8.7.2025 Sewer Commission

Okay, gentlemen, welcome to the uh August 7th meeting of the for so commission. Um I'm proud to say this meeting is being held down at down at the forever wastewater treatment plant.

And so we got started with the meeting pursuant to the open meeting law. Any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium.

Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Mr. Furl, will you do the roll call, please?

Uh, President Elma, present. Uh, member Howak is not present. Member Soua present.

And member elves here.

Thank you.

All right.

I think we've all received the agenda and and the um what goes with it. All right, first item on the as usual first item is uh citizen input. Is there anybody scheduled?

There hasn't been anybody that signed up and uh nobody submitted anything that I'm aware of.

Okay, that takes item number two, minutes of the previous meeting. Uh I believe those were sent to us by Trevor. Thank you, Trevor. Good job. Um, anybody have any questions with respect to it? Want to make any additions or deletions or any other comment? If not, I'll attain a motion to accept the minutes of the previous meeting held on June 3rd, 2025.

I'll make a motion to accept uh June 3rd's minutes.

Second.

All in favor?

Motion passes. Okay. Item number three, um we have people from EMFA who want to make a presentation to um tell us what happened, what their feelings are with respect to working for us. Uh they've just completed their first year back, I guess you could say, the end of June, right? So, um having said all that, the floor is yours.

All right. Thank you.

Um, hi. Hi. I'm Jason O'Brien. I'm the vice president of operations uh for Evermark and um we appreciate the uh the opportunity to talk about you know our first year here in the city of uh Fall River. Um you know I know that um you when you made a decision about 14 months ago to choose from Mark as your new uh contract provider for the services here, right?

You know it came with change, right?

that came with risk and well this is what we were looking for I think primarily change.

Yeah and um um very happy to have the opportunity to kind of talk with you um about our first year. You know Paul kind of oversees you know all of our uh contractual types of requirements and KPIs and all those types of things and and why we do have a slide here that talks about the compliance of the facility for the for the past year. We wanted to focus on, you know, some of

the uh accomplishments, some of the extra things that we've done, some of the things that we've, you know, started and some things that we're uh actually looking, you know, into as well to continue here to improve the operations.

Good. So with that, so a partnership, right? Like I mentioned in the beginning, um I I do feel like for the uh first year here, we established a great partnership, you know, here with the sewer commission in the city with Paul and his team. Um as you can see here, we're here for the uh uh the community day we had here for the tour. But everybody, you know, works together seamlessly. And um what what

happens with that is is it it's good open communication um and so when there are you know things that have to be mentioned you know to Paul and his team or they communicate with us it just makes things run more smoother and it it's really worked well as a great partnership uh for the past year.

So, just as a reminder, when we started uh last July 1st, you you were about 80% uh complete with uh going through a large facility upgrade. Um and not only were we transitioning all the staff and the operations and developing the SOPs, we had to bring in our uh technical team to, you know, really assist with the start all the startup of the new equipment. And we need to do that

successfully. Um, and that that I it's a little unique and a little extra when you're actually transitioning of transitioning to a new facility. And you know, I think that was done with really good success uh here. We didn't really have uh many problems and we worked well with uh CDM and uh Paul and his team to successfully start up.

Yeah, it was definitely challenging.

Yeah.

Uh, you know, I I was I was kind of like um it it was I was kind of like trying to deal with the change that was taking place. All the all the new setups that we were we were just putting online.

Yeah.

Uh we had I mean we this was a culmination of a project that was going on for at least three years.

Yeah. and um to have new operators come on board to have to intermingle with it and so forth. I think you guys did a a good job of making that transition.

Yeah, we we appreciate that.

Yeah, I I got to say that.

Yeah, we appreciate it. And and it, you know, it goes a lot to the planning, right? Like we knew that this was happening. We had put together, you know, a transition plan, the teams that would need to be here, the support people that we'd have to bring in. Um but I do think it would you know very very smoothly for for everyone.

And then the the on the right here you see um just want to talk about how you know that at one point you know we we got into a situation with the railroad tracks. we need to do some lining there and how Inframark was able to help the commission to facilitate, you know, the lining of that work that needed to get done in a short period of time and and

and how we would love to continue to help execute, you know, capital projects, you know, for you here that could help save you money. Um, just like uh the roofing job that you approved, you know, at the at the last uh commission meeting, the new rolling stock, this is uh this is just a big thank you uh to the commission. I would mention I don't know how it made the picture. The back truck is not new.

It's not getting there, but it's on a wish list. So, I think that's why it got in there. Maybe Paul will get us one get us one next year.

But uh just uh one thing that really needed needed to be looked at was the rolling stock and you replaced a lot of the rolling stock which makes our job easier. It helps us and actually um actually makes the employees actually feel good to have something better you know and newer newer to work with this.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And then uh kind of a joke here with the the picture about our annual innovation round table. This is something that we um we talked about in our proposal that we would do. We actually had our first one uh here today. Um and that's why we have a couple um executives uh in the in the audience here from Infomark. We had about a dozen of us um you know here today kind of going through um new

technologies or new digitally powered systems uh to see how we could you know run to ground and develop an action plan to uh improve and optimize uh the treatment process here. Um and and in that we have some ideas where we may actually be able to pilot some new technology for free. So we we're developing an action plan and uh you know from that we'll run that the ground. Some of these things can you

know maybe happen and come to fruition.

Some of them they just won't. But it's good to put all these ideas on paper and run them and see how we can improve the operations and optimize treatment with them.

Yeah. How um how soon do you think you might be able to give us some feedback on that the action plan?

Well, with respect to what the your you know your your brainstorming and things like that, um I'm sure we'd be interested in knowing what's what you guys have in mind or what you see the future being and so forth. So, um so we can at least try and keep up and maybe we can talk about that at the next meeting or we can get stuff to Paul that he can provide uh to you.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I think going through the avenue of giving it through Paul.

Yeah.

And then, you know, if Paul feels like something we should uh should have a meeting on collectively, then we we'll do it.

Yeah. And the one thing I I will tell you, I mean, it is this was great because it was a good exercise to kind of go through because you you bring in some talented people in different areas the treatment process that have, you know, ideas. Yeah, we're constantly looking, you know, on new technologies and other ways we can optimize the facility year round, but this is really a set, you know, little

study that we do because you really throw everything on the table. Um, and and actually I think on the next slide I'll talk about something that we we just implemented uh you know this week.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um part of our I'm just keep going from left to right. Right. Part of our uh proposal was to do uh an energy audit of the facilities uh through Jen Mure. JK Mure is a consultant of ours that uh we work we work with. Uh she's actually um submitted a application for some of the mixers and the aeration tank as as a as a grant application. We haven't gotten

uh word on that yet, but um and she's also completing a full uh energy audit of the facilities well with coming up some ideas and how we can, you know, improve operations, reduce our energy uh and reduce our our our carbon footprint here.

You're looking at rebate programs, things of that nature.

Yeah. Right now, Mass D has like a five million uh grant uh application study out now that uh JK Muer is looking at, you know, good.

Yeah. Anything you can do to save money in that area.

Yeah.

I I think I think that's that's basically on our tab, right? Electricity and Yes. So, we we pay the direct It's not part it's not part of their correct.

We pay We pay the bill on that.

Yep. We pay the bill on that and it's so anything you guys can do to chop that down, we really appreciate it.

And then uh what I was mentioning before, this is Crew Carbon. Um so this is a company that we met in January at the New England Water Environmental Association meeting in Boston. And this is a company that has um developed a process to where you add a calcium carbonate to the treatment process. And that calcium carbonate through the treatment process um captures the carbon dioxide that normally would be emitted

in the BOD removal. And I know it sounds confusing. I don't know how much you know about waste water, right? But the, you know, when you go through the aation tank process, you treat your BOD and remove it. And by that, we're emitting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere up to the atmosphere. Right?

This chemical actually changes the chemical composition, captures the carbon dioxide, and keeps it in the liquid form, and it doesn't allow it to be emitted. And it and they it's proven uh technology. We we went and toured a few of their facilities where they had this implemented. Um, and we're running a pilot that we just uh we just started on uh yesterday injecting uh the chemical and we're going to pilot it for

a year and see how much carbon dioxide how much we can reduce our carbon footprint here. Um it does generate a high quality carbon credit. Um so we can talk about how many um you know carbon credits that we have you know established from piloting this here at the plant.

Have you determined what the initial cost or the capital cost in doing something like this on a large scale basis is well this is this is going to handle this can handle the whole treatment pipe. It's just that with this size tanker, you you know, if we're really inputting all the chemical and we're maintaining an okay alkalinity, you may have to fill this tanker um every other day. But if it really is successful, we

want to look at after the year and want to do something more permanent. This is something that crew carbon pays for. Um, and they and and they they actually pay for all the the capital. They pay for all the chemical. Um, they share a little bit of the uh carbon credit, you know, with us. But I didn't even get into the other benefits of it is that by adding this chemical, it it does help

improve our process. It maintains our alkalidity in the aeration system. It's going to help our settling in the secondary clarifiers. It should improve our percent solids that we can get on the sludge and it puts out a better quality efficient.

So, is this a is this a big secret right now?

