Board of Health

FITCHBURG CITY CLERK Feb 21 2024 12:45 pm Office of the Board of Health City Hall 718 Main Street Fitchburg, Massachusetts 01420 978-829-1870 This was a regular meeting of the Board of Health held in the Legislative Building at 700 Main Street and recorded by FATV Studios, Thursday, November 2, 2023. The meeting was called to order by Dr. Bogdasarian. Present: Stephen Curry, Director, Dr. John Bogdasarian, Chair, Diane Tousignant-BOH Member, Karen Membrino, Clerk Stenographer, Ashley Craigen, Ann Craigen, Amy Minichiello, (Petitioners), Councilor Paul Beauchemin, Councilor Sally Cragin, Matt Hughes, Director and Environmental Compliance Hearing Requests: a. Nuisance Dogs review (Continued from September 7, 2023) various St. Joseph Street residents regarding 5 dogs residing at 102 St. Joseph Ave., owned by Samuel O. Souza and Paola Souza. Sally Cragin stated she is a City Councilor and lives at 1138 Oak Hill Rd. in Fitchburg speaking on agenda item number two hearing requests item B nuisance dogs. Ms. Cragin said she is speaking on behalf of the residents whose lives are affected and afflicted by the nuisance dogs. Ms. Cragin said she has a family member who lives very close to that address and she is familiar with the neighborhood that is a close densely packed neighborhood and there is no space for people to make excessive noise or for their pets to make excessive noise. Councilor Cragin stated she is the Director of Be PAWSitive Therapy Pets and works with Animal Control and writes pet of the week every week in the Sentinel and Lowell Sun and animal welfare is really important to her. If dogs are barking at all hours of the day and night that tells her those dogs are not tired and they have not been properly walked or exercised. Two of the dogs may not be neutered so there may be an animal in heat that is nearby and is concerned because the dogs could be in distress. Dogs do not bark unless they are alerting you of something or they're distressed about something and constant chronic barking is unacceptable. Ms. Cragin said she hopes the Board will find in favor of the neighbors who took the time to come here today and who have been suffering with this at all hours of the day and night. Carolyn Jarvis a neighbor stated she has been dealing with these dogs for four years and it affects her mental health. She can't have a conversation out in her backyard because her backyard abuts the Souza’s backyard with Shea St. in between. She said she approached Mr. Souza four years ago even after he said no one ever approached him four years. Ms. Jarvis stated she asked him if he could keep his dogs quiet and he asked her what she would like him 1 to do about it. Ms. Jarvis told him he could take them out for a walk as well as give them some attention, she stated Mr. Souza wasn’t receptive. Dr. Bogdasarian asked if the noise has lessened since the last meeting on September 7th, 2023. Ms. Jarvis stated she has been away a lot and doesn’t stay at home because she can't stand the constant barking. Paul Beauchemin, City Councilor in Ward 2 stated he represents these people and lives nearby and has witnessed the dogs barking and has called Animal Control on occasion. Ann Craigen residing at 78 St. Joseph Ave stated she lives a few houses down from where the dogs reside and was at the last meeting in September and since then has several dates of the constant barking. These were times that the dogs were out there barking and she did call Animal Control to report it. Ms. Craigen stated the BOH gave Mr. Souza a two-month period for things to change and she is concerned that Mr. Souza has built what looks like a dog house or a shed for the dogs but she can still hear the dogs barking, however it has been a little bit more quiet so maybe he has addressed the issue however it seems now the little dogs are taking their turn and they're barking now. She said she has looked at Mr. Souza’s dog license and he has two German Shepherds and his brother David who lives upstairs has the three small ones and the small ones have been here since they bought the house in 2014, she saw them the first time this past month and they also seem to be staying outside and now they're doing the barking so now that's five dogs at the house and to her understanding if there five dogs at a residence they would need a kennel permit. Ms. Craigen feels if she leaves here tonight without a resolution that's going to be the end of it and he (Mr. Souza) will continue to do whatever he wants with no repercussions. Amy Minichiello, (daughter of Ms. Craigen) stated according to the dogs’ licenses, the dogs are not all neutered. Ms. Minichiello said she spends a lot of time at the house and hears continuous barking from the dogs at all hours of the day and night and has called Animal Control on several occasions. Ashley Craigen, 78 St. Joseph Ave stated she did speak at the last meeting regarding this issue, as a veterinary technician she deals with barking dogs all the time and she is asking for a progress report on the situation. She did notice someone was walking the dogs on a few occasions after the last meeting and there seemed to be a little less barking until recently it has started again, and she did report it to Animal Control but is at her wits end at this point. Dr. Bogdasarian stated at the last meeting it was determined they were not dangerous dogs they hadn't threatened anyone or other animals, but they certainly seemed to qualify as 2 nuisance dogs. We gave the owner two months to allow control and it doesn't sound as if this has happened. Dr. Bogdasarian made a motion that all the dogs be taken away from the Souza’s and removed from the neighborhood. Director Curry stated since we do not have a kennel like other communities it's going to take us a little time to find a location to house the dogs and will first ask the owners to surrender the dogs, if not we will probably have to seek a court order to enter to get them so that could take a little time as well but will give an update on the progress. Ms. Tousignant stated for clarification and guidance, she questioned that the BOH can make this decision, which the owners did violate an order. Mr. Curry stated he will be working with the Legal Department as well as Animal Control in this process and we will make sure that this process is done according to Massachusetts General Law. The motion was 2nd by Ms. Diane Tousignant. All were in favor, motion carries. b. AKS Recycling, 15 Cobbler Dr, proposal to accept commercial organic material in addition to bread and bakery wastes. Matt Hughes, Director and Environmental Compliance. Director Curry stated a couple of years ago the Board heard AKS Recycling’s proposal to accept bread and bakery waste at their transfer station. