 Okay, so I'm going to call this meeting to order. So the first thing is to review and approve the agenda is I recall, I don't think there's any deviations that we need to make from the current online agenda unless someone else has other information. Okay. All right. So with that, we'll consider the agenda approved. So onto general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the Council on a topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you would say your name where you live and try to keep your comments to about two minutes on that is helpful. And that's true for the rest of the evening as well. And yeah, but if you have a comment that is pertinent to one of the topics on our agenda, then we'll take it up at that time. But if it's not if you have something unrelated now would be the time to discuss it. Anyone in person have anything they would like to comment on. Okay, and anybody online. And you can use the raise hand icon under reactions. Or you can just unmute yourself and let us know that you would like to speak but I am not seeing anyone. You can also turn your camera on and wave also an option. All right, so we're going to move on then because I'm not seeing anybody. All right, so on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion Jack the consent agenda. I'll second it. Okay, the motion in a second. Any further discussion about consent agenda. I just want to point out that I'm really excited that we are officially funding the capital area neighborhoods project that's a part of our consent agenda. All right, any further discussion. All right, on favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay, wow, we're moving. Okay, so we have a few appointments to make. These are student appointments to the tree board. And I don't see Ethan Borland or Ben whether I'll here in person. Just want to see if they are online. Ethan, or Ben, are you also perhaps under a different name? I don't think so. Okay, so with that, I'll just say I'm thrilled and delighted that both Ethan and Ben have stepped forward to be student reps on this board. Any is there a motion? Yeah, can we point out? Yes, that's exciting. They're not voting numbers. Right, right. Okay, I'd like to move to a point. Ben, whether all in Ethan Borland to the tree board, a second. Okay, any further discussion. Okay, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. And opposed. All right, well, thank you, Ethan and Ben. I am just delighted that you are going to be working with the city on the tree board. That is great. Okay, and so we are on to the energy advisory committee report. And Kate is here. Welcome, Kate. I'm Kate Stevenson. I'm a member of the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. And I had hoped tonight to be able to present to you our fiscal year 2021 energy metrics, but unfortunately, kind of trying to pull all the data together at the last minute, we didn't get everything in from the school district in time to be able to present tonight. So hoping I can get a rain check for a meeting in sometime December, January, when we can come back with the the full report. But I figured I'd still keep my slot to be able to give you a little bit of an update, what we've been working on this year. So in terms of kind of the work of the energy committee, the first half of the year was very much focused on our net zero action plan, which you were presented in August with our team from the IC, the consultants that we worked with. And that's really it's a 10 year plan to look at how we can bring all the municipal buildings and operations to net zero, which is in line with the with the city's goal. So that was that was a big push. We've identified some really clear next steps out of that plan. And now we need to get on to the good work of actually doing it. The other things big project that we were working on this fall was the window dressers project. And so that's a collaboration with the nonprofit based in Maine. We did it two years ago actually in January 2020. But what they do is they work with community members and volunteers to build storm window inserts for low income residents. So this year we were able to partner with some folks from the matter for Valley. We went out measured whole bunch of windows, we just finished building them on Monday, we built 262 windows for 41 households. And about half of those were able to be provided for free through a grant that we had received. So it was a huge lift. But it was also really fun for folks that came out and got to volunteer. And I think we're we hope to continue to do that annually way forward. And the other big project that you may remember was back in May we finalized the home energy labeling ordinance to be able to provide a way for people to provide in for energy information about their homes at the time of sale. And we're continuing to work to you know, figure out some of the implementation pieces that need to go along with that ordinance before next July when it goes, the enforcement goes into effect. So that is ongoing. And I guess the, you know, so those are kind of the three big things. And I will say, you know, we think as a committee we have struggled to maintain some momentum during COVID. We have we have lost a number of members who are actively recruiting, you know, of anybody who'd be interested to try and find some more people to join our committee. And we're also been working with folks at the wastewater treatment plant there, you know, feasibility of the phase two project, I think you'll be hearing more about that, if not tonight in this meeting soon. So definitely have been able to participate and chime in on