and all their education she's out of Taun she's located in Taunton but she works for mass and she's worked with uh Charlie and all and their staffs at

length and we had a meeting with her about a month ago I think just to kind of re establish the relationship and we're going to be working with her to get more information out years ago when I was doing this in newbedford many years ago we used to work with the schools using a book called The Lorax from Dr Seuss right which is about sustainability and we would do it with

the third and fourth grades and have them read The Lorax we'd give them the lorax books and send them home and they then become the best enforcers of recycling so another thing you talked about was you know the fine we're going to give them a letter send a letter do another letter then they pay the fine what have you but we haven't talked about what we could do in a more positive way because back when these

bins first came in under Bob career's Administration all of the codes that were on the barrels they were supposed to be lifted and weighed there was a picture that was going to be taken and there would be um a system whereby as you lifted the recycle bin the weight went to that barcode and then the owner would receive a coupon for um D'Angelos to a movie theater you would get a reward for all the recycling that

you did versus finding people so I agree with you to do something more positive so let me address that because we did have this conversation okay that was based on certain technology in the trucks that quite honestly doesn't exist so our way of looking at it is to do the contests and the rewards through the kids in the schools where classes one of the things we've talked with the school department

is classes are going to have contests of recycling at home and we'll figure out how this is going to work and the class that has the best recycling would get an ice cream social or would get D'Angelos or would get something like that trip to Disney well depends on if they really recycle that would be if they really recycle but I mean the idea when I was in school an ice cream was a good thing

yeah today I think they want a little bit more than an ice cream well I don't know about that when the collectors office hits their collection numbers we have an ice cream social and they look forward to it maybe that's my students love when the principal buys them pizza so it's okay so maybe pie but I agree with you so that whole that whole concept of doing that is a great idea

the trouble is that requires automated arms on the trucks which we're not using right no no okay because that works well in the North End and in the South End in the subdivisions but those arms don't work on Palmer Street those trucks don't work in the in so they can't use different trucks for different areas what happens is with the contract they assign to us a certain number of trucks

which by the way we're working to make sure that they say city of Fall River on the side well they should have done that from the day yes but that that was a conversation we had last last Wednesday but they're leasing some right now so they're leasing the trucks and on the bottom of it it said leased for the communities of Fall River Swansea and Somerset and we told them that's not

satisfactory okay by right there were they're supposed to assign a certain number of trucks to us we understand that trucks break down so if they have to substitute out a truck for another Community they're supposed to contact them in the morning and tell them where that truck is going and what the substitute in is I get a maget that says city of for this but still even that you

want to know what the truck numbers are because those truck numbers are then picked up when you dispose and that's how the Tipping slips are done and what's happening now is we're getting Excel spreadsheets of tipping lists and then we're doing well some of the some of the bills that we got were from other communities you know things happened we've looked at that because I've heard that issue and they have done a

and it's not going unnoticed and it's not going unchecked well I'm glad that you're able to express that with this committee as well um because we hear things from people and um you know to say oh no that's not happening and people say well look at this slip and look at that and I'm like okay so without getting too much into it Mr denme himself was out there one morning

at what time 4 in the morning cuz he's an early RIS okay they were out there and they were actually climbing in trucks because under the contract we have the ability to inspect the trucks out at their site before they start their runs and one thing I would say Council on that point because I know this has been a Hot Topic with you especially we are enforcing the contract with EZ in a

way it hasn't been enforced in years but I've got to tell you the easy disposal men that come to my house I have never had a problem the barrels are put back you know they're not just thrown um but my neighbors all do the proper Recycling and this that they have to do but they have been phenomenal very good he's been a good partner for the city they really have been I don't have

a complaint that doesn't mean that there's been parts of the contract we haven't enforced well there were some like calling in making sure you're staying later if you're going to be here on a Saturday we want to make sure that we're enforc and by the same token yeah I've kind of pushed the message with our side that if we're going to expect them to live by the contract we we have to

live by the contract as well well I think that Carlos Kudo the supervisor that they have here in the area any problem anywhere in the city you tell Carlos it is handled he takes care of everything no no doubt about but if you're looking at you know anything over seven that they're going to have to get their own haulers I'll tell you a concern that I have in you should make

sure that that gets into part of the ordinance that you bring forward people sometimes then get a dumpster versus another company that has a bin they get a dumpster but then the dumpsters are placed small poles of property they'll put a dumpster in between two houses and I got several calls one of them in particular was on Bedford Street that the dumpster was in between two houses and the lady that