It's not a big secret. It's just a it was a it was like a smaller company that um that we uh met. There are there are like doctors from Yale. They piloted this at uh Greater New Haven. They have it at maybe seven different locations.

Yeah. How many different how many other different municipalities are using it?

Yeah.

How many other plants are using it?

So they have about 7 to 12 other municipalities. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah. But it's not it's not rocket science. Okay. It it is uh there are facilities that need alkalinity to help with their acting and sludge process.

So there are facilities that add a calcium carbonate. Okay. Um so this is this was you know we go to mass D we get the approvals um which David Burns had you know no issue with but here we are and hopefully this is successful and hopefully we can talk about how we reduced our carbon footprint and we improved our ethlon quality and again no cost to any of the payers or anybody

no it'll generate a little revenue and I talked about with Paul with that we'll invest that into the treatment plant Good. And with that, I'm gonna hand it over to John.

All right.

Next slide.

All right. So, Infram Mark's mantra, one team. And so, when we first showed up, there were various different silos. You had maintenance, you had operations, collections. They kind of battled a little bit blaming each other for failures here and there. But we came in and brought them all together, brought them under one umbrella, one team. We all work together. I don't care what your job description says. we're all

working together. We're going to support each other. And you can see that everybody started to relax and everybody started to want to do more. And we brought in some maintenance folks that know how to do these jobs themselves.

So, instead of subcontracting out a lot of these bigger projects that we do like metal works and our clarifiers and and repairing grit screws and all this other stuff, we're starting to perform this in-house, right? So, we've got some of our long-term uh employees like Victor right here on the left. He's a machinist. He knows how to fix everything. And so, we brought in some younger people that he could train.

We've got a great mentor while he's still here uh before he retires. And there he is working the uh the drill press there. And then we have our collections guys here. It's not all fun in games, right? Sometimes they get dirty.

Uh so, this is our second shift collections guys, uh Dave and John. You can see they were doing some dirty work there. And that was a great picture they took of themselves. Uh so one thing that if you notice if you look close enough, right, his eyes are clean. He's obviously wearing proper eye protection.

Maybe John not so much. So we'll talk to him a little some other time. Um uh if you go back one slide, actually I want to show you one here thing here too. Um they've never repaired these themselves, these clarifiers.

You always used to send out for Yeah.

contractor.

Always gotten a subcontractor. So we've got our maintenance manager, Mike Spring, who has worked for Naragans of Bay Commission, Newport, all these other facilities. He's got an incredible amount of experience. and he can mentor and guide these guys on how to actually fix these clarifiers and mechanisms and sealing the proper where seals and gaskets need to be put in. So, it's given these guys confidence knowing that

they have somebody that knows how to do this work. It's given them the confidence to go ahead and start doing these projects in house.

Now, is this gentleman that you're talking about, is he employed by Mark or do you guys bring him in as a consultant?

Nope, he's employed. I actually one of the first things I did when I came on board week two in July last year was uh to get him I had to do some coaxing but he uh he did end up coming and he's very excited to be back in the industry.

He went into a textile textiles down in uh Connecticut and I brought him in and he was very happy to be back. But we had to recruit him and he's he reports directly to me. um incredible amount of experience and so it's given these guys the confidence to do these projects in house and save the city some money and be able to maybe buy a pump instead of having to pay for a subcontractor.

Absolutely. So great. That's great.

You keeping them local too relocate up this way or Yeah, he's only about a half an hour away. Um he has to get through Providence of course, but he he makes sure he times his departures and arrivals properly to get through that traffic.

Yeah, nothing to that. We are trying to keep them local in Far any move back move into Fall River or the you'll see we have an APM position open that we want to have more local. Um so we'll see if we can get those folks to move but but we do we we do have a couple open positions and we just hired somebody uh for a utility worker position who's from

Fall River too. Now, will he be dedicated strictly to this site or or you gonna you're going to farm him out to place you got in Connecticut and all that?

Nope. 100% fall river.

Very good.

Um we need him here.

We have a lot of work to do.

Yeah. I think, you know, the important thing is a guy like with his expertise, I think he wants to be busy and and he wants to be able to have people, you know, to teach and to show and, you know, so he gets some benefit out of what what these people are trying to learn.

Absolutely.

But, um, yeah, that's good. I'm glad you said that.

And he knows the right vendors to get equipment from. We get our free quotes and he's bringing in new vendors that are, um, are less expensive but have great quality. uh equipment for us as well. So, it's definitely brought a fresh set of eyes to the project. Uh that certainly benefited us financially and also process-wise as well, keeping our uptime up on this on all this equipment.

Well, you're definitely moving in the right direction for sure.

Thank you. Yeah, it's been a little bit of work over the last year to do it.

I'm sure it's challenging, but it's rewarding, too.

Of course.

You know, we're all very happy to be here.

Good. Good. Um, so part of uh, Inframark's proposal, we had some money set aside to do some upgrades. We didn't know what those upgrades were going to be.

Well, within the first week or two, we realized what we needed to upgrade. And about half the pump stations were on a dialup alarm system. Um, you could sense the frustration in our operators getting these phone calls from a machine and not really being able to identify what it was or or or who it had to go to or even what pump station it belonged to. So, what we did pretty quickly, we upgraded

all of uh those pump stations to the uh to a a a web-based alarm system where now they have their operation cell phone alarms come through in a text format.

It's very identifiable. They can also access each pump station via the internet as well. Um and so now they have reliable alarming. All the alarm codes are all identical. We sync them all up between all of the pump stations.

And in fact, two of the pump stations that are on the the um the SCADA system here, uh the two big ones, Central and Cove, we actually uh put two of these in that system just as a backup. There's those obviously, you know, they're the most important pump stations. We wanted to have a backup system for that as well.

So, we have uh we have some redundancy there.

So that was a a we we spent a little money there and uh and upgraded those for the benefit of the project and our people too. Um so you know the city uses utility cloud. Um we have Peter Berdos in our audience right here. He runs that system here for us in the with with the planner James Sullivan as well. Um so that's been critical on making that um that CMMS asset management tool work for

us. We can print out the reports that we need, the corrected maintenance reports for our monthly, you you get the M um for all of our monthly reports as well as what preventive maintenance tasks we have done. Um you know, and so phase two, all of the new dewatering equipment and everything uh right Pierce uh should be getting all that into our system within a week's time. So we'll actually

be able to manage all of our maintenance program for the new assets here coming up very shortly as well. Um, we did give you the presentation on that the last meeting and Peter showed you all the Matterport, the 3D modeling and everything like that. So, that was pretty cool. I won't talk too much about that. Um, but we did work with um, Word and Curran on our SCADA upgrades as well. And so, now most of

the plant is all connected as well as the remote stations through our SCADA program as well.

Uh, another thing we did in our proposal, we wanted to bring in some smart cover technology. So the smart covers are basically um you can see here the they're attached to the manhole lid manhole cover and there is a depth sensor so it can it can measure the flow going through uh the depth of the flow going through this the the u the sewer system. So if we have a trouble area and

we think there's a lot of backups happening in this area or there's a neighbor complaining about a basement backup, we can put these they're easily movable and they're all connected through cellular so they're all real time. Uh, and we collect data at each of these different locations. We've moved pretty much all of them, I think. Right.

At some point.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so we we're we're satisfied with an area.

Are they permanent or No, you just move them.

Oh, we can move them around. Yeah, they they can be permanent. They're all battery powered. Um, and they all have an antenna that that sticks up through the uh it sticks up through the manhole, right?

It's mounted on top of Yeah, mounted at the top of the manhole.

Um, it's not something you're gonna run over though, is it?

No.

No. It's fine if it is. It's very hardy.

So, you could do that.

But they uh but we're able to capture data, all the flow data from that particular area. So, um you know, I know that uh we do have a collection system underground asset management team that is using that data and analyzing it quite a bit. So if we have a question on an area, we can move the lid over to that area and capture the personality of that sewer flow coming through. And especially during rain events, if

there's a SSO situation, we can identify where it's coming from, what's causing it, and mitigate it through pipe cleaning or condition assessment.

Yeah, that's that's impressive.

Yeah. No, it's uh you know, that technology is great to be able to try to troubleshoot tough areas and stuff like that to really see, you know, you can't be in every area at every time there in a storm. So, to be able to have real live what's going on at a certain spot, it's it's actually they they found some uh some things that uh you know, we didn't think were

happening in the system, but they are good. How many do you have out in the field now? We we bought five of them, but we also found another product that we kind of want to demo and they're giving that we we're going to buy five more of these. Not the smart cover, but a different kind.

So, it's a whole cover then. So, it's No, you're just attaching it to the manhole that's there. The manhole cover.

Yep. We would we would tap into the existing manhole cover and then we would uh would mount it underneath and then the the antenna would kind of come through and lay on the lay on the top.

Yeah. So, it's it's actually been been great. we we were able to capture the data on a daily basis and see if there was any sit any issues down underground that we normally wouldn't even know.

So, it's been it's been an eye openener for sure. Uh but then if there's a situation in another part of the city that we need to analyze, we'll move it over to that uh that section and start to look at those flows as well. So, we are investing in five more of these. So, we'll have 10 total. Uh, we'll have 10 of the smart covers and then five or

five of the smart covers and five of the new product as well that we want to demo.

