Water & Wastewater Commission

Water/Wastewater Commission Meeting Minutes December 8th, 2021 Legislative Building, City Hall Campus 700 Main St, Fitchburg MA 01420 ______________________________________________________________________________ A meeting for the City of Fitchburg Water/Wastewater Commission was held on Wednesday December 8th, 2021 at the Legislative Building, City Hall Campus, 700 Main St. Fitchburg, MA 01420 The meeting commenced at 5:02 PM Members present: Nicholas Erickson, Interim Commissioner of Public Works & City Engineer George Seiner, Commission Member Mark Piermarini, Commission Member Rick Healey, Chairman Water/Wastewater Commission Others present: John Deline., Deputy Commissioner of Water Jennifer Lambert, Head Clerk Water Division Nathan Glenny, FATV Anthony Maressa, Sewer Collection Manager Absent: Stephen Bodurtha, Commission Member Michael Mclaughlin, Commission Member Item #1 Approval of meeting minutes: Motion to approve minutes from November 10, 2021 meeting was granted by unanimous vote. Item #2 Public Forum: None Item #3 Water Division:  Staffing – Currently we have 4 vacant positions on our distribution side out of 9 positions. We had advertised for these positions and received 13 applicants. Unfortunately none of them were qualified, due to a lack of experience or licensing. We have 3 employees on our treatment side that will be retiring within the next couple of months. These positions might also be difficult to  fill, as the workforce in general is lacking. It’s unfortunate that when we do hire, employees end up leaving for more pay.  City-wide Meter upgrade Project – We have 10,909 meters changed with about 560 left to change. Out of the 560 there are approx... 180 of those with bad service lines. The Water Division recently requested $150,000 in ARPA funds to help residents who are income eligible fix their bad service lines, and then meter can be changed. We recently suspended shut off notices for non-compliance customers due to the upcoming Holiday. This turned out to be very successful in getting meters changed and we will resume after the holidays. Some of the new meters are not coming in at all, and we may have to do cellular reads with these properties.  MA DEP Sanitary Survey & ACO outstanding items – See item checklist. City wide leak detection on whole distribution system has been completed. We have 3 or 4 locations that need to be excavated to determine if there are any leaks there. We have requested an extension on the security fencing around the Falulah tanks and are waiting to hear back from DEP on this. Additional extensions have been requested for the pump station roof repairs, along with the interior of Scott Tank being repaired as well as coating on the walls of Overlook Tank. Item #4 Wastewater Division  Combined Sewer Projects – This project is still ongoing. We will be on Clarendon St. & Nashua St. until the end of the year installing new sewer on both streets. Clarendon St. should be wrapped up maybe a week into January. The contractor will be combining crews to have just one crew on Nashua Street working through the winter as weather allows.  CSO Closure 48 – This is work slated to be done in front of Market Basket and has been delayed until spring due to the water line being over the sewer line. We may have to relocate the natural gas line. We will meet with Unitil next week to come up with a plan.  “Downtown” Combined Sewer Project – Design is ongoing along with surveys. Borings will be through the end of the year and will be wrapping up.  West Plant Repurposing Project – Meeting coming up with the City’s Bond Council to discuss finance options in order to procure the project. Addendum issued where the RFP’s for companies to bid on the project will be March 1, 2022.  Westminster IMA – Received from Westminster some locations to install flow meters. Flow Meter Company will install these on Rte. 2A. Westminster is requesting to transfer 50,000 gal per day of flow from Rte. 31 over to Rte. 2A. We need to make sure there is enough capacity in that line as it is undersized. Will monitor for a couple of months to get our answer.  CSO Public Notification Law – Anytime there is an overflow (combined system overflow) we are required to notify the public within two hours. We already have flow meters at all of our CSO’s, so we have requested from one of our engineer consultants to give us a proposal on helping to build a website where the public will be able to log in and see our CSO’s. This law goes into effect in July of 2022.  ARPA Funds – Wastewater Division has requested $200,000 in ARPA funds to help income eligible residents redirect their roof drains. As of now the wastewater division offers residents a 50% reimbursement to have their roof drains redirected. Item #5 Other Business:  The Water/Wastewater Commission will next meet at 5:00 pm. on January 12, 2022 at the Legislative Building, City Hall Campus 700 Main St. Fitchburg MA, 01420. Meeting adjourned at 5:22 pm