lived in one of the houses wasn't her dumpster she could not open her window because of the smell from the dumpster they have to be so far away from a neighbor just like you know you build something you have to have so many feet from Frontage so many feet on the side that needs to be put in there and actually on that point that's a good point but that's more so than a trash

number that's a building code that's a a zoning code because some communities have a section on dumpsters that require dumpster mitigation by site by fencing and you can only put them in certain locations um because I have seen situations in other communities where it's been even worse than that when you try to open your window yeah well I had checked yeah back then maybe five six

years ago I had checked and there was nothing that they could do yeah so that's that's a good point we'll keep that in mind or you know maybe point of information um did the uh doesn't the Board of Health also oversee the dumpsters okay that's an interesting point if I can address that this so the thing with trash is really Board of Health we're working well yeah but they monitor two things because in Fall River

it's by ordinance right but that there is a state law the state sanitary code that the Board of Health can enforce so the one thing that we're starting to look at is coordinating enforcement of the state law and the ordinance and if we can do it by the same inspector or the same person that's out there for code enforcement not that I'm looking to double fine people but there are certain

fines that are so egregious or certain situations that are so so egregious you want to make sure you're finding them correctly and so the idea is there is you're right in in towns Solid Waste is done by the Board of Health but it was done here because the council never ever voted on purple bags that came the Flanigan and it was the Board of Health that implemented the bags it wasn't a vote of the council because

trash as I said in the beginning is a public health issue and I think I understand what you're saying too about you know food waste and things like that maybe we ought to bring back the swill buckets right well those were great I think I have a flower pot growing in one well not at my house but the point is well taken and that's something we'll keep in mind yeah just

there's no Pig Farmers around here that pig farmers are a Dying Breed no and they get all everybody that would kill a pig is a Dying Breed no because the people who moved in next to them oh they were moving to the nuisance so to speak but yet they had the nuisance removed well I haven't been at a kick pilling kick uh Pig killing for many years um my grandfather died so I haven't seen

a deer or a pig be killed in quite a while um rabbits my father but a lot of people are using it but composting is still an agricultural thing gets disposed of food waste gets disposed of agriculturally so but those are important things so we'll keep those in mind all right just keep those in mind and I know that they did have um you know I know that they did have a

whole big program in the state and and I I've got to admit uh Amazon I ordered one thing of mascara came in a box box this big like you could fit a pair of shoes in there it's it's a conversation to have it's it's not going to be an easy conversation but it's worth try and I think the school department should pay for their they are and they could make money on cardboard because they get a

lot of cardboard that comes in so with that I yield thank you I have just quick question so on the cardboard situation what what was the end result of the pilot program did that we're looking to expand it okay we're looking to expand that program uh there's definitely uh was a positive move um even the South End where we had some ticks in it uh at the initial uh onset they've uh

compliances picked up in that section but uh we've already speced out uh two areas one in each area one in each Zone and uh you know it's just the uh when are we going to launch it uh are we going to purchase new carts for it are we going to have enough in our inventory that we just took in to just replace the lids and put Brown Lids on so that's

we're in that stage right now but we're definitely looking to um to extend that become a Hot Topic cardboard again yeah it's become valuable M that's kind of an it's a discussion I had with my own uh at the school because they do single stream recycling we have a dumpster for that and I made the argument them we're throwing cardboard or everything else that we recycle through all the

classrooms you know and we're and I I literally used your line it's contaminate what are you doing with it now they're throwing it away and I'm paying for it now too Solid Waste where two years ago we were we weren't paying for recycling through the company they were taking it we had four bins they would take it off our hands for nothing now we're paying to recycle it yeah that was before China Shield

yeah China sword correct so that seems to be the issue uh the other question I had was regarding yard waste I know we talk a lot about recycling trash but as far as yard waste is concerned what is do we have a cost on that to get rid of when we collect grass and all that we can get you one we can get you one uh just give us a little bit know CU it

seems like we always talk about trash recycling we don't talk about even though it's only relevant say eight months of the year because nobody cuts grass in the winter but what does that look like and and has that impacted our overall costs at all well it definitely uh has an impact on our cost um but is it it's celor it's not just the the grass the the we have a large impact

when it comes down to fall in early spring with the leaves the leaves is the highest uh uh uh cost because it comes in tonnage tons and uh when they become wet and Municipal leaf collection is not necessarily clean you get styrofoam cups in it you have all sorts of things in it this is not a high value they have to comb through it and we can't burn it no which is too bad

yeah unless you put a hot dog on top that you're cooking something and that's because of the regulations of the state yeah burning yeah there's I I know that they're well-meaning but there's things that the state D is helping in certain areas but there's a lot of ways they could provide further help and assistance mhm and it's just too daunting I think for them to try and where does where does the yard

