Water & Wastewater Commission

Water/Wastewater Commission Meeting Minutes November 4th, 2020 J.A. Provencial Building 1200 Rindge Rd, Fitchburg MA 01420 A meeting for the City of Fitchburg Water/Wastewater Commission was held on Wednesday November 4th, 2020 via Zoom and FATV. The meeting commenced at 5:02 pm Members present: Rick Healey, Chairman Steven Bodurtha, Commission Member George Seiner, Commission Member Joshua Bedarian, Commission Member Nicolas Bosonetto, Commissioner of Public Works Others present: Jeff Murawski., Deputy Commissioner of Wastewater Jennifer Lambert, Head Clerk Water Division Nathan Glenny, FATV Jennifer Lachmayr, Arcadis Alex Misiaszek, Arcadis Absentees: Michael Mclaughlin, Commission Member Item #1 Approval of meeting minutes: Motion to approve minutes from September 9th, 2020 meeting was granted by unanimous vote. Item #2 Public Forum: None Item #4 Water Division:  Scada Project update – Arcadis Engineers Jennifer Lachmayr and Alex Misiaszek presented the Commission with an update on the Scada Project. Equipment is completely outdated. The MCP (master control panel) along with the FCP (filter control panel) are between 17-20 yrs. old. We Lots of equipment failure, chlorine alarms, pump alarms, equipment failure in general etc.… which leads to personnel that are on call to be called in at time and a half there regular rate per hour. This is a critical project that absolutely needs to be upgraded. At this point it is a mish mash between the two plants. Our head treatment operator is having to buy spare parts off of Ebay, or where ever we can get them to make our plants run. Everything needs to be swapped over and reprogrammed. We need to be able to provide water to the City if our Regional Treatment Facility in Westminster Ma fails. At this point, we cannot, if our Falulah treatment facility fails we will not be able to provide the City with water, which is why this is so crucial. Invitation to bid for this project will go out some time next month.  Loan-Scada/Falulah Transmission Main- We will be upgrading the 18”pipeline from Falulah down to tanks to a 24”. We cannot operate plant to full capacity. Violations with discharge, backs up into plant at times, and DEP says we need to upgrade. Looking for approval to borrow 4.5 mil. To have funding in place for both the Scada and Transmission Main. Motion to send request to City Council to approve loan order was granted by unanimous vote.  Water Rate Revenues-Rate study will need to be done fairly soon. Water revenues have not gone up too much. Covid of course plays a role in that. We have not increased the water rates in a few years and they should be looked at again, as more Capital Improvements will need to be done.  Meter upgrade project-Baystate Winsupply along with our staff have installed approx... 7100 meters so far. We are hoping to have less than 6000 meters to go by the end of the year. We also will be rolling out the Water Smart Customer Portal to our residents with Novembers bills. This will help our residents monitor their monthly consumption along with alerting them for leaks.  Land protection projects-The 60 acre donation knows as the Dimmick Property in Hubbardston Ma, has been finalized. Item #3 Wastewater Division:  Status Updates – Sewer Ordinance (City Code Chapter 147) – Hearing on this petition was presented to the Council of Legislative Affairs Committee on October 13th. Motion was made by Councilor Zarella to approve petition 204-20 (changes to the city code). Motion was seconded by Councilor Schultz. Review and approve the revised draft “Sewer Rules & Regulations. PDF copy was sent to City Solicitor Pusateri for review. We have not heard back from him as of yet.  SSU Project- 100% complete  CSS Project- Bid on August 17th. The City is contracting with J.A. Polito & Sons, Inc. Preconstruction conference on October 9th went very well.  On Call Construction Work- the River Bank Stabilization Project along with the Elm Street Sewer repair Project are both completed. Blue Diamond Equipment Contractor will be going to Highview St. next for the Sewer Rehab/Replacement Project.  SSES, Phase 4 – Weston & Sampson are reviewing the City’s comments so we can submit to EPA and Mass DEP.   Siphon Cleaning Design & Bid-Project-completed and under budget.  WMP, Consent Decree Submission #2- Weston & Sampson are preparing this for submission by December 31, 2020 to EPA & Mass DEP. Item #4 Other Business:  The Water/Wastewater Commission will next meet at 5:00 pm. on January 13, 2021 at the J.A. Provencial Building, 1200 Rindge Rd. Fitchburg MA, 01420. Meeting adjourned at 5:56 pm