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was not opposed to issuing a permit for them to do that based on the BOH decision and we did grant AKS Recycling the ability to accept the bread and bakery waste. Mr. Hughes is now asking for AKS to expand on the bread and bakery waste and call it Commercial Organic Material rather than bread and bakery waste. Mr. Hughes stated back in 2020 we were first approached by a company called Bright Feeds and they're based in Berlin Connecticut and they were looking for a location. Bright Feeds takes organic materials such as bread, fruits and other things, and they'll process that into a dog or pet food. Bright Feeds is trying to expand their footprint into Massachusetts and we're looking for a place to do a transfer operation. Bright Feeds local pickups would service their customers and they would bring the material to our facility where we built a bunker for the material to be stored, separate from the MSW that is transferred through there now. Bright Feeds would send dump trailers up for us to transfer that material into and they would bring it to their facility in Connecticut, Quebec, and another facility in Pennsylvania depending on where the need is. The material sent would be recycled into some kind of product that they would be sell as a pet food. At the time it the permitting language was specific to bread and bakery waste 3 and that's what we've been doing. It has worked out well for over the past few years and is working well for them, but we would like to expand the definition of what's acceptable. The DEP defines what a Commercial Organic Material is in their regulations which is food and vegetative material from any entity that generates more than one ton of those materials for solid waste disposal per week, excluding materials from a residence. Mr. Hughes stated they had some specific wording back in 2020 that was modified a little bit. We (AKS Recycling) will have to modify the Waste Ban plan with MADEP once we get through this process successfully. We (AKS) must modify that plan and would have the same language in that plan for this activity that the DEP would approve. Mr. Hughes stated the language describing that operation would be as follows, “Designated loads of source separated organic material including Commercial Organic Materials will be accepted and kept separate from solid waste to be transferred for recycling”. Other sources of the organics that are in the area that would come in would be prepackaged food from a manufacturing facility that didn't meet their spec, was expired, or for whatever reason they needed to move it. Mr. Hughes thinkd this process would be good to accept that material along with the bread and bakeries we currently accept and have that go for recycling into other beneficial things. Director Curry stated AKS Recycling is a transfer station that accepts solid waste, the idea of transfer station is to so they can dump municipal solid waste or whatever they collect at the curb, they dump it on the floor, and they literally pick out what's good and what can be recycled. In this case they are taking material from Bright Feeds and they're trying set up an approved process where the waste is turned into something else beneficial such as dog food or anything else for reuse. The idea of this process is to try to stop it from going to the landfill. Mr. Hughes said they have a rodent control program as well as monthly reports submitted to Director Curry. The material will be separated from all other waste streams by concrete barriers that will be stacked and protected by a commercial grade rubber berm from any other waste streams or run off. None of the material will be left on the tipping floor for more than 72 hours. For transfer out of the facility the material will be loaded into dump trailers by front end loaders or excavators inside the transfer building. The dump trailers would then exit the building and proceed to the outbound scale to be weighed and covered. After leaving the premises, all the material will be transported to any or all the facilities to be converted to an animal feed. Director Curry stated to clarify, the BOH identified the approved the acceptance of approved material as bread and bakery waste and the actual term should be Commercial Organic Material. There is a definition for Commercial Organic Material in the DEP regulations. While lengthy discussion ensued the members of the Board of Health asked numerous questions to Mr. Hughes. 4 Dr. Bogdasarian made a motion to accept Commercial Organic Material in addition to bread and bakery waste at AKS Recycling and allow that acceptance to remain in effect barring hearing any complaints and that we allow this acceptance to be broadened and stay in effect unless we hear complaints about it. Motion was 2nd by Ms. Tousignant. All were in favor, motion carries. Announcements Director Curry stated there is a public health warning out there of a sanitary sewer overflow where there has been a wastewater discharge identified yesterday around 3:00 PM from a failed sewer manhole at Birch Brook which is off of Heywood Street, just upstream from Hobson St. Luckily nobody is swimming in the waters around but we recommend that the public avoid contact, and be aware of these affected water bodies for at least 48 hours. Director Curry said the DPW has contracted out to complete the work necessary but they've had a difficult time accessing the manhole because the manhole is in the brook and is difficult to access and it was created an estimated 100 years ago. The manhole has brickwork and mortar that has failed which allows untreated sewage to leak into the brook. Workers are trying to divert the brook so that they can work on the manhole and repair it. On November 11th (Saturday) at our Fitchburg Landfill from 9:00 to 12:00 is the 2nd Household Hazardous Waste day of the year. Any questions on what's acceptable please refer to the Health Department webpage regarding Household Hazardous Waste as it lists all the items that can be accepted. The Health Department Street Outreach team is hosting a winter coat drive to benefit the Fitchburg Public Schools. We are accepting donations of new or clean gently used winter coats. This event will run from November 3rd to December 18th and donations can be brought to the City Hall lobby at 718 Main St or the Fitchburg Senior Center lobby at 14 Wallace Ave. Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 4:30. Any questions please call 978-829-1854. Meeting Minutes: Ms. Tousignant made a motion to approve the meeting minutes from September 7, 2023. Dr. Bogdasarian 2nd the motion. All were in favor, motion carries. Meeting Adjourned. 5