Wass go right now we take it to uh L it's up up in Idan and um we've been dumping over there uh we've been using that site for quite some time we have a uh perspective site that uh we're going to engage conversation with and it's located in uh Freetown so we uh we're going to engage conversation with this this vendor okay council at one time we were dealing with two entities weren't we something wolf

or something we have we we we were um but uh there was some issues with compliance with that with that sauce so uh but we do bring them some Organics that we uh that we collect from the schools and because he does have a pig farm he has pigs on his farm and um we eat Christmas trees right it takes him to Christmas trees you know and again I'm going from memory so I could be

wrong I could be completely wrong on my numbers but somehow in the back of my mind I remember a couple years back um that it was costing us $700 a truck load and I think in the budget it was like 210,000 for the year might have been yeah yeah but again were the trucks full right cuz it said that had nothing to do with weight it was strictly

If a half a truck of yard was went you paid the 700 if a full truck yeah I mean I've told you pretty much our successes but I will tell you one failure that just came to mind has to deal with the schools um the schools are you not using plastic trays anymore they're using disposable trays right aren't the schools using those styr trays styrofoam tray they are and we tried talking to

them uh it's not and we tried talking to them because when he was in New from Mr Oliva did a project where they started where they put dishwashers back into red all thew and we it was reusable trays and it cut down on the waste coming out of the schools we tried to do that with the schools and we got a lot of push back on that so we we did not we were

not successful on that but we tried yeah to me the state was paying for it there was a grant program it was was a gimme but they did not want to do it so and they have this enough right I think only I think there's only four of the schools that have cafeterias now cooking cooking cafeterias and because the nature of how the like for us we get food delivered from the public schools

and it it gets delivered there the trays come in it's served it goes in the garbage and continue but think about it if they came in on plastic tray and you had a dishwasher there that you would load put the so turn it on and just let it run correct it's cutting down on the solid waste that's coming out of it we try to push this us more water yeah well

that wouldn't be such a bad thing for Mr F and that's your next meeting that's your next meeting that's your next meeting but um I think it's a lot easier to deal with the water than it is with the solid waste fair enough that's right and if you use more water it cost less yeah that's right that's right Council Dan anything else I yield sorry I just have one question uh Charlie you

talked about maybe getting another bin a bin for oh yeah for the uh car grad yeah we we're looking to expand the uh the the program now four five bin well you won't have four five bins you you have one additional bin for corrugated so when you get your Amazon deliveries for a little item you purchase in the big box you'll have a special container to put it in but you

know it's funny when you said about uh the the lids because counsel R when Danny Rico was on a council Danny's idea was get all the same color bins and just buy lids for different you know for yard waste or for r or for garbage it makes sense want to listen to but it made sense it makes sense because of stock you just keep your stock levels spins do you have left anywhere I'd have to take

a look in the back well we have some that came back in that have damaged chassis were correct so we did a lot of C maintenance on the street right um that was about a two-month effort whatever they could fix at the site they would fix it whatever they couldn't but there were some that were just beyond and so there are some there's a pile there's a stock Pile in on L Street they

were just discarding those now we're getting credit from the company and purchasing so as I stated first off thank you for inviting us back and thank you for your UT and your questions September October I was going to suggest if you want us to come back in October that might not be such a bad time well because we've been well five years talking about this but arguably we're seeing progress now getting the

data and but we're seeing progress now counselor progress that we haven't seen and not because of lack of effort in the past but there is a there is a commitment in May kogan's Administration to handle this in a much more costeffective fashion that protects the public health I'm glad to hear that I do you do yes so um it is my intention this committee will revisit this in October

with your updates of what you've already specified as well as if you could add information about the yard waste situation that would be fabulous so i' entertain a motion to table this motion to table second motion made in second all in fav any oppose guys have it gentlemen thank you very much appreciate your time this here yeah yes I'll send it to you tomorrow thank you okay with that

we'll move on to item number four it's a resolution the committee on health and environmental Affairs convened quarterly to review and discuss the water supply and Water Filtration plant last tabled January 30th 2024 I obtain a motion to lift from the table motion to lift from the table motion made second and second it all in favor I the eyes have it can invite our guests to come down that's

fine gentlemen good evening if you could um identify yourselves please it be fabulous Paul furland the administrator of community utility city of f rer Brian Jacob director of war department of Maintenance David PE director of treatment and resources gentlemen welcome Mr ferland I'll let you run and go with it excellent so thank you very much for having us down here for our quarterly uh reports um

today I figured that I would bring uh two division leaders uh Brian Jacob and uh Dave peeler of distribution and treatment let them talk a little bit about their divisions what they do what they've done maybe in the past 6 months uh and a little bit uh about uh what I talk to them on a daily basis uh I love coming down here talking to the councilors providing you information but

