Water & Wastewater Commission

Water/Wastewater Commission Meeting Minutes December 9th, 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 December 9th, 2020 via Zoom and FATV. The meeting commenced at 5:01 pm Members present: Rick Healey, Chairman Steven Bodurtha, Commission Member George Seiner, 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 Absentees: Michael Mclaughlin, Commission Member Item #1 Approval of meeting minutes: Motion to approve minutes from November 4th, 2020 meeting was granted by unanimous vote. Item #2 Public Forum: None Item #4 Water Division:  Narrows Rd Hydroturbine Project – Hydroturbine has been installed and should be started within the next week. Very happy with how it turned out. We had minor adjustments to be made, including replacing some couplings. Hopefully this will generate some revenue for us. Also made some significant improvements with the facility in terms of piping and removing un- needed piping. New roof also.  Meter upgrade Project – Bit of a slowdown given the holidays and Covid ramping up, people are just not making appointments. Once the holidays are over we will send out more letters. We have 7836 meters have been replaced so far, so we have approx... 25 percent left to go. We do have the Water Smart portal open to our customers. A flyer was sent out last month with the water/sewer bills. We are hoping people sign up and use this tool. Once signed up they will be able to monitor their usage, get leak alerts and high usage alerts. There are lots of great tips such as how to check for leaks and conserving water. Jennifer and Missy are informing customer’s also when they call the office. This will be great for businesses and landlords as well.  MA DEP Administrative Consent Order – Submitted to have a revised schedule for completion dates on some of the items within the consent order. This was approved by MA DEP, and the Mayor, both have signed with their approval.  Cross Connection Control Program – Talked with MA DEP recently about our Cross Connection Program. Our head person left last February and we haven’t been able to fill this position. We have advertised a few times and got very few applicants. One was in house and two were outside. The two from outside the City had no water experience at all or any construction experience. One from in house made efforts to get the licensees required but still doesn’t have enough experience. This has fallen on Steve, Missy and Jen and we have fallen behind. Our only employee in the meter room is out on FMLA for an extended period. We usually have two people full time in the meter room. We may have to look at hiring an outside consultant to assist us with getting caught up. Ma DEP has suggested that we do this until we get a qualified person in-house with sufficient experience and licensure. Item #3 Wastewater Division:  Sewer Ordinance, (City Code Chapter 14) - Waiting on review feedback from City Solicitor Vincent Pusateri for comments, questions or suggestions. The Water/Wastewater Commissions January 2021 meeting we will review and approve the revised DRAFT “Sewer Rules & Regulations” On Saturday November 28th, 2020 the City Clerk posted the public notice ad in the Sentinel and Enterprise pf the pending Ordinance change. City Council will hold the final vote on changes to the City Code, Ch. 147 at the December 15th 2020 City Council Meeting.  CSS Project, Separation/Rehabilitation – Work commenced on November 24th with the contractor addressing a failing sewer on lower South St. They installed approx... 80 linear feet of replacement sewer. Work will continue into the winter months with spot excavation work and with trenchless rehabilitation portions of the work. Contractor Blue Diamond Equipment has completed the Highview St. open cut excavation work and is preparing for the trenchless rehabilitation portion of the work,  SSES, Phase 4 Interceptor Sewer Evaluation – Engineers Weston and Sampson will be submitting report pertaining to the sewer evaluation to MA DEP and EPA by the end of December 2020.  Siphon Cleaning Design & Bid Project – This project has been concluded. We removed approx... 200 cubic yards of grit and sludge that limited flow capacity.   Wastewater Management Plan, Consent Decree – Submission #2 is being prepared by Weston & Sampson to be submitted to MA DEP and EPA by December 31, 2020. Wastewater will receive shortly a draft review document for the submission. We will provide feedback comments, questions and or revisions prior to submission to MA DEP and EPA. 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 5:33 pm