What do they cost? Do you have any idea?

The I I think the other the new ones are like half the price. So maybe 3500 each or something like that, but they're giving us a big deal. So I think we're buying five for like 10 grand.

And then we're going to But these are like 7500.

These are like 6 to7,000.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, good. And then a thank you to the city.

We got us a new camera trailer. So, we've been able to uh uh to CCTV some hotspots as well. And we do we have the pole cam still, which is critical. But these that but having a an actual CCTV camera that we can send down the pipes and look for blockages and sags and cracks and breaks and collapses, that's been critical for our operations, too.

Um, one thing I'd like to point out, Paul, I did get a cover for the generator. I see that.

All right. So, this was uh as you know in the northeast especially uh bioolids disposal of bioolids and and sludge cake whether it's a liquid or or cake form has just been a nightmare uh for probably about over 10 years now. Um so when definitely was a strain on us.

Yeah. And so let's say the let's say the incin an incinerator in the area goes down. Uh people are scrambling. How do we get rid of our sludge? And the sludge never ends. So um so what uh and I thought Jason had was integral in this.

He should be speaking but I'm going to talk about it anyway. Um he he set it up with Synagrow, their Epic division, um to uh to actually um truck our sludge cake out to Westboro and throw these bins on a rail head and rail it out to Ohio to a landfill in Ohio.

Is anybody that burning with an incinerator? I don't know of anybody that does it anymore, do they?

Yeah, there there are uh incinerators uh in Wakake, in Ngatuk, Waterberry, um Hartford desert. So there are incinerators in the area, but there there's more sludge in the in the New England area than than the our merchant facilities.

Yeah.

Um so they're always kind of playing around and finagling, you know, how to, you know, get rid of the sludge. And the prices of the market of the sludge is like doubled in like the past five years.

And one other thing just with the uh you know insideration and everything that's that's happened you know sludge essentially the PAS which is emerging contaminate kind of sometimes can be consolidated in there. incineration doesn't destroy PAS um and other technologies that are out there for sludge, you know, digestion and stuff like that doesn't get rid of the PAS within the sludge. So, um you know,

that's one of the things there's no regulations on it yet or stuff like that, but that's one of the things that strangulated in the Northeast as well is, you know, you have areas uh you know, I think Connecticut most recently, uh Maine have all stopped land applying sludge. they don't allow you to land and fly it anymore because of the emerging contaminants that could be in the sludge. So,

I think that's put a uh put a uh you know, it's it's it's made it's definitely impacted where sludge can go.

Yeah. Another big cost increase was the emission standards as well. So, they had to do a lot of upgrades to the uh incinerators to make sure that it was um that whatever was going out that stack um was within compliance as well. So, they made that very restrictive, too.

Well, I guess obviously someone thought that we weren't in compliance and uh we uh yeah, plus it was when from what I can remember it was a big headache.

It was a big headache. It was I mean just getting rid of the ash and everything else and and um you know the state was always monitoring it. You know, they were putting stuff on the stacks to see how much we're letting up and everything else. Oh, and it was just it was tough and we just we just had enough. He actually shut his tongue as far as that

and in the long run it was probably a good move, you know, but yeah, I Yeah, but part of Oh, go ahead. Sorry.

No, go ahead. It's all right. I'm just want to make a point that with respect to incineration, I think we know where where where we came from with it and what people go through with it and and how technology seems to be moving towards another way.

Yeah. And speaking of that, um I know it's the early it's very early discussions with this company that uh that we that approached us and it's called Trashology is the company and they actually um they're privately funded. their angel funding. Um, but they uh they actually have a gasification technology. So if you picture, we have our sludge cake here at about 28% solids. Um, they actually will

dry it to about 90% solids. So it's a very dry they'll pelletize it in this process and then they'll put it through a gasifier which is very high heat and high voltage and it will it's actually assured PAS destruction. So and it will the end result is this um bio gas that will run the drier. So it's supposed to be once you get it going, it will run itself and power itself. And so it will

run a generator. This gas will run a generator which will run the gasification unit and then also the drier mechanism as well. So it's all internal. But then the final product is this carbon product that can actually be used. It's got a beneficial reuse. So you can use it in cement uh manu concrete. You can mix it with concrete and use it in building applications. Um, it's a carbon source, so if you need

carbon source, whether you're deitrifying or whatever, you can use it in that as well. But there's no PAS in this because it's such high heat and there's no emissions in it. So, it's not an incinerator either. Everything is captured. And so, it's a it's a pretty good technology. Um, funny thing is the angel funer here is the guy who started lumber liquidators and closets to go.

Sold lumber liquidators for big money and then bought it back for pennies on the dollar. So, he's a very smart businessman. He would not invest in a in a in a solution like this that didn't have merit. Um, they actually used it on military bases with garbage. That's why it's trashology. So, someday they might rename it slology or something like that, but we'll see. Where where are they located?

They're in conquered.

Oh, yeah. So, they're a local company. Um they've come down a couple times. We met with Paul. Um very savvy. Um pretty intelligent folks in that and they they're going to be uh they're going to be providing us with a free pilot project. Actually, I was going to ask you, they uh are they willing to uh do a pilot program there with us? And so yeah it's at no cost.

Be interesting. That'd be great. Yep.

They're going to truck it out for us too or Yes, they're going to get rid of the% the end product.

Not not for all of the sludge that we generate. Um just about a third of it.

Um so they would set it up in one bay, but we're really at the infancy stage.

just our technical team needs to review it, but it is it does look like it's worth still running to ground and and we may want to set it up with very minor modifications like just sealing up a garage and you know if there's a container that comes out just making sure that the odors are retained in there and everything but but it's uh but there wouldn't be a big impact to

the plant um to have the pilot project done but it's basically deals with sludge.

Yep. 100%. because the city has a bad trash problem, but that's another problem.

Well, you should probably talk to them about that, too.

My department.

Yeah.

But we did want to put a picture of the of the new odor control. Obviously, being in the neighborhood, we want to make sure we're good neighbors. Um we we every day we make sure that that the uh odor control scrubbers the odor scrubbers are all working properly that's the right pH and chemical dosing and the right OP and everything. In fact um we have a little Jerome meter sniffer

that can smell H2S and it will give us a reading and we do odor surveys all around and down the street and everywhere. But we actually put a tube at the top of the uh the chimney all the way down and so we can attach this thing and see what's actually coming out the stack too. So we wanted to make sure that that stack it didn't blow horizontal up the hill and hit our

neighbors up there. So we're constantly monitoring the odors with that as well.

Yeah. Good. Good.

Just back to that trash. So just let me get it straight. We're going to still truck it out. There's not going to be that pile program is not going to be done here.

We'll be trucking out 2/3 of the cake that we produce, but the one/3 um they're going to take one bag and take one/3 of our sludge.

Take it though. But we're not going to that this process is not going to be done on site here.

Oh, no. It potentially would be done on site.

Oh, will be. Okay. So, that's the way I thought I using one bay.

One bay. Okay.

Using one bay is a smaller pro uh project.

Yep. Do we have the room here, Paul, to uh to expand for this at 100% someday or?

Yeah, you know, again, with taking on the property.

Yeah, with taking that one bay and it the trashology, the kind of modular units, they grow, you know, how much sludge you want to take. So, we're setting it up where the one bay would take onethird of the sludge. What would go into one container really? Um, and then, you know, figure out where the sweet spot is, how much you can push through, how much you couldn't push through. Um, but the thought is that

we'd be able to run it right out of that one bas only be sending two containers out. uh if we get into a larger scale, you know, whether we whether we take and we have to extend the garage out to to add an additional bays onto that garage because that's kind of the the best area to run it because that's where our conveyors go to currently, but that's that's a lot further down the road once

we prove concept and stuff. So, it's it it's, you know, something that's going to be needed in the future anyways. We need to find, you know, long-term sludge disposal.

What are they doing with the talk they're doing something with it?

So, the city's old incinerator, uh, that burnt the trash down on Lewon Street, they're taking and they're, uh, they they're going through and cleaning up the whole entire building. So, years ago, they took off all the scrubbers and stuff like that. Now, they're taking out all the hazmat, so all of the asbestous and lead and stuff like that. Uh they're going to be fully closing closing in

doing a new roof on that building. Uh and I think buildings and grounds is doing some improvements inside of that facility setting it up for the potential for uh they've talked about future uh trash, you know, separation. So single stream and then have that as a transfer station.

This system can handle trash.

Be something to think about. We have the property already. We had a facility there at one time that ran and took care of everything, you know.

Let's get the new technology in there.

Yeah.

Be a uh subsidiary.

That'll go.

Yeah. So, this is good.

And if it's free, it's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's very It's a good What kind of cost savings is taking a Yeah. And there's no odors in it.

There's no emissions. So, there's no D involvement. They've got they D understands that there's no there's no emissions here. So So what's the cost savings? That's just on this pilot program saving us a just using uh rectifying a third of our sludge.

Yeah. So it's a third of the sludge. Um you know I think that they're going to have two smaller bins a week that they're going to be trucking out with that carbon product. Um so you're saving in trucking those you're lessening emissions, environmental impact, everything. Um, and certainly odors too because if the final product we don't our big odors come when we swap the bins out. We open the garage, we have to swap

the bins out. There's some there's like a 45minute window when the sludge is exposed before we can cover it and batten it down. Um, but with this product that that ash I mean the carbon product there's no odors with that. So now you're really getting into some serious um odor control there.