I figured this was an opportunity get a little bit different uh uh look into uh into our division so I'll turn it over to Brian and he can start off good evening councelors um I'll start off by saying uh want to praise the men and women we have working in our division oh they're great they're awesome uh we only have 13 employees right now and that's including myself project specialist engineer the rest is

all Road people so you're looking at 10 Road PE uh uh in a mechanic so you're talking about nine Road people uh what we've accomplished so far this year since January uh We've accomplished quite a bit as you guys will notice um we've had 90 reported leak inspections which is we get calls for to go out to check for leaks 45 were leaks 20 re repaired 25 you actually had to

replace from the curb stop to the water L now you're talking from 1 in Services all the way up to 2-in Services main brakes we had we've had 13 main brakes from 6 in 8 in up to 10 in so far this year uh Bow Street uh we were getting a lot of calls of uh complaining of dirty water and the main was actually dead ended on that section so so what we

decided to do we ran a new 2-in line we connected it to both Mains of 260 ft length of uh 2-in pipe and Rec connected new services to the homeowners that were on at and now it's not dead ended so there's no the water is just completely uh we've done 20 spots that needed Loom and Seed cuz when anytime we do sidewalks that it's grass especially throughout the winter time we don't

Lumin seed at that time so we wait till the springtime we've been out we've done 20 spots lots of that uh hydrants repaired so we have a program that the fire the Palama goes out they check hydrants uh it comes back to me if they write anything down saying something's wrong with it but it could go from hot to turn uh won't shut off needs to be greased check main valve all different

kinds check uh replace S steamer replace Breakaway operating night not operating properly so we've repaired 8500 so5 this year yes that's what they go out and do Check Yes um also we've we which I'm sure you guys have noticed parts of the city we have painting hydrants uh so before we paint it's not just we don't just go out and paint we go out we service them first we scab

them meaning you know take all the old paint out put primer and buy and then put paint we've done 107 hydrant so far this year of doing all that um so far we have so every trench we do whether it's a leak or whatever it is we are we we do our own asphalt we do our own concrete so we've done so far this year we've done 48 spots that we've had

go back scab it binder top it off uh concrete we've done 19 spots that we've had to water inspections which is any contractors that do work we always like to be there to inspect make sure everything's being done properly whether it's whe no matter if they're doing something in the city or on a on the property side so far this year we've done 74 of those uh Mark offs Markoff

tickets is so if you guys if you're a contractor and you're going to dick something you have to call them dick Safe well not part of Dick safe so then they'll call contract with call us for us to go Mark the water for them so they know where it is so they don't hit it so far this year we've had 265 Mark offs and some of those are whole streets so whenever you see Ferrera doing whole

streets we've been there marking off the water to make sure nothing gets here um curb stop issues from High Low cover missing uh we where so far this year we've had 12 uh service turn on turn offs people need service to be turned on or off for whatever purpose they may need so far this year we've had 25 of those um Buffalo boxes uh which is a CB stop box that goes down to the curb stop

to shut to be able to shut the order off of the homeowner so far this year we've been about 15 this year so as you guys can tell for the amount of staff we have we have done quite a bit so that's why I'm saying I'm I have to praise the women men and women that we have on our staff um now mind you doing all this stuff it's tough to do sometimes when

you have a back or that's from 1998 um it's very old um to do our daily work it's not easy uh we are in need of a a new backo definitely in need of an another new dump truck uh we need some some pickup trucks and we definitely would need a new roller for when we do our asphalt patches cuz our roller is extremely extremely old also um we have our Cold Storage garage

which is the old garage that's there um that's in rough shape uh that needs a new roof that needs a new siding that needs that needs to be all fixed up because we going to we use that we have a lot of stuff in there that can be in the cold it's going to be cold storage but it needs to be like it's in rough real real real rough shape

um we also do is we do uh weekly inspection so I have them do once a week I have them inspect all our trucks so one guy may have assigned two trucks or three trucks to them they go and they go through the whole truck if anything's wrong it goes automatically sends a signal to the mechanic mechanic takes care of the problem like I said we do it on a weekly basis because you just never

