Water & Wastewater Commission

FITCHBURG WATER & WASTEWATER COMMISSION MINUTES February 15, 2017 J.A. Provencial Building 1200 Rindge Rd. Fitchburg, MA 01420 A meeting for the City of Fitchburg Water/Wastewater Commission was held on Wednesday February 15, 2017 at the J.A. Provencial Water Treatment Facility Building 1200 Rindge Rd, Fitchburg MA, 01420. The meeting commenced at 4:33 pm Members present: Lenny Laakso, Commissioner DPW Rick Healy George Siener Joshua Champagne Others present: John Deline Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Water Jeff Murawski, Deputy Commissioner of Wastewater Janet Morrison, Land Conservation Consultant Mike Schrader, Engineer Tighe & Bond Nelson Mui, Business Manager Jennifer Lambert Principal Clerk Water Office Members absent: Mike McLaughlin Item #1  Approval of last meetings minutes: Motion to approve minutes from January 11th, 2017 meeting was granted, but bullet #4 Wastewater Division was amended to read “The Westminster/Fitchburg IMA (Intermunicipal Agreement) draft is in progress. Wastewater has received an engineering services proposal from Wright-Pierce to perform a Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan (CWMP); and will seek competing proposals from the City’s other under contract On-Call Engineers.” Item #2 Public Forum: No public forum comments were received. Item #3 Water Division:  Janet Morrison, the city’s conservation consultant spoke about the Krashes property in Princeton which is within the Southern Watershed to Bickford Pond Reservoir. The owner of the property would like the no trespassing signs that are currently there taken down and replaced with signs that read no hunting, no fishing, no boating, no motor vehicles, no dogs, and no horses. The commission’s consensus is ok with replacing the signs, but wants an informal opening of the property which means no advertising is to be done at all. People will be allowed to walk through and hike the trails, but the land must be protected.  John informed the Commission that the Lacava Pump Station at Great Wolf Lodge is out of compliance. This underground storage tank will be removed sometime this spring. This will save money and also reduce our liabilities.  MA DEP informed us of Shirley Water Districts request to increase the withdrawal of water from the Nashua River Basin to supply not only Shirley residents but also the Town of Lancaster with water. This will not affect the City of Fitchburg or our Reservoirs. Item #4 Wastewater Division:  Mr. Murawski updated the commission on the status of construction projects. The SSU projects preconstruction conference was held on January 26th. The project is underway, and the contract days did commence to run on February 12, 2017. The Beech St. /Hazel St. and CMH’s projects are both still in winter shutdown. We are hoping to start work sometime in April depending on weather.  Jeff also spoke about The City Code Chapter 147 & “rules and regulations”, along with the Infiltration & Inflow to develop provisions are still in limbo. Still working with City Solicitor Pusateri on these.  The Westminster /Fitchburg IMA (Inter-Municipal Agreement) draft is in progress. The Comprehensive WW Management Plan proposal was received by Wright –Pierce, but we will be seeking competing proposals from the city’s on-call Engineers.  The Hydraulic Model Report per the consent decree was sent to USEPA and MassDEP during the month of December 2016. A meeting was held on January 12th to present the model and report to MassDEP & USEPA. MassDEP has provided us with some feedback comments but we are waiting on comments from USEPA.  Lastly, Mike Schrader from Tighe & Bond presented to the commission information regarding the Sewer Rate Study. Data was compiled from Munis, with the help of Nelson Mui, Business Manager along with Missy Eckstein, Water Operations Coordinator and the Wastewater Division. We looked at past several years of water usage and then projected what the trend would be for the next 3-5 years. With the sewer rates currently based wholly on water consumption, it was a difficult task. Water usage has declined over the past couple of years because people just aren’t using a lot of water, they are conserving. The need for a rate increase is inevitable with Capital Projects needing to get done and operating expenses going up. The  Commission would like to see a gradual increase in rates, not one big rate increase at once. Also, Commission Chairman Rick Healey mentioned that it would be a good idea to gather as much information as possible and reach out to each council member beforehand, that way they are aware of the needs for the rate increase and we are not throwing tons of information at them during a council meeting. Jeff is also going to coordinate a day to meet with Mayor Dinatale to discuss the rate study. Rick Healey and Mike Schrader will also join the discussion with the Mayor. Item #5 Other Business:  Next Water/Wastewater Commission Meeting scheduled for Wednesday March 8, 2017 at 4:30pm. Meeting adjourned at 6:18 P.M.