Yeah.

We need to see like a contract from them and really see what that is. But um you know the pilot that they were talking about would be you know free for 6 months is kind of like where they were talking to us.

Um so if you take like a third of a sludge for 6 months you're probably in like that $300 to $600,000 range of sludge savings.

And the actual gasifier it takes the gasifier itself. So you have the drying mechanism, you've got the pelletizer, and you've got the uh the gasifier. The gasifier handles about five um five uh dry tons a day.

So they're bringing down what? Like a mobile unit or they bring down They bring it down there. Is it?

Yeah, it's actually in I like I'd like to see that. I like to maybe we can set something up. I'd like to really see that process if we could if I could. Yeah.

After this, I'll show you the I'll give you the brochure. It's actually pretty cool.

But it's all it's all in containers. So you have the different processes contained within a container.

It's cool.

Are they have they are they doing any uh work or doing any pilot programs with any local?

No, just they're looking for us to be the first one on the sludge.

I think that's why it's a free offering.

Yes. So on the trash end, they've been doing it for years with the US military.

So originally they started their company very beautiful room um as a as a disposal site for uh forward combat stations. Um they used to just take and burn their trash out there. Uh they were able to take bring in one of these containers and uh take down all the trash down to this basic carbon uh which is leaves less of a footprint.

Military uh plants. How much trash is a military?

I guess a lot. Yeah. No, exactly. So, so that's where that they've proved their concept on the trash side being able to do it uh in that and now they're looking to possibly work with us to be the first ones to do this on a sludge.

Have you ever had an MRE, a meal ready to eat, it's a lot of garbage associated with one of those meals? Yeah, but yeah, they've been very successful in the military applications with the garbage and this would actually be their first municipal sludge uh go and M should be all recycled.

Yeah.

Now, is that strictly private money or has Uncle Sam been, you know, heard about it and said, "Hey, we'll throw some money at you."

It's totally privately funded right now.

Yeah.

Yeah. But they want to prove the concept with us.

Yeah.

Yeah. I guess once it really hits I was going to say that's when I'm going which is good. That's good though.

Very good.

Yep. With no impact to the plant here itself. Um it's going to it takes one third of our six month savings of what? 600,000. You say I said 300.

300. I'm sorry. Okay.

I know you and it's on camera.

Start low all the time.

We put roofs on all the buildings over and we won't do that one layer.

We put a good roof on.

So this uh just moving on. This is our keep our KPI key performance indicators.

Um this is you can see the top line the top flat line for BOD TSS and fecal. Um that's our target. That's that's do not exceed on our NIP permit. And you can see where we are the blue for the BOD.

We're all we're we're consistently lower. Um, in fact, for June, we in the last 10 years, we had never gotten to to an average of six. So, June was a great month for us. And the same thing with TSS, we're down to four. That ties a couple of our lowest. And then FAL, we barely have anything going on there. So, um, you can see compliance-wise, we've been very good and compliant the way

that we should have been. But this plant is very resilient. It's a it's a pleasure to manage this plant. Um, and it's been uh it's very welldesigned. Uh, whether by accident or on purpose, it's a very well-designed facility.

All right. So, here I I come in and and uh and I noticed that a lot of these employees, they're a teamsters union.

They all have PTSD from being treated poorly and not uh and not being listened to when they have advice. Uh, and so we come in and the way I like to talk and manage people is the way I'm talking to you guys right now. and and people appreciate that, you know, if you show them respect, they they show you respect and and that's the way I kind of like to live. So, am I done talking?

No.

I'm trying to time it.

So, we uh so obviously we've brought in some uh some great events here. We've hosted some great events. We started off the very first week with a barbecue. Um I wasn't even employed, but I came and ate the food anyway. But uh but we uh we you know we host these great parties and like for um for for Christmas we had a Yankee swap upstairs and everybody was laughing. You see Maryanne throwing the

ball for the dunk tank. So this was a this was our uh our spring celebration.

Dunk the boss. Uh you can see Anthony won the dunk. He was the the 2025 dunk tank champ. And so we got him the big belt for that. and and uh and he was the one who's dumped me the most. So, dunk the boss. But that was a great event and it's really is like the Yankee swap. So, you see Maryanne right there in the middle picture after the Yankee swap and

everybody we we did it up in the new lunchroom in the new building and everybody was laughing and having a great time and stealing each other's gifts. You know how the Yankee swap works. And she she called me up that night actually on my cell phone and said, "John, I went home and cried because I hadn't heard that level of laughter in this plant in years." And it was just such a great moment, you know,

and so this is what we try to do is build that level of respect. Um, I had an operator tell me today that because of how we involve this operator in our operations, he's learned, and we do this with everybody, but he's learned more in the last year than he did in the previous three years working here. And that's just a testament to us listening and involving everybody in this project the way they should be.

Thanks, L.

Very good. That's good. Good to hear.

So, we do this is our org chart. I know it's uh you're not going to be able to see it. Um but we brought some really great people in. I spoke about Mike Spring uh and he's our senior maintenance manager overseeing that. Um we brought in um some Rick Kush is our uh is our senior operations manager as well. He's a project manager level uh skill set and so he's managing our

operations. We came in and you can see it's just a set schedule with f for with five days on and two days off. That's not what they had before. In fact, the Department of Labor had written a letter saying you can't have this schedule of eight days on and four days off. It was exhausting people. So now we have a five day on, two day off. Everybody has the same schedule. There's no split shifts

where you're working days and nights unless you want the overtime on a specific shift. And so everybody can plan their life. It's a much better work life balance for everybody here and that's what we wanted to do. Um so we actually have an APM position that's open. We're advertising. We've had some interviews for that. We want to get the right person in with the right um personality and the right work ethic and

the right experience in here as well. So we're being a little choosy on that which is good. Um and then we inherited some great people. You know Peter, I already mentioned him. We inherited him.

Um we've got um John Ramidi as our maintenance manager. He's stay on. He's got some great institutional knowledge here as well as Mark Carrera who actually we've promoted up to a collection system manager position starting uh on Saturday as well. So he'll be the manager and then Jess Dugan is Dugas is the uh is our lab manager and she is just she's got her hands everywhere in this plant. all the river

sampling, cso sampling, she runs that lab like top-notch and then now she's also doing the industrial pre-treatment program as well. So, she is fantastic.

We're very lucky to have inherited her from the previous uh contractor.

How how many people on weekends um man this place with respect to to in comparison to let's say Monday through Friday?

Yep. So, uh, on the collection side, we have two on Saturday and two on Sunday.

So, that's where they split. So, we have a Tuesday through Saturday shift and then a Sunday through Thursday shift as well.

So, everybody rotates through it.

Nope. Everybody has a set schedule and it's based on seniority and you have operators.

Yep. So, we have operators as well. So you can see we have the same schedule Tuesday through Saturday, Sunday through Thursday and then um we do have the we do have the lesser seniors senior operators have a Friday through Tuesday where they have Wednesday and Thursday off as well and they seem pretty happy with that, you know. So um so we do have full weekend coverage um maintenance. Uh we

do have uh one person on a Saturday and one person on a Sunday to do all of our pump station checks and then also if there's anything that needs to get fixed there on the weekends as well.

And that pump truck on that back truck.

Yeah. Who's on the back truck over the weekends or at nights? You don't want that.

So we So all of our collections guys that are working in those Yeah. They have access to the back truck as well.

So if there's an emergency, we can certainly do that. And then we do have a second shift uh collections crew as well. So all the pump stations, they're checked seven days a week.

Yep.

Yep.

Be sure.

And and with the SCADA the say even though you can do that remotely too.

Yeah. So we'll get alarms as well. So they're we're monitoring those uh like crazy.

Okay.

I'm a I'm a lowrisk guy, so I like making sure that things are working properly and we don't have any surprises. So they're checked daily.

Yeah. It's a good way to think.

Yeah. I like my sleep at night. Yeah.

Um so part of our employee relations here, right? So we we actually invest in our employees. So whether it's classroom, this is um this is confined space entry. We have a local contractor, Apollo Safety out of Fall River. I don't know if you guys know John or not, but we had him in here uh to do our confined space entry. And we do cross trainin. So we did host um some water folks as well

from the city. And then we also had um the CPR and first aid training as well as the AED training as well. So we host a bunch of uh water folks and city folks here as well.

Trevor was here and Courtney and then they just hosted what last week last week you hosted.

Yeah. So we had some of our folks go over there that needed the training and certification as well go to city hall and do the training. So it's a great relationship that we have with the city.

We want to keep that going. Do you um with regard to your training program, do you um get any um attention from MOSHA with respect to keeping up to, you know, so much confined space, you know, lockout, tag out, all the all the things that are really important in operations like this. Um have do they come in and check on your guys?

They don't, but if they did, we'd be covered.

Can they come in? Can can OSHA come in here?

Sure.

Oh, yeah.

On a city property.

So, with the O andM contractor, they they can't come in because they the O andM contractor still falls underneath OSHA. As far as the city employees go, they fall underneath the uh office of labor and safety through the state, which follows the ocean guidelines.