know uh and everything's documented we have a utility Cloud program which is great um it that's how I was able to get all these numbers I mean it thing amazing keeps track of what's been done to the vehicles what you know this way we can track okay we've changed this too many times or you know so we can track it um also every Wednesday I have a uh two box safety talk with my with my uh

people we uh change it up every week I see like it's been very hot you know what I mean just just a touch base with them hey just be careful but every week I change it up depending what it is how would I see what we're going possibly going to do I change it up um besides that we also assist Wastewater when needed uh which we have uh recently uh Cemetery we've been

assisting them they've been needed people they've been struggling so they've been asking us for help we've been having guys every single day going out right now they're good but we were sending people there after to go help them out how uh weed whacking cutting grass at the cemeteries whatever they needed

uh DCM obviously we assist with salting and plowing also we help them when it comes time and other things when needed also um but that's pretty much as you have heard I mean it's for the amount of staff we have we've get a lot done with what we have um we have a great group of people I mean everybody gets along with each other so so just to touch on a couple of

things that Brian said you know again the staff that we have um both in maintenance and distribution are unbelievable uh all the guys and uh men and women that we have working down there again I had Brian um kind of mention a couple of the things that uh they're in need of um those may I may be back here asking for uh transfers from free cash once it gets certified in the

December time frame um not a surprise you're always here asking for money again I wanted you to hear from somebody else that it's not me asking for these things this comes from our staff this comes from our employees and that's why um you know I wanted them to talk about some of the things that I talk with them on a daily basis and then have to bring up so U again thank you very much Brian

Mr Mr ferland if I could ask have you presented these Capital needs to the are yet uh no these particular needs I have not brought to the uh Administration again these are things that uh I'm looking at uh potentially what happens with the certified free cash again some of the other needs that will uh that Dave will mentioned as well uh may need uh either Bond authorizations or other

things that I'd be back to the council for okay cool and now I will turn it over to Dave peer director of uh the Water Treatment division as well thank you councilors um glad you got me down here today to kind of let you let you know some things we do we're at the treatment plant um we recently had um a tour of the new Maintenance building the tower the old treatment plant and new treatment plant

unfortunately we didn't get to see any of you there hopefully you'll be able to be there for the next one well we only found out 3 days before they were having it okay you didn't see a lot of people from for River there either uh there was quite a few people there lot of people told me they wanted to go but okay well hopefully be having some more yeah absolutely um it was a great

success um you know I've been told that we had anywhere from 6 to 800 people that showed up um it was it was a great event um I would love to do more um and anytime any counselors would love to come down to the treatment plant I would be more than willing to give you a tour yeah I know you have so getting to Staffing um I know you've had Mr F come down here the past

before saying that we were you know desperate for employees and um glad to say that a lot of that has changed um up until a week or so ago I was fully staffed uh with competent professional men and women um to do an excellent job every day um a lot of that had to do with increasing some of the salaries um we were able to to hire and retain the staff which is very important it was

tough for us to do that for a while as you know uh we'd hire people and they' go to different communities and make more money uh but we have a excellent staff right now that you know again I I have one position open at the treatment plant U and that's only due to a internal move uh that recently took place so um things are going very very well as far as Staffing uh goes and

again I I give credit to them they make my job easier every day um so just to give you a basic you know we're a 12 million gallon a day plant give or take on average um we've done a lot of repairs in the last 6 months um so at the beginning of the year we did a a a filter rehab we had done one about three years ago we do it all in-house we

use some Diamond Co-op students as well uh to help us which is a huge huge savings to the taxpayer by doing everything in house um again you know I have a a staff that is well capable of doing much of the work that needs to be done certain things we need to send out obviously to vendors to get the work done for you know rebuilding Motors and stuff but for the most part my

maintenance staff is you know topnotch and we get everything done internally um you know we've had the building repainted done a lot of landscaping outside um I'm not sure about you two counselors but I know Linda's been in there before and I don't know the last time you were in there but it looks completely different on a fun day I've done the full tour okay and I and I can

almost hit you with a rock from where I live okay the plant's gone through a lot of a lot of changes I mean from painting and wax in the floors it makes a 197 Kempton Street is on a uh what would you call it the North West corner of the property oh he's up the other one yeah the sorry but I have had a full tour to say you got a good

arm um I have a question sure Council per um you know if you go into the Filtration plant there's and you walk in and there's the bins that clean all the water are all of those operational or there still one out yes they're all operational have we had any problems cuz deers are going to be coming in September October whatever um you get deers how how we doing with losing deers