some of that. But I just wanted to bring to the council's attention, one of the things that we've really struggled with, which is kind of how to maintain momentum with the city staff to actually implement these projects. And as you remember, we for briefly had one day a week, Steve Twombly, who was doing some project management, that was really helpful. We had got into the budget in fall 2019 to have an energy coordinator position, but that wasn't positioned standalone position was never hired. And, you know, we really feel like there needs to be dedicated staff attention to this. And we're not going to be able to implement the net zero action plan without some additional, you know, as volunteers on the committee, we just can't do it on our own. So I just want to emphasize to the council, like, you've made these commitments, you've set these goals, we've got a plan in place, but to be able to really make it happen. I think that the committee of volunteers can't do it on our own and the staff, the existing staff are doing lots of great work. And they just, you know, this is not their number one priority. So just to kind of reiterate the things that we've committed to that an energy coordinator could do if we had one. You know, one is to work with the department heads to figure out their individual plans to bring their departments to net zero and kind of the details that go along with action plan. One is monitoring and measuring the city's energy use. You know, the data that I was going to present you to you today is stuff that I've been tracking for about five years now. And I want to give a shout out to Todd Provencher, our former finance director who has come back temporarily and has been helping out with this project. But we just, you know, it takes a lot of time to track all this stuff down. And it's not in any particular person's job description. And even when we fought, when we were able to collect the data, you know, once a year, sometimes we find things that we're like, huh, that's strange. Like, why isn't the solar system at DPW working? You know, like we find things that if it was being checked more than once a year, maybe could be resolved. But we also have the net zero revolving loan fund. We really haven't had any activity using the loan fund this year. We don't really have any projects lined up. And again, we kind of need city staff support to really kind of scope those projects and get contractors lined up. So that, you know, it still exists that we have funds available. We just need help to get projects moving. There's also the district heat utility. So whether there's a move to grow it or improve it or improve the efficiency. That is something that an energy coordinator could do. And then we also have this new ordinance for home energy labeling. And there is going to be need to be some staff involvement in the enforcement of the ordinance and just checking to make sure that people are doing what we've asked them to do. So right now, you know, those things are happening. There's spread amongst a lot of different people and a lot of different offices and departments. But I think we could really benefit from having some focused attention to it, to be able to really like leverage the skills and expertise of the energy committee, but have some additional staff support. So that's what I want to leave you with. And I hopefully I will be back in a month or two with all the fun charts and graphs that you've come to expect from me to report back on our energy use. You know, there's some really, you know, I'll give you a sneak preview. There's some really big winds. We shut down the district heat summer loop and that saved us. We went from spending about 15,000 gallons of oil every summer to less than 1000 gallons this past year. So that was a huge win. And yeah, so there's been some other improvements. It's because of COVID and because of shutdown of the some buildings, you know, we're going to see savings in certain departments that may not continue for they're not maybe like true ongoing savings. So this year and last year, it's going to be a little tricky to work on the data, but I'll be back. And but happy to before I sit down, I'd happy to take any questions from the council. Donna, good, even without your graph, your information is priceless. But I do want to know where to assemble these windows. Oh, we, we did it at the mall. So the Berlin mall, they have a space called the hub that they offer for very low cost to community groups. So they can use some of their empty. Oh yeah, I have lots of pictures. Take any pictures that we can share with us maybe next time. Sure. Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you, Kate. Always appreciate and obviously very enthusiastic about moving forward with all this. Just curious, have you all looked at all at like, I know that there's a few towns in the upper valley that have done like a shared energy coordinator position. I don't know if there's any opportunities there if that's been explored at all. I mean, I would support sounds like there's a lot of work for someone to do anyway. But I was just curious if that is something that anyone's been talking or thinking about. And then I know that the RPCs had also gotten increased capacity. So I don't know if that's been something that's been helpful or a resource at all or something that we should be taking more advantage of just those funding, ARPA funding that was put into basically help communities better access those American Rescue Plan Act funds for energy efficiency projects. So just curious if we've seen any benefits of that yet. Well, yeah, I'll answer the last question