Yeah.

Yep. So, we're we're very conscious of that. And of course we want to make sure our employees are safe. So um we we we do do that. Uh we also invest in college courses. We sent all of our collections guys over to uh BCC for uh for that uh collection system exam and they're all taking their exams now too. So it was in the spring semester we we paid for them

all to go through that and they've been taking their collection system exams as well. Um we're sending a new junior operator here to New Bedford Vog um for the fall semester. They have a great wastewater training program at night at at night there, too. So, we're we're we we like to make the investment in our employees for sure. Um, we actually brought the the the two left pictures

here, the the new conference that Jason had mentioned before, the Northeast uh Water Environment Association. They do their annual conference. It's like the biggest show in New England for for this industry up at the Copley Center up in up in Boston. And they'd never been. And we took a bunch of them up there, paid for their access, got a limo, you know, a shuttle, a private shuttle, got them

up there. They had the best day just seeing the vendors and meeting with people, some old colleagues that were there as well. Um, so we had the best day and and then we at night we shipped them back down here and uh and it was really it went over a long way. Uh so now next year we'll get a whole slew of different people that will be going to that show again. That means a lot. That

means a lot.

You could tell from my personal experience of having to go through what you your people go through.

Yeah.

That means a lot.

You could tell it meant a lot to them.

Good.

They were very appreciative. And uh and you know, this was this was a great idea to get them up there. And this is just this is the team we want to have here, right? One family, one big family.

Go ahead.

Oh, video time. And that's a great lead into this cuz we uh we had our marketing person put a little video together for you so you can hear like the employees perspective on how uh the last year went.

So So for the for the big barbecue in Dunk Tank, we had a marketing person here and she brought her drone. She did some drone footage of the of the plant but then also interviewed some of our employees.

Very good.

So she put this video together.

Put her up.

Did you have to X out of anything?

So, the transition was good. Um, so when Infock purchased, uh, it was smooth. We found out Inframark was coming. We didn't know anything about it. I did a little research. I saw they very strong on the West Coast and uh um, we just hope for the best and here here we are.

It was a smooth transition. Overall, the people that came in, they were always friendly. They always made us at home, you know, we were home, they were the outsiders and so it was it was fine.

They we adapting to them, they adapting to us. So I think we have a good team.

I think um a lot of things got better.

Um it was a change of uh new company coming in, new blood and um a lot of fixing. Um they came in energetic and uh trying to make the project better. So it was definitely what we needed.

Management's good. We need like I said we need anything phone call. But as far as here I love it.

I love the logo. One team in for Mark. I think that saying has a strong meaning and uh it brings everyone together. We do have a good team. 24-hour facility.

So three ships. Uh we really rely on each other on um uh pass over the torch every day from 7 to 3 to 3 to 11 11 to 7. So we have a great team. Uh everyone is on the same page. Infro Market does a good job keeping us together and working together as one team. Yeah. I always think the concept is we should work as one.

So do I think they care? I do. Um I've noticed that we didn't have these type of this type of entertainment.

We never really did any kind of outings or have Oh, how come you win that time? Huh?

They tried.

They tried to.

So the one team I do fail. It's true. I mean, we're always included in everything. 2025 dunk team champion.

Absolutely.

If anybody wants to compete, I got the belt.

It's the first year with From Rock. I think it's going to get to a point that's going to be getting better and better.

They really push us to work together to get better results. So, I I really feel like they're on the right path.

We're almost like a family, don't we?

Very good. And we only spoke for 45 minutes right?

You still have the clothes. You still have like three or four.

I do.

Yes.

You do the rest.

Don't worry. Let's go. 25 minutes.

Back up.

25.

All right. All right. So, this So, this photo is here from the open house. So, Paul uh approached us and wanted to have an open house for so the general public could come and see. I mean, I don't think that's ever been done before, but the fact that Yeah. just some of the tour. We showed them all over the plant.

It was and and the response we got from the neighbors that came by like they they knew they live next door to a wastewater plant and they never really knew the operation and in depth. So we took them on these guided tours that really explained the process and what we do here and they were like eyes wide open. They couldn't believe it and so they it was a very positive reaction

from everybody that came on the tour. Um another thing is we're big into the local charities as well. We do a lot of work with the Boys and Girls Club, but also uh Jason, I think this was your brainchild. You actually, we bought a hundred turkeys. So, we had to go to five or six different grocery stores and we bought a bunch of frozen a 100red frozen turkeys and we we we brought them

around the city to food pantry to a food pantry and then the Trinity Parish uh church as well with Pastor Josh Jake.

Jake, thank you. And uh and so they were very wellreceived and in fact the the pantry itself um they were they had to uh push people away. They had to show people the door because they didn't have enough donations and here we show up with like 80 turkeys and it just blew their minds. They couldn't believe it.

That's well Yeah. So that was a great reach out to the community that we wanted to do.

um the Boys and Girls Club, we went we sponsored uh the winter gala. We were a big sponsor for them. So, we were able Mike Spring and John Ramidi and I took our wives and had a great night. And in the middle there, you see Bill Kylie, the executive director for the Boys and Girls Club. Uh and then we also was we also helped sponsor their summer golf fundraiser, too. So, they raised a ton

of money. They're a great Fall River organization. And actually uh next week uh Andy is hosting his uh big regional VP uh right here VP meeting right here.

And we're actually going to go on Wednesday afternoon. We're meeting Bill Kylie out at Camp Welsh and we're going to hand out hoodsies and popsicles to all the kids on Wednesday afternoon. So that'll be really really fun and cool.

That'd be good.

And then on Tuesday next week, and you guys are all invited, of course, we're having our uh our summer barbecue and our one-year celebration. So, we have an pig roast. We have a con we have a a caterer coming in with and we're going to have a full-on pig and uh and we're going to do a cornhole tournament as well. But if you do come, I would appreciate if you bring your craziest

and wildest uh Hawaiian shirt because we're going to have a Hawaiian shirt contest too.

Very good.

Yeah. So you guys are all invited.

Tuesday, August 12th at noon.

Um, and that's it.

What do you have? What do you have it on? Have down and back?

Nope. We're going to do it right here in the parking lot.

Parking lot.

We're going to block off that parking lot. We're going to have a bunch of cornhole sets up. We have teams signing up. Uh Brian Jacob already said he wants to join in on that. Apparently, he's pretty good.

Water pounding, guys.

Yeah, would be pretty good. But um but yeah, we're going to we're going to do it right up in this area here.

Very good.

And we have some tents we set up so everybody's in the shade as well.

And that's just one of the things that we like to do for our employees and the community too.

Yeah. So this coming Tuesday the commissioners I think we send this fly around to the commissioners.

Yeah.

If you're able to come.

And that's one year in a nutshell.

What day is that? Saturday or Tuesday?

Tuesday.

Okay.

Yeah. Very good.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, yeah, I just wanted to kind of bring in and show, you know, what the past year has looked like with with him for uh how they came in. Uh again, you know, I know everybody a lot of commissioners and myself, we were all concerned about the transition and everything like that.

Um initially uh but then that we made it through that and uh it turned out to be a great year. Uh you know, the facility looks great down here. uh the staff, the morale, everything is is doing excellent. Uh so uh yeah, that's that's kind of uh where we are in the past year.

Very good.

Congratulations.

Congratulations. Keep up the good work.

I'm sure there's more challenges you're going to be faced with, but I'm sure you you've got the talent behind you to deal with them. So, uh thank you very much on behalf of the city of Forever. We're glad to have you guys on board. No doubt about it.

And uh um we have a few executives I mentioned uh here before. Uh Andy, you want to introduce yourself?

My name is Andy Appleton. I'm the president for Mark. So it's just fun to be here. It's great to see this stuff.

Like where are you based out of?

California.

Oh, so it's a quite a different world there.

Pretty much the furthest you can get from here.

So Southwest appreciates your donations.

Well, welcome to the East Coast.

I'm sure the smells are the same, but it's actually the weather here is perfect compared to where everywhere else I've been this week, so I might not go home.

And then we also have Jen.

Yeah, Jennifer Anther. I'm the CTO for Mark based out of St. Louis. So, I only had half the track that Andy did.

Um, but yeah, very pleased to be You may remember me I think a year ago.

Yeah, I think we do. Yeah, I remember running at our very first I think meeting.

Yeah, welcome again.

Thank you.

And he's not an executive. He wishes, but he was a a very integral part of our transition, our mobilization team. This is John. John, how are you?

What's your name?

John Londo.

John.

He's actually the smartest.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Well, it looks like all those um nights you we're working to make this transition paid off and um you done appear to have done a good job.

So, uh just keep it up if you can and u you'll get you I'm sure there'll be big things coming.

All right, gentlemen. Thanks so much.

Unfortunately, we got to we got to continue having this meeting and um if you're willing to you know you're welcome to stay but if you got other things to do then you know it won't hurt us if you want to leave.

So take care.

Okay. Thank you.

All right gentlemen.

Byebye.

Anybody have any questions for these gentlemen?

No. Okay. I guess we can move on.