there they fall into the to be honest with you I have not seen any at all this year oh okay so we had we had last year we had put some U gu should call them ramps inside the Interceptor drain right um I don't know if they're working but it seems like it they might be helping cuz I haven't seen any deer in the coyote up there I have not man they're coming by my house

really yeah you cooking I don't know 2:00 I mean in past years I I mean I've helped myself take deer out of the Interceptor drain right and we I I haven't seen any in about a year good and I think that you're able to get more workers there now because the union kind of separated you they do a separate agreement because you were all plumped in with everybody else yeah for treat for treatment operators there

was an increase in Pay but they were clumped in with clerks and you know your union and most of your individual especially you need certain certifications and certificates so it really wasn't fair y so I'm glad that they did change that yes and it like I said it retaining the staff is you know I mean you keep having to rehire people and retrain people and it's it turns out

to be a lot to to keep the same people and their qualified good employees and even like with a bulldozzer need you know with the different departments that have bulldozers you went to the cemetery to help them out some of your guys but if you have a special job that you need a bulldozzer and they're not having a funeral that day could you borrow from them to use it for the day do they work

with like that right yes we actually work a lot also with DCM DCM has been borrowing our trucks recently because they've been down trucks and they always call me d especially calls me ask say I'm down a truck you have a dump truck that we can use I'll ask him what are you looking to do and then he'll tell me whether it's ass there almost like a chip program where we always try to help

each other out always always that's good to know I think always that's good we all live in the same city working for the same thing y so absolutely I just upset that they knocked down the other building because we are paying for storage all over the place and we could have rehab that cheaper than renting all over the place and when somebody called me about the building I'm supposed to

have asbest and they were supposed to do water and spray and I said I have no idea what you're talking about and I called the mayor said could you check on this blah blah blah and then I called back I said talk to the mayor he's going to check when they're going to demolish it they said no it's already been demolished I called the be back I said it's been demolished when it

yesterday and I I really I really was upset about that call because that could have been a building we could have used for storage we need storage somewhere yeah I know it needed work yeah and when we did our original evaluations of of the whole property that building to rehab it and to reuse it was was definitely we're not going to reuse it to that purpose though it was just to store things because the one

that Brian's talking about the little building on the side that's small yeah it needs a roof and it needs some paint it needs some shingle whatever but you need a place to straw things yeah as well and that's yeah across next to the 1875 Tower that's why we left the six Bay garage there that's the one that needs the roof and and windows and stuff like that uh I mean that's a great

prodct for the kids at Diamond too well they're looking at the ex so the roof they they're not going to they're not going to do because of potential contaminat in the roof so they've already looked at that but the exterior windows fous off it will be diamond that's the they're right there then maybe they could run through the property when they're exercising cuz we stop that and if you want a b a dump

truck or a bulldozer whatever you meet I would suggest that the water department clean to the left talk to the sheriff have some inmates come get rid of that Cobblestone you got a million cobblestones there for a bucker piece you'll have a million dollars to buy your bulldozer I've been dying to get rid of those who wanted to buy those was Terry Le Burge there was thing he said I'll

die before they sell them to me he's right he passed away two years ago it was and then they buried him yeah there was multiple talks on that again when we did Bedford Street we were supposed to remove them the water department in part of that contract it was said that the water department was going to get a benefit from City cobblestones and that DCM should get the benefit that's why

those were taken out of the contract when they were again uh I so feel we have money buried underground even people from the city if you wanted to do something in your yard come up take so many we have to see where you put it on your property even to give it to people to beautify the city or sell it I'll work on that I figure out how to dig those out of there

yeah sure you will thank you guys cuz I know you work hard and I see the guys go back and forth and when I see them on the road especially now when it's really hot I'll always see see if they want a bottle of water or soda or something and grab a club and like I do with my mailman um although I've been freezing my mail man's water so I give him a

couple and he's got a couple to go cuz it's it's hot I hope you give him City Water I do it's good perfect I do because the more I use the less I'm going to Bay but thank you very much for the work you do it it does not go unnoticed for all of you thank you it really doesn't I appreciate that did you have anything else you wanted to

add uh yeah just a few more things um just a couple of uh I I kind of explain to you a little bit of the things that we've been doing um at the treatment plant again we did re rehabed one of the filters at the beginning of the year probably the filter that you saw down um all four filters are back online two more are in need of repair which we'll

