Water & Wastewater Commission

FITCHBURG WATER & WASTEWATER COMMISSION MINUTES July 12th, 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 July 12, 2017 at the J.A. Provencial Water Treatment Facility Building 1200 Rindge Rd, Fitchburg MA, 01420. The meeting commenced at 4:30 pm Members present: Lenny Laakso, Commissioner DPW Rick Healey George Siener Mike Mclaughlin Others present: John Deline Jr., Deputy Commissioner of Water Jeff Murawski, Deputy Commissioner of Wastewater Jennifer Lambert Principal Clerk Water Office Members absent: None Item #1 Approval of last meetings minutes: A revision was made to Item #2 Public Forum, to reflect that the Commission reviewed, and made revision suggestions, regarding the policy draft on repayment of past due sewer service charges, and that Mr. Murawski will incorporate the Commissions feedback into a revised DRAFT policy for final review and approval at the next Commission meeting. Motion to approve minutes from last month’s June 14th, 2017 meeting was granted with the revision incorporated. Item #2 Public Forum: Mr. Murawski informed the Commission that the Aldrich’s of 111 Highview St. continue to make the $300.00 a month payment towards their past due sewer charges satisfactorily. Item #3 Water Division:  Regarding the Water Main Upgrade Project, John informed the Commission that work has started in the areas of Bond St., View St., and Haskell St. Excavating has been done and temporary water mains have been put in. Contractors M.E. Smith has two to three crews  working daily, so we hope to be out of the Applewild School area before the school year starts in August. We are very excited to remove bleeders that were put in and to finally relieve the water issues that have been ongoing for customers in this area. John also passed out a schedule from M.E. Smith showing approximate start and finish dates.  Hydrant flushing updates were also given by John. The low system is completely done and we are two thirds to three quarters done the high system. It’s gone really well with all the maintenance of the hydrants done last year and we haven’t had many customer complaints other than a few calling about dirty water. Communication to our customers via the Code Red alerts, the city’s website along with the city’s Facebook page have helped tremendously in keeping the public informed as to what is going on.  John filled the Commission in about the Falulah plants operational issues. We have had a few shutdowns at the plant due to the color in the water, which usually has to do with turbidity. When the levels reach above 20, we tend to have issues. Water just passed through clarifiers and we couldn’t treat it. We had to switch over to regional (plant in Westminster) the week of the 4th because of this. We have spoken to a few companies about the issues and have decided to have a gentlemen from WesTech come out to the plant to do an onsite field & equipment evaluation of our treatment process.  Lastly, John spoke about the MA DEP Sanitary Survey. A meeting was held on June 29th, with Mr. Deline and Mr. Laakso along with two representatives from MA DEP on the violations found and the outstanding items that have not been corrected as of yet. MA DEP assigned dates and wants a report by the end of July regarding those items. We have dealt with the smaller items on the list with just a couple of them left. Meeting seemed to go very well for the most part and MA DEP was very cooperative with the big ticket items, for those will take some time to be fixed. Copy of Sanitary Survey was e-mailed to Commission Members for their review. Item #4 Wastewater Division:  Mr. Murawski started off by giving updates on the ongoing Construction Projects. First, the SSU project which is the treatment plant project. A progress meeting is scheduled for tomorrow July 13, 2017 with the Building Dept. because they were not kept in the loop as to how the project has been going. Baltazar Construction who is doing the work for Beech Street/Hazel Street project is back at it after having the July 4th holiday off. They have run into some ledge which is to be expected because Fitchburg is full of ledge, but for the most part they are progressing well. As far as the CMH separation project, we are at a lull because of storm water jumping over from the drain into the sanitary and then running down our brand new sewer line. All the rain flow leads to backup situations.  Regarding the Westminster/Fitchburg IMA draft, Mr. Murawski informed the Commission that it is still in progress. We have a meeting next week with MA DEP & EPA for a second round of comments on the Hydraulic Model. Also, a kick off meeting to be held soon regarding the CWMP (Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan).  Progress is still underway and ongoing with regard to City Code Chapter 147 & “Rules and Regulations. We are working closely with City Solicitor Vincent Pusateri on this matter. We are also working with the legal department for an Adaptation of “right of entry” form agreement in which liability is waived when we agree to investigate and or/attempt to free an obstruction within private sewer service piping infrastructure. This becomes a very gray area in which we have to decide when, how and for whom we would use this type of service.   Wright-Pierces “On-call wastewater collection engineering services” Contract expired on May 4, 2017 Jeff informed the Commission. They are still working on several different assignments which includes SSES (sanitary sewer evaluation survey) and are in phase 2 out 4. This includes smoke testing in the sewers, which looks for sources of “Infiltration & Inflow” into the sewer. We will be utilizing “code red”, the city’s Facebook page, the local newspaper to notify the public and we will also hang door hangers for those affected by this test. The contract for Weston & Sampson Engineers is executed and a kick off meeting was held on June 29th.  Lastly, Mr. Murawski spoke about all of the public outreach him and his team have been doing to inform the public about the Wastewater Division of the DPW and what its purpose is. He along with his Sewer System Manager Tony Maressa have attended DPW day, appeared on FATV, and also attended the Community Resources Fair. The goal of this is to inform the public of correct procedures in the removal of household garbage and waste. Giveaways like the FOT (fat, oil, grease) lids, along with magnets that displayed emergency contact info in case of sewer backup, and also water conservation kits were amongst the items given out to the public at these events. Item #5 Other Business:  The Water/Wastewater Commission will take a recess for the month of August 2017, therefore the next Commission meeting scheduled is for September 13, 2017 at 4:30pm at the J.A. Provencial Building, 1200 Rindge Rd, Fitchburg MA 01420. Meeting adjourned at 5:35 P.M.