Water & Wastewater Commission

Water/Wastewater Commission Meeting Minutes March 10th, 2021 J.A. Provencial Building 1200 Rindge Rd, Fitchburg MA 01420 A meeting for the City of Fitchburg Water/Wastewater Commission was held on Wednesday March 10th, 2021 via Zoom and FATV. The meeting commenced at 5:04 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 John Deline., Deputy Commissioner of Water 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 February 10th, 2021 meeting was granted by unanimous vote. Item #2 Public Forum: None Item #4 Water Division:  Meter Project- We have approx...9300 meters installed so far, which means the project is approx... 83% complete. Next few weeks, we will be making a push on scheduling appointments to get this project wrapped up close to the end of April, or mid-May. We have around 250 properties that need to be addressed, which is better that we thought. Our distribution team  will be going around checking bad service lines and gate boxes. If a bad service line is detected, the homeowner will be given a Contractors list.  Narrows Rd. Hydroturbine Project – This project has been completed. We have received our certificate from the Town of Westminster. We are waiting on the final permits to be issued for the turbine itself. Within the next week or two, we will turn it on and to start generating some power there. Very pleased with the overall project. A lot of work was done to the building most notably the roof. Narrows Rd PRV station was in tough shape also so we did some repair work to that also.  SCADA Project – Loans are set, City Council approved beginning of March. Working on getting the contract signed. Low bidder was Fall River Electric.  Falulah Transmission Main Project – This project also falls under the recently approved loan for SCADA. Weston & Sampson has quite a bit done on the design phase of the project and we will be going before the Conservation Commission for permitting purposes. Hoping to get everything out to bid so we can start the construction phase of the project come July 1st. We will be replacing 2000 feet of 24” piping which will give us full capacity to push water from the Falulah plant to the tanks.  Regional Plant – Residuals and backwash discharge into the environment after settling in lagoons because there is no sewer connection up at our regional plant. USDPA and Mass DEP are tightening the discharge limits. Meeting held for discussion with them and it looks like they will be attaching some strict limits on our discharge. We may be ok for a year or two, but we will have to start looking into what we would do for the discharge. We will be further discussing options with Weston & Sampson. Item #3 Wastewater Division  Sewer Ordinance, (City Code Chapter 147) – The Town of Westminster has provided to us their draft Town bylaw update for our review. Wastewater is currently reviewing the draft. Westminster is scheduled for their town meeting on May 1st. We are still waiting on the Town of Lunenburg’s draft town sewer regulations update.  Revised draft “Sewer Rules & Regulations” – Outstanding questions from Feb. 2021 Water/Wastewater Meeting were addressed and updated. Motion to approve changes as amended were granted unanimously.  CSS Project: Rehabilitation and separation have been going on in Wards 1 & 2 since Nov of 2020. Contractor J.A. Polito & Sons not very active because of a short winter shutdown. CIPP (cured in place piping) subcontractor has been doing some rehabilitation pipe work. Project going very well so far.  “On-call Construction Contract” Work – Contractor Blue Diamond working on Highview Street doing the sewer rehabilitation/replacement project. They also have been in a shut down for the winter. Come spring they will resume trenchless rehab along with site restoration. This will include repairs of driveways that may have been damaged, looming and seeding and other small repairs. This project should be wrapping up by the end of spring.  Miscellaneous – 2021 Rain Barrels Program. Press release sent out today. This will be our 4th year that we have partnered with the Great American Rain Barrel Company to offer discounted rain barrels to our constituents. Pickup event will be held Saturday June 12th from 9:00am – 11:00am at the City’s easterly Wastewater Treatment Facility, 24 Lanides Lane, Fitchburg. Item #4 Other Business:  The Water/Wastewater Commission will next meet at 5:00 pm. on April 14, 2021 via Zoom & FATV, Fitchburg MA, 01420. Meeting adjourned at 5:58 pm