be doing another one this year hopefully one next year um at at a significant cost to the City by doing it all internally in house um possibly using uh Co-op students uh We've redone most of the lighting around the plant with LEDs uh to save on electricity um we do have a solar field in the back which helps um we are in need of a roof for the plant um dire need for a roof at the

plant uh so part partial partial part of the roof was done in 2008 I believe um and the rest of the roof is you know 1976 so this it's in need of it's in it's in need of repair it it has and you know if we ever want to if we ever want to consider doing any kind of solar projects or anything like that on top of the roof we

need to have a good roof first um so you know those are some things that I'd like to get done um you know we we have a currently right now we have uh one of our Motors is down for the uh finished water pumps that need to be rebuil that's a significant cost um another project that I would you know really love to get done we haven't been able to

add florite into the water for a long time u a fluoride feed system is not adequate for the fluoride that we can get uh from our vendors uh basically the fluide that we were getting years ago was kind of like a sugar consistency uh now it's more like a flow and it just cakes up our machines and our system is not adequate so we do need to upgrade that system um there's a lot of controversy about

putting fluide in or out of water yeah there is there there that's always a question and that and that's a decision made by the Board of Health on uh whether in the council essentially the Board of Health would make a recommendation they did when you couldn't get the floride all the dentists I think you sent the letter out for all uh notifi all the dentist so when people went in and I get toothpaste with

fluoride in it so you know that helps yeah and it's a significant cost every year fluoride's tough to get to begin with um a good product and uh the equipment to run it is not cheap either so that's something that we need to upgrade if if we're going to be mandated to to put it in the water then we need to upgrade the system to do it I'm good yeah Mr fand just two questions

so back to Mr Jacob's point about Staffing do how many open positions do you have in that division uh so right now we have six open positions within his Division and any luck in filling those positions currently or uh so we do have one uh one candidate I just received a resume of yesterday seems like a qualified candidate uh one tough thing about the water field and I've been down here talking about it before

it's a n it's a niche field um you know so a lot of we have to bring somebody in unskilled and work with them you know uh our guys are great at training uh younger people that want to learn about in the field and stuff like that uh so uh that's definitely uh definitely one thing the internal transfer that was talked about before from treatment uh it's uh uh that's something that's a

temporary transfer right now for a uh uh for uh backflow inspector position that uh just recently opened up due to uh tragedy of one of our employees passing away yes so um uh you know again we're always looking uh for for good people a lot of the staff that we have now has been with us for uh a period of time and a couple of them have left and uh come

back you know uh I think uh the good Quality Staffing that we have uh comes from the good quality management that uh that is under me overseeing that Staffing too so excellent last question is lead service removal you have an update on where where that stands yes so thank you very much for asking CU I wanted to bring it up you're welcome uh so as as of uh as of the uh past quarter

so the end of uh end of June uh we've done uh over 5400 iner inhouse inspections for lead Services um so we probably have so that would be homes that were either identified uh through our record research to have a LED service uh all homes where we could not identify by our records what the uh service material was um so uh we've done so far 5,400 in home inspections uh and we've done a total of

700 as of June 30th it was 706 lead service Replacements uh within homes uh we do have a number there's probably um about six 7 th000 uh verifications in home inspections that we want to still do um so that we can have a full lead a full service material inventory so that includes whether it's lead copper or plastic we need to verify what the material is inside the house so we have

Crews of uh contractors our staff um uh Engineers that are working for us right now going out we're doing it multiple different ways uh contractors they're given a neighborhood and they're going door to door knocking on the doors uh asking whether they can come into inspect the service material um or leaving uh a notification for the customer to call to schedule an appointment uh our staff in

the water admin office is calling uh after hours typically we're doing it from 4:00 to 7:00 at night to try to call home owners to be able to schedule an appointment to go into uh those homes we're making those appointments available uh any day of the week during the week at nights or on Saturdays uh we have been sending our staff along with um one of our uh Engineers working on

the project out on Saturdays again to uh to flood streets uh where we know that we need to get into homes to uh identify those Services uh so there still are a number of services out there um by the end of the calendar year our goal um our Target by the ACO is uh 1,000 lead surfaces total so we have just under 300 left to go this year uh my concern right

now is locating those 300 lead Services being able to get into the houses do the inspections so that we can find the lead services and then the contractor can schedule the replacement we have the funds in place we have the contractor in place we need we need the lead service so right now if somebody doesn't know whether they have a lead service or not give our office a to call the water

department administration office uh 508 324 233 uh just give us a call we can look up to see whether we know your service material if we don't they'll be able to schedule you an appointment right then and there for whatever is convenient for you um big thing again we ask all the customers if somebody comes up to the house and ask to go into to inspect your LED service they will have a city of