All right. Item number four um Somerset sewer connection update. Um, with respect to myself, um, I ran across um, on my cell phone one Sunday afternoon. I'm going through my mail and and I see this um, this this pre this, I guess you could say an answer to something that was going on in Somerset.

And lo and behold, when I finished reading it, it said frill.

And I'm like, "Wow."

Um, I was surprised as to what was taking place out in Somerset with respect to what they were trying to do for their future. And um, it was it was quite interesting. But the thing that struck me the most was Paul, I guess, having the opportunity to kind of like give his two cents as to the way he sees things should be and and what how they should think with respect to

what the future may hold and so forth.

So Paul, if you want to just dwell a little bit on it.

Yeah. No, definitely. I wanted to bring this to the commission just to make you guys aware of uh you know what's been going on uh and what I'm going to continue moving forward. I provided in your packet a letter that I sent uh to the uh to the chairman of the water and sew commission in Somerset. So uh about a month and a half ago, Somerset issued a uh draft report uh in relation to an

interconnection into Fall River. Uh so this is something that I've talked to Somerset since about 2020. um when they released a uh integrated plan in 2019 which showed that they needed to do uh a lot of major capital improvements to their wastewater treatment plan. Um after I reviewed that report back in 19, I kind of talked to him and said, "Hey, you guys should maybe think about uh opting not to reconstruct a uh

wastewater treatment plant." Uh we have capacity here uh at the Fall River Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant to be able to take uh all of your waste water. Uh so why not, you know, take a look to see what the options are to be able to uh send waste water over to us.

You know, we currently have a line for that goes to Somerset that that uh we use for drinking water. uh gas company.

Yeah.

About 2018 did a new uh conventional drill, a new line underneath to send natural gas from Fall River over to Somerset and to connect them. Uh so why couldn't we do that with wastewater? So I had multiple conversations uh 21 uh 22 uh with the different superintendent and stuff like that and they've always said, "Yeah, we're going to we're going to look at it. We're going to look at it."

Uh so I guess uh a little over a year ago uh they uh had break they brought Ray Pierce on to take a look at it. Um and they issued their draft report. Uh I went to the presentation on the draft report. Um in the draft report there was a lot of assumptions. I had one meeting with Wright Pierce prior to uh them issuing the draft report which was a real preliminary meeting. We didn't get

into any of the nitty-gritty stuff. Um uh so in their report they made a lot of uh assumptions on cost uh and how cost may be shared between Fall River and Somerset uh which I disagreed with a lot of the assumptions that they made. Uh so that's where the letter that I provided to the board came from was uh me going through their report and commenting on their report. Um so uh I just uh there

in the town of Somerset there is a uh there is a uh a grassroots um group that is uh starting to uh you know look at what the what their water and sewer commission is doing about interconnection to Fall River and and studying that interconnection. Um and uh their group did do a presentation two weeks ago. Um and I attended that presentation uh made a couple of comments on the letter that I provided.

Uh after that I was uh asked by the water and sewer commission to attend a board meeting uh of the water and sewer commission last week to provide them information. Uh which I did. And what I told him, I can't say right now with the information that we have whether it's going to be financially beneficial for them to either construct totally reconstruct their wastewater treatment plant or to take their wastewater

treatment plant, turn it into a pump stational drill underneath the river and send it to Fall River. You know, I can't tell them right now. uh you know I don't have enough information uh on on the system and the cost and everything like that to be able to tell them but I think it's in their best interest to look at it for their residents on what their best option is. Um, you know, I'm

looking at it because we have the additional capacity at Opland. Uh, anybody that's looked at manufacturing, been in manufacturing, you know that your facility runs the best. When you're at 85 to 90 90% capacity, that's when you're hitting your sweet spot financially. Uh, when you're hitting your your best operational is when you're at that that point. if you're below that, you know, and with 30.9 MG,

you know, 30.9 is our permitted uh allowance plant can handle up to 50 MGD primary and secondary. Um but we're doing about 2021 dry weather flows on average right now. So we're below that 85%. Um so that's something that we've done with the other communities uh that we that we take waste water from.

activity in waste water. Um you know the intermunicipal agreement we have with them um you know reduces uh how much the percent markup that they need to pay as the flow increases which over the past five years their flow has increased because they've added sewers um and they've been able to hit that reduced rate. Um Westport same thing is looking to expand their sewers. Uh Freetown's

looking to expand their sewers. So again, I'm back and forth. Uh, you know, I'm I'm providing Somerset any information or their consultants any information uh that they request from us. Uh, I'll attend any meetings and answer any of the questions that their commission has. Um, and we'll cons continue to move forward to have discussions with them, provide them the information so that they can make the

best choice for their residents. You know what I feel? I feel that um you know it's a reduction of a discharge into u into the manho bay basin. Um so you know they wouldn't be discharging from their plant anymore. Uh so there's the environmental benefits there. They wouldn't have to worry about sludge disposal chemicals uh operators um you know just employment. We've talked about

employment here. Uh our numbers here at this plant are great, but it you know uh they've been operating without a chief operator in um hiring a consultant over in Somerset for a period of time now. Um so and we all feel the impact of the operational uh of the labor force issues um across the board. So, um, for them to be able to get rid of some of those liabilities and not have those, um,

those problems to deal with and, you know, just have to, you know, send their waste water to a pump station, send it to us, and we deal with it from there, uh, is is definitely, you know, an option. So, um, just wanted to kind of bring it to the board's attention. Uh, you know, I also CC the city council and stuff on this letter. So, if they uh if

they take it up uh in a resolution form or anything like that, you know, I I'll be talking to the council about this as well. Um, but again, I think it it really um would be good for the Somerset citizens to make sure that there's a full um full thorough study done to see what's the best, you know, option for them to move forward. You know, like I said in my letter, this isn't a 10-year

decision. It's the same thing that we deal with every day. These aren't decisions, not 20-year decisions. you know, these are 15 and 100year decisions. With the amount of money that goes into these facilities and the investment that you need to make in these facilities, uh, you know, it really is a generational decision that they're making right now at this time.

So, right.

Um, so they would be handling um it just just would be household to their plant, their plan to pump over to us and we just build Somerset general as a general.

Yep. they would build their residence.

Correct.

Yeah. So we you know and again what I told them at at the board meeting when I was there you know how a intermunicipal agreement is structured uh you know is negotiable you know they have high wet weather flows you know uh so that's one of their concerns you know the peaks what happens with all that excess water we're sending you know um what happens uh you know they have a lot of ironi so

it's higher than what they actually build their customers because of their water meters so there's a lot of um you know it all depends on you know what's negotiated in an intermunicipal agreement and what I told them there's a break even number what it's going to cost them to rebuild their plant and what it's going to cost them to operate it moving forward and stuff like that that's the number if it's cheaper to

send it to Fall River then it's cheaper if it's not then it's not that's that's what they need to figure out what their break even number is and which way makes more sense for You guys I'm sorry. Go ahead.

You guys can handle it because you just say we're not at our 80% capacity.

Correct.

So it wouldn't be an impact or you guys won't have to grow any further than what we are. We can handle it just with the what you have right now.

Correct.

I would imagine there'd be some u capital expense on our part in terms of u I mean you got a pipe coming over right now. you know, you got to direct it's going to land somewhere and then it's got to make its way down to at some point where it's going to enter into here.

Yes. So, so I I can envision some expense on our part to do that. So, so my my when I looked at it, um, and again, I we didn't engineer or anything or anything like that, but if they were to directional drill underneath the river, go directly into the Columbia Street drop shaft to the tunnel, which is the closest drop shaft to that would make sense.

It would go directly into the tunnel, get conveyed to through the plant.

wouldn't touch any of our collection system. Would it impact any of our collection system or what weather issues? CSOS out in the system, it would go right into the tunnel and get conveyed down to the plant here.

How much um let's just just on today's basis, what do you think their volume is? If it was sending stuff out, how many?

So, so I've heard that I've heard they're as low in the in the winters as low as 1.8 million gallons a day. uh and and they can double in the summer with iron eye and in the spring with with wet weather and stuff like that. Uh their wet weather flows they can peak up to 6 to 8 million gallons during the rainstorm. Um so you know again a while ago we built a financial I built a

really rough financial model. Um this was back when there was a lot of grant funding available. uh and a regionalization like this, I think they would be eligible to be able to get a lot of a lot of grants to go towards this seeing the environmental benefits that are out there and stuff like that to do something like this. Um so, you know, building that model and working it down, you know, naturally it's going to

help our rate pay. It's going to help them too. You know, I told I told the the Somerset Sewer Commission, you you look at it and it's the basic economics.

If you're spreading a cost over our 24,000 customers, um it's a lot better to spread the cost over 32,000. It's the same cost. You know, upgrades that need to be done at the at the plant, whether it's whether doesn't matter how many customers we have, but how many more we can divide it up over definitely makes the difference, you know. So it helps them rather than them having to take and spread their cost

over just 6,000 customers. Being able to take and spread, you know, the whole entire cost of anything down here over more customers makes more sense.

So we'd be this would be definitely a regionalization upgrade.

Yep. what we do here in Far River which um appears to be what's happening elsewhere in the state and other parts of the country.

Yeah.

