Water & Wastewater Commission

Water/Wastewater Commission Meeting Minutes July 17th, 2024 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 July 17, 2024 at the Legislative Building, City Hall Campus, 700 Main St. Fitchburg, MA 01420 The meeting commenced at 5:03 PM Members present: Rick Healey, Chairman Nicholas Erickson, Commissioner of Public Works George Seiner, Commission Member Joseph D. Byrne, Commission Member Others present: Mark McNamara, Deputy Commissioner Wastewater Division John M. Deline Jr, Deputy Commissioner Water Division Absent: Michael Mclaughlin, Commission Member Colby O’Brien, Commission Member Item #1 Approval of meeting minutes: Motion to approve minutes from June 20, 2024 meeting were granted by unanimous vote. Item #2 Public Forum: None Item #3 Constituent Proposal:  Jacquelyn Wehtje Fitchburg resident brought forward to the Commission her proposal to create a tiered water/sewer rate system for properties that are not required to pay real estate taxes, or pay reduced real estate taxes through a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes agreement). Motion was made by Chairman Rick Healey and seconded by Joe Byrne to request feedback from our City Solicitor and consultants. Motion was granted by unanimous vote. Item #4 Water Division  Boulder Dr. Water Main Replacement Project – Project is moving along well, a little slow right now because we are in a tighter area between Putnam St. & lower Boulder Dr. Contractor is working on replacing two water mains. Main St. over to Boulder, some with fire protection. Lots of electrical conduits, gas, sewer, drains etc. Realignment was done down beneath the Water St. bridge, because what they found in the field was different from what was on the plans as well as Mass DOT’s plans on the bridge above us. This will all be connected at Main St. to the end of Boulder Dr. The Main St. Project will be going out to bid in the next couple of weeks.  PFAS – We did another round of sampling to test for PFAS. We received the results and we are below the new proposed limits set by EPA. With all of the sampling we’ve done the past couple years we have been below Mass DEP’s standards but also below the new stricter limits that come into effect in the next 5 yrs. We also need to investigate a little bit further as to where the samples are taken and how they are taken. PFAS is in just about everything, and we need to make sure it’s not say a piece of Teflon tape (which has PFAS in it) near the tap where the sample was taken. Lots of contributing factors when it comes to PFAS, its might not necessarily be in our water supply. We will continue to sample quarterly. Item #5 Wastewater Division:  CSO 010 & CSO 032 – Our current project on upper Main St. is the CSO 10. This project is 61% completed as of July 1st. We are scheduled for completion by December of this year. We are continuing with new sewer and drain installation on School, Arlington, Bond and Prince St’s. Paving will be taking place in the next couple of months with Caldwell Pl., Park St, and Chestnut St. from Main to Goddard St, lower Bond St. and all of Goddard St, on the scheduled. The remaining roads will be tackled next spring. Bids for our CSO 032 project closed on July 11th. GVC Construction came in as the low bidder at $22,759,000 MIL. This project is scheduled to begin next spring. This will finish upper Main St, Mechanic St.  Staffing – We are fully staffed with Sr. Operators but two are out right now on FMLA. One is scheduled to return to work the end of August and the other hopefully will be back in the next couple of weeks. Superintendent position is still available. We hoping to fill this soon. August 1st we have a kickoff meeting to look and see what it takes to automate the facility. Right now the plant is staffed 24hrs a day 7 days a week  NPDES Permit – We have received our new NPDES Permit and it took effect on July 1, 2024. Not many changes except for a huge increase in testing. PFAS testing especially. The increase in cost is about $10,000 just for the testing. A lot of these tests are for the industrial users that we have in the city. Looking into possibly charging the Industrial users the cost for these tests. Other Business:  The Water/Wastewater Commission will next meet at 5:00 pm on Wednesday September 18, 2024 at the Legislative Building, City Hall Campus 700 Main St. Fitchburg, MA. Meeting adjourned at 5:25 pm