full River ID even if it's a contractor they typically have a mock vehicle the contractor that's doing it now is bisco Contracting Corp they're under contract for these inspections uh so they're going out into the neighborhoods knocking on doors they'll have a vehicle with them they'll have uh you know ID clothing and stuff like that and a uh an ID with them that's uh in cooperation

with the city of Fall River so um you know they'll go in it's about a 5 minute visit in into the house go down to the basement look where the water meter is and be able to identify whether it's lead whether it's some other material or whether we need to potentially dig a test pit out on the sidewalk to verify what the material is uh customers can also do their own own inspections in

home Mass DP website has a step-by-step process to be able to go through they fill out a form right on mdp's website we get sent that information along with photos so that we can update their records so multiple different ways biggest thing homeowners if you own multiple properties within the city give us a call up tell I got 10 properties I have five properties I want you to come

and you know check them all inspect them all you know we're replacing the lead services at no cost to the homeowner um so that's $1 to $113,000 cost that the homeowner does not have to pay for uh so so sorry a little bit long on the lead services but trying to get all the information out Council so let's assume somebody doesn't have lead service inside the house why would they still do ground testing

outside the house so the problem is sometimes when you have your service come in the service will come in underneath the foundation and then come up so if we go into the house and do an inspection and there's a dirt hole there and they see this much of new fresh copper coming up but it's labeled in our records as as a LED service um we know that the piece coming out of

the ground this much is copper but our records indicate that the rest of it lead so that may be a reason to make us suspicious that they took the cop there was a issue at some time they tied the copper or brass or something onto uh the lead pipe underground and just ran it up to tie it into the meter um through the Rev Leen copper rule improved which is

the new is the revised Leen copper rule that was that came out about two years ago goes into effect in October then the Biden ad Administration put out the revised lein copper rule improved version which goes even further that actually has a requirement for twoo verification uh so for ver and going into the house looking at the water meter and the basements one point the other point would be uh a test pit um

other communities I remember when I talked with um um Denver Colorado they were actually doing what they call Pop holing so they were digging four spots so they were digging at the main they were digging at the curb stop in between there and in between the curb stop in the house they were digging four spots for their verification program so again you know we want to be able to make sure

that we do not miss any lead Services we want to make sure that the people are prot protected and that you know nobody can come back later and say well you guys you know you guys just assume that this one was we want to be able to say nope we went after everyone that we could and made sure that there was no more lead services that I yield Council Vice pres

bur I just have one question Mr furin we just did our budget for June um and we had talked about different things that were needed people brought up Capital Improvements Etc we just raised Water and Sewer on the homeowners of of the city what money do you have to assist with you know doing some of this Improvement maybe not everything but maybe to get a back ho or maybe to get a dump truck do you have

any money or were you told hold off and see what we get in free cash no so that was a decision that I made to uh so again when we come to the end of the fiscal year um you know when I was looking at my revenues compared to to my expenses um I probably could have put in to purchase these under last fiscal year uh gotten quotes and purchased them under last fiscal year taking delivery

in this fiscal year uh I opted not to do that I opt it to take um leave that money available let it come out in free cash cuz that's if you remember back um right if you leave it in free cash we right if you remember back when we talked about um water and sewer rates and we had rap Tellis here one of the things that they talked about was being

able to have a free cash balance available which we didn't this year and being able to use those for some of those Capital expenditures rather than um running it um with the uh with my fy2 budgets uh we did increase the capital expense line items within Water and Sewer uh they did go from uh 80 in sewer 100 in water up to 250 in each so um could I tomorrow go out and purchase a

backo which runs at now probably about $150 $160,000 yes I could for my Capital line item uh but I feel that the best fiscal measures would be wait to see what comes out in free cash and then make uh ask request of council to make those uh but now we know you have money there you know again and that's that's I me I agree if it's needed it's needed and you

use it frequently so yeah you know it's a 1998 the old one that we have I think we have a 2000 yeah something yeah there might be a 15 or a 16 and and and an 18 but again we want to keep those rotating you know one that's uh almost 25 26 years old that didn't come up but thank you for the explanation I appreciate it with that I yield anything else councilors

nope all right motion to it I'm going to we're going to quarterly continue this quarterly update theme so we're going to I'm going to request a motion to table made made second second it all in favor I any oppos the eyes have it motion to adjourn motion to adjourn made it second all in favor I committee on health and environmental Affairs now adjourned

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