Because communities, you know, they're all trying to blend in and uh cover the cost. But yeah, this this would be I'd like to think it would happen in my lifetime, but I'm not so sure. But um yeah, I'd be excit I'd be very excited about Yeah. You know, one thing that's driving this, they have a nipes permit. They've accepted a nip permit. Yep. They accepted one with with certain nitrogen

limits which require major upgrades at their facility. So, that's what they're looking at right now is major major upgrades at their facility. Uh the number that they need to spend has been all over the board from uh when I went to the presentation on the draft report, their engineers said, "Well, the starting is 75 million, but we expect it to go up from there." So, uh, to take and spread that cost over, uh, 6,000

rate payers compared to, you know, potential of, uh, you know, turning in into a pump station and directional drilling across at $20 million, um, and then having, you know, just a reduced cost with not having the operation of the plant, not having the chemical cost, not having the electrical cost of operating the plant. Absolutely. um you know all those savings on their end uh is definitely something something for

them to look at. Uh you know the regionalization thing did come up when I was there with with their commission. Um would Fall River look at regionaliz you know doing a regional you know and you know my response to them was you know there could be potentially a regional oversight committee so that everybody could have a seat at the table all the communities that are part of it and u

you know consult to this for a zoo commission or anybody else um to on on things you know uh something like that could be looked at again it's all negotiable uh based on terms uh in in an agreement.

So where do you think it stands right now?

I know it's all on there on their plate, but um you obviously you're telling from what I I'm hearing from you that they got to they got a group of people that seems to be taking an active approach to finding out just which best way to go and everything else, which is a good thing.

um because those things tend to lead to other things that end up you know completing a project but um I think it's a it's a no-brainer for you know I don't want to say just for us but for the whole the whole scheme of things that that can happen.

Yeah. And um well I guess we we could you know this is a type of thing though with with environmental people and everything else they tend to move kind of slow and and uh but hopefully uh hopefully people's eyes open real fast and we can get something like this moving.

Yeah. You know, last I heard their track was to have a revised uh study um completed by the end of the month um by right by by PS by right PS uh what that's going to look like.

I can't tell you, you know, again, you see my recommendations of uh issues with with their recall uh and where where that will land. Um I can't tell you again you know and there's they have a process where they need authorizations they need approvals through their town if depending which way they go for spending and different types of things.

So um are they entertaining taking Swansea in?

Yeah. So there is an intermunicipal agreement in between Somerset and Swansea to take Swansea's wastewater.

Now it's funny one thing that I that I said to the committee when I was there.

You look back 25 years ago and Swansea uh needed water. Uh Somerset didn't have the ability didn't have the capacity to sell uh to sell Swansea water um because they had the power plant and their their treatment plant was at maximum.

Fall River talked to Swansea, real preliminary. Uh, but the Swansea water district, separate district, was really pushing to build their own plant and they built the desalination plant. That desalination plant, um, you know, was the first municipal desell plant got up and running, uh, but has had issues over the years. You know, now Swansea is talking to Somerset to buy water off of Somerset.

So, you know, 20 years ago, them going out on their own, spending 25 million back then on a desalination plant, they thought was the best thing, but now they're right back where they started where they're looking to buy water off of somebody else.

Well, tell them we'll be glad to help them out.

No, I was ask a Swansy question about who's you said they're municipally run or who do they have? Do they have a uh something like we do?

Yeah, they have a commission in in Somerset.

No. Yeah, in Somerset. Who's running their plant now?

They they brought in a um almost like a management type of contractor.

But they're all municipal though. What do you mean by Well, explain municipal.

So they like our water department run municipal.

Right. Correct. So this this sewer department over there are municipal employees. So they work they work for the town except so they've had uh they've had some attrition uh with weed operator I believe and the second operator and they haven't been able to fill those positions from my understanding. So they've brought in a uh a consultant to to fill those positions.

Not I I don't believe it's I think it's a different a different consultant.

Okay.

All right. Any any questions?

If not, we'll move on to the next item.

Where am I?

What am I doing here?

Okay. Item number five. Woodward and current design of the mother Brooks sewer project change order number five in the amount of 122,000. If I remember in our last meeting we did change order number four from like 50,000. Right.

Yeah.

Okay. So what's going on here?

All right. So, the Mother's Brook sewer project up on the screen here, you'll see uh kind of what the whole project started as was looking at and we originally got an EDA grant for 1.14 million to look at this whole entire area of our main interceptor over 17,000 ft uh to be able to uh look at this what needed to be done with it. um you know industrial park, innovation way, the

commerce park, the life sciences park uh has all expanded since this interceptor was was created. So what needs to be uh expanded or changed to be able to take the full buildout of all these different uh areas. So that's how the whole project started was kind of looking at it as one wholesome uh thing. Uh, as the commission knows, uh, as we got into the project, there was some issues over next

to the landfill, uh, in between, uh, Amazon and the landfill, uh, there was a couple of collapses of the, uh, asbestous concrete, uh, sewer main that runs through there. We did spot repairs on them, uh, and then we put together a small contract, which we called 1A, uh, to go out to, uh, bid for replacement of that. That's uh the contract that we're currently doing with uh RJV.

Um I was going to ask you that.

Yep.

So RJV is the main contractor that that um bid on this job for 1A. Yes.

Yeah.

And the 1A section is the green section right here. So this is the replacement that we're doing right now with our JV. Um we broke this up into multiple different projects because then as the commission knows also we had the issue done on the railroad tracks where we had a collapse on the railroad tracks.

Then we were dealing with uh the MPTA uh and they wanted to start up South Coast Rail who had definitely changed uh how the railroad ran ran through there with sewer pipe 10 to 15 ft away. Uh so we opted to clean this whole entire section uh from here down which we called 2A. Uh we cleaned that and then we we lined a large section of that uh concrete pipe as well cuz in some of the

sections we found that the crown crown of the pipe was affected by hydrogen sulfide. Um so to show them up we lined some of those sections. Uh so we're so originally like I said we were looking at designing this whole entire thing do one big big project but we've had these hiccups come up over time that we that we've needed to deal with. Uh some of the stuff that we're looking at uh

moving forward would be the 1B project that we're calling. Uh so that would take from where we're leaving off with 1A look to enlarge and replace that whole entire section of Maine. Uh, and then the 2B project is another one uh that uh runs and lines this section. The 1B also included from here down um uh lining that section as well. So, but that hasn't that we we haven't even touched that.

We haven't done those yet, but they're all designed. They're they're almost to completion on the design by Woodwood Current by Woodwood Current. I'm just running through that just so you know why we're on change order five and within this within this contract. Uh cuz they're the they're the ones that a have provided us the design services for this whole entire project uh as well as the RPR uh

and on-site uh construction management for the project.

All right. So for my benefit, this change order um has to do with the area that's in green. Correct.

Right.

Yep.

Okay. Um and we've had four four previous change orders with respect to that. Um just do you remember what the what the final cost was to be for that before all change orders?

So again, the original contract started out at 1 point 1.14.

Okay.

1.14 just for that section for the for the whole entire for the whole entire thing.

Whole entire 1.14 million.

Yep.

Okay. So, all that blue and the green and that that orange piece above.

Yep. Just for the design was 1.14 million just for the design of all that.

Okay. But we've got somebody we got RJV is it?

Yes.

Right. Who is who is doing the work in the green area I'm assuming?

Right. So RJV is the contractor which we So we broke that section of the project out. Uh and we bid out just that section of the project.

And what was that project? What was the bid on that? You remember?

Uh that was uh 900. I think the base was nine in change. Uh and the alternate was six. So, we're about 1.5 I believe uh with the alternate when we awarded that.

All right. Okay. So, RJV is out there.

There's there was a bid process on it.

They're working on it right now. Uh evidently from what I've read through some of the correspondence. There's been a lot of problems going through that area.

Yeah, we've run into some some issues.

Excuse me. RJB was 1.2, too. But um but yeah, so there's been some issues uh with that. We've ran into uh some problems. Um you know, there was uh we had some additional um breaking up all of these all of the work, you know, breaking it up from one design project into multiple design projects with bidding on different project.

That's what that's what I'm seeing. And I'm seeing a lot of um overlapping and things of that nature which which if that's the way the animal breaks out. Okay. I just needed to understand that a little better.

Yeah. And and then we also you know through through the services some of the cleaning and lining uh inspectional services that we did on the railroad tracks. We used Woodward and Curran with a sub through you know use a subcontractor with Woodward and Curran to be able to do that work too. So that's, you know, how this home, that's how we've gotten to this change order number five is with all those previous

change orders.

Okay. And we have a letter from Woodward Whiten, you know, basically saying that they um they they feel that this is necessary and so forth, then I think we ought to move on it. Um, okay. Anybody got any questions with respect to this?

We'll not anybody want to make a motion to approve change order number five in the amount of $122,000 um that deals with the um Brook sewer Brook sewer mother Brook sewer project.

Anybody want to make that motion?

I'll make the motion for that change order number five for $122,000.

Anybody want to second that?

Second.

All in favor?

I I.

Okay. Motion passes.

Okay.

Item number six, contract update on Woodward and Curran on the north end interceptor sewer project improvement phase one 1A which is that it's it's 1A is the port is a portion in there.

Yeah. Okay. They talk about the C AI.

Yep. Construction administration re inspection. So again, this this change audit doesn't have any monetary value to it. Uh it's really taking and shifting some funding from um the uh resident inspector to the uh construction administration.

That's a good thing. A change order without any uh changes.

Uh fine. Okay. Um you got you don't have any problem with it, do you? No.

All right. Okay. Um, all right.

So, is is there anything you want to talk about or I was just just uh can we move on?

Yeah. Yeah. There's there's again that one. Yeah, there really does I could administratively approve that since there's not a monetary uh value to it.

So, I just as the board knows, I like to bring any type of changes to the project in front of the board so there's no surprises.

Okay. Um that'll take us to item number seven, the RJV construction, the north end interceptor sewer improvement with respect to 1A not to exceed $89,654.87.

I I went I read through what was presented to us by um by the staff on uh when they sent us the agenda. Um there appears to be four change orders, right, that was presented. Each one has a different monetary value. I believe one of them actually has a debit a credit to it.

Um what was the purpose of putting in four of so small what I think them to be small changes no instead of one and it's just it's just how uh how Woodwin Curran and RJV opted to construct the change order. A lot of times the commission sees something like this PCOS grouped into change order, you know, a bunch of them grouped into change order one, change order two and just approve the overall monetary value

and this is provided as backup. Uh just when they were constructing this, it it all came in change order 124. Um so change order one was the uh deletion of uh some work uh and increase on some other work. So it was uh the installation between manhole uh 822 um and uh another man hole. So this is a crossing underneath Route 24.

Yeah.

Yeah. And evidently there's been a lot of obstructions and whatever.

Yeah, definitely a lot different than what we uh what we originally thought.

Uh so it's actually 30-in casing, not a 24in casing. Uh there's a sag in the casing uh that we that we're contending with. There was grout in areas of the casing that we that we have to attend with. Uh so there was deductions from the the contract uh items that won't be used because of uh because of how we had to change the construction method there.

Uh and uh then a uh an increase. So the net was a net of 111,000. uh change order what they name change order number two is just a time extension of 25 days uh with no cost associated to that.

Okay.

Um change order number three uh was in is in the amount of $62,2459.

Uh this was for um within that casing there was uh there was concrete uh in the angular space around the pipe and I'll show I I have some pictures I'll show that in just a second. Uh so it was having to go in to be able to chip that out to be able to pull a new pipe through. Uh so you got to understand this this section of uh this section of

work. So this is actually what we're dealing with. Um, this is an area where it crosses underneath Route 24 from one side to the other. Uh, so we have this steel casing on the outside, 36inch steel casing. Uh, there was a uh a 12-in ductal iron uh, excuse me, cast iron pipe that was run through. Uh, and this is what the sewer was going through uh, through this sleeve. Uh, there was a lot

of debris uh, and sand and grout that was around this pipe. Wasn't anticipated. Typically, when you have this type of work, they put in sleds around this pipe uh that runs through the center of the other pipe. Uh and then you seal up the ends so that it doesn't get filled with debris or anything like that. They didn't do a good job of sealing up the ends on this

on this guy. Uh so now we had to deal with it. So it took them a number of extra days to be able to clean that out, be able to pull it out. uh ended up having to use a crane cable uh and be able to pretty much jack it out from one side uh to the other to pull that out.

This is this is about a 300 foot run of pipe uh underneath Route 24. We're working on two access pits on either side of 24.

How old is that? How old is that pipe?

You think that that one right there?

So, one on the left.

Yeah, this is from that's from the This is from the late 60s, early 70s.

Uh, you know, pretty much from when they constructed started to No, that's that's that's going under Route 24.

Yep.

So, the casing was jacked jacked was jacked underneath Route 24.

Whereabouts under Route 24? Do you know?

Yeah. So, we're directly in between uh just south of Amazon, the Amazon warehouse. Okay. And uh the end of Commerce Drive. So, we're in the valley.

It comes down. We're in the valley there about uh about 20 ft off the side of Mothersbrook.

All right.

So on the other side, the downstream side, you have the Troy Hill condos. Uh the Troy Hill Apartments. Yeah.

Directly behind the Troy Hill.

Next slide.

There's just one thing that strikes my fancy though on the paperwork spelling out there 62,000 and I see it on some of the others. They um whoever made up this document identifies replacement and rehabilitation of water sew and drain pipes in Dorchester in South Boston.

Does that have any does that have any bearing as to what we're doing here?

No, that's typo.

Okay. Uh because it also mentions for river north end interceptor improvements phase one.

Yeah.

Um okay.

Apologize for that.

Yeah. No. All right. Not a problem.

Yeah. Again, some of the some of this some of the steel pipe that came out. Uh this is looking in the casing once this was removed. Uh as I said, there was a sag in this casing. You can see where it comes down where the bottom comes back up. Uh, we believe that when they jacked this underneath the highway, the steel, the outer steel casing, that they saw that sag that was there and then they

put a layer of grout in the base of the uh of the pipe to bring up make up for that sag so that they could run uh the inner pipe through. Um, so we've had to remove some of this grill in the bottom so that we'll be able to pull our new line through. Originally, we were planning to do an H an 18 in uh SDR 35 uh to run through there. Uh, by the time

we looked at with this sag, the amount of grout we were able to get out, the bells were too big to be able to fit through that uh fit through that area.

Uh, We needed we needed like 21 in. Uh we only had about 19 inches. So we ended up having to go back and uh rethink how we how how we were going to get underneath the city. Uh how to how to get underneath Route 24. Uh so what we opted to do, we're going to we're switching over to go from uh the SDR35 to a HDP fused pipe. So you don't have

to deal with the bells or anything like that. Uh it's a plastic HD pipe that'll be fused together uh and then pulled through. Uh the the issue when we got in here, we were a little bit concerned about we ran cameras through and some of the spots, some of the joints on this uh on the casing. We were concerned uh of the integrity of the casing and and how well uh how good of a condition that's

in. Uh so we're opting to fully grout in between that HD pipe uh and the casing so that uh if the casing does fail it does fail and collapse there would be nowhere for it to go really. So do you have is there another it's like opening up a Pandora's box.

You know it's tough. We we can plan to the hilt to to figure out what's going on underneath there but until you get in there sometimes Oh yeah. It's just you can see it, you know, you can't you can't plan for it all. So again, that's where uh these come. So if you total them all up together, they come up to a not to exceed of uh $89,654.87.

Um so the um some of the work again has been has been uh completed removal of the old pipes uh moving you know uh chipping out of the uh of the grout. We have not installed the new uh the new pipe yet.

So that's uh that's why it's not to exceed and that's an estimated uh based on an estimate with the contractor and the engineer.

Okay. Um so these these four uh change orders comes out to be8 $89,000, right? Um how far into the project did this did this end up happening? In other words, of I think you said that the RJV construction bid or this the construction cost is 1.2 1.2.

All right. So um I I saw something about because of all that they have to extend the completion date by 47 days.

Correct.

So where are they now? In other words, are they are they I don't know how many days the project was supposed to be good for, but um are they halfway through it before they ran into this problem?

So, the rest of the project is is 99% complete. Um so, we we've done the replacement of all the lines. They've done the rehabilitation of the manholes.

Um most of the most of the wetlands are they've restored uh and things like that. This this was a lapsed portion of the project because we were waiting for DOT to finalize the DOT permit that we needed to be able to do this work.

Um so we're at the end of the project.

All right.

So so we're not expecting anything else.

Uh you know again the only thing that you know this is you know time and material for the uh for the installation the crossing and the grouting and stuff like that. So that's why it's a not to exceed at this point. Well, this not to exceed 89,600. How close are we to the max of this of these change orders? Are we at to the max yet? Is that why we're

not to not to exceed over the 89 or No. No. So, this is the first change orders on this project. Uh $1.2 million project. It's this is a 3039M. Um so, there's a guideline on a percentage. Uh but there is no cap like there is on on a 149.

Okay. So, there is no cap.

Correct. for un for unforeseen conditions and this is these are all unforeseen conditions through the project.

But didn't you just say the project is like 99% complete?

Yeah. So I I you know again unless we run across something uh odd uh and and I just had the project meeting the other day and I asked this very question to the engineers in the uh contractor if there's anything else that they foresee coming down the pipe and they they said no.

Okay. I guess you have to take their word for it. Um, all right. Any anybody have any other questions about this? So, make any comment about it. If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve um change orders one through four and the amount an amount that's not to exceed $89,654.87 87 cents to be awarded to RJV Construction.

Anybody want to make that motion?

I'll make that motion.

He beat you to it.

RJ RJV Construction North then interceptor sewer improvements uh not to exceed $89,65487.

I'll second the motion.

All in favor? I I I motion passes. Thank you, gentlemen. All right. Item number eight, other business.

Anybody here have any other business that they want to discuss?

No.

Nope. Uh no, just uh one thing. So, we're planning another fall open house um of the wastewater treatment plant. Um probably be uh sometime after Columbus Day. until uh late October or early November. Uh we'll we'll keep the commission up to date once we pick a date for that.

Very good. Um Paul, anything you want to add or you good?

All right, then I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn.

Make that motion to adjurnn.

Motion to adjourn at 6:50.

Anybody? All in favor? I I.

Motion passes. Thank you everybody.