first. So there was a webinar on a week ago, Wednesday, I think, for towns to learn about how they can use the ARPA funds for energy efficiency. I wasn't able to attend. I think Donna Barlow Casey was going to try to attend, but I don't know if she was able to. So, yeah, I think still coming down to, you know, the RPCs, we haven't had a ton of interaction with them on the committee. They collect a lot of data and then like once a year, they'll send an email being like, here's your data Montpelier. Here's what we think you used for electricity, which is interesting. And, you know, is a peak at 10 of the community scale energy use at least on the electricity front. But yeah, it might be worth reaching out to them again, because if they do have more capacity or more funding. And to go to your original question about the energy coordinators, I mean, I haven't heard any talk about a shared position here in central Vermont. But I do, you know, when we were originally, I kind of we wrote like a draft job description back two or three years ago, we looked at the job descriptions that they have for the other towns in Vermont, and also like, I mean, Hartford, Lebanon, New Hampshire, I think there were four or five towns that we looked at, like how they define their position and use that to inform the one that we drafted. Yeah, I mean, it also, you know, it doesn't have to be a full-time thing. It could be that we could get a lot done with two days a week or 20 hours a week or something like that. But just having someone who's like focused on that, because I know it, you know, it has been handed to Donna, but you know, to do that and be the director of Public Works is a lot to ask of one person. Any other questions or comments? Just great as always. Thanks, Kate. Great. Thank you, Kate. And any other, since we're here, any other comments from the public or either in person or online about this topic? Okay, great. All right, so we're going to move on, then, to the City Recreation Center development options. And I know a number of folks are probably here for that. So I'm turning it over to Arnie and Cameron, I assume. Yes, I'm going to most of this over to Arnie. I'm going to be the dedicated slide clicker. Just FYI, our technology is still broken. Oh, no, we will not be sharing the slide as presentation, but just as individual slides. I'm very sorry, but it's very ugly. What we might do is what we have. So share the screen and I'll sort of just turn it over to Arnie. We're very excited to present some new and upcoming options to consider when it comes to the recreation. Oh, that's neat. I'm going to shift seats here, directly underneath it. Get the light on your way by. What's that? Get the light on your way by. Oh, yeah. Oh, didn't realize you're only moving that far. Yeah, just this far. Yeah, I'm just going to do it from the video. Yeah. All right. I'm Arnie McMullen. I'm the Recreation Director in Montpilier. And I am very sorry. What's that? You got to be Jim. Okay, I'll use my Jim voice. I'm Arnie McMullen, the Recreation Director in Montpilier. And we're very excited to share some options that we've been talking about. We'll start by talking a little bit about some of the community needs or wants that we've seen. And that's right there on the first slide. So I won't read through everything. But one of the things that folks in the city want is low-cost, high-quality facilities that reflect community values and wants. And one of the things that we take pride in as a city department is trying to keep costs affordable for all of our participants that want to participate. We have gathered information from some past surveys. And some of the things people would like to see is what we have listed up there, basketball, more pickleball opportunities, indoor walking. I want to change that to a multi-use track because so many things we do today, a lot of things people like to do in the Rec Center is also roller blade. So we do have some groups that roller blade in there. So we want to make sure we keep those thoughts open. We've had some very good years over the last few years where we've raised in our revenues somewhere between $250,000 and $300,000, which is a huge help to keep in our appropriation down to the community through programming and opportunities that we do. One of the things where we want to do too is create more opportunities for growth right now in our current facility. We're pretty limited with space and we'll get into some of the renovation thoughts on that. Growth for programming and community wants more recreational opportunities as most of us do. We always want the most bang for our buck and we're trying to find ways that we can actually grow as a department. So the first option that we were looking at originally prior to COVID was renovation of the current facility. The downside to some of the plans, well let's not go to that yet, but you know the renovation plan is to make the whole building usable. So that way there it would be ADA accessible. We'd be able to use every floor. Part of the thought process too was the heating units would actually be on the roof instead of in a room. So that way there we could use our full basement as well as well as a cooling unit. So we would actually have central air in the facility. The one thing that this building currently doesn't have which the renovation will help take care of would be bathrooms and locker rooms for both men and women and also a gender neutral bathrooms as well. So you can see in the downstairs space that there's room for four exercise rooms or a weight room facility with limited weight projects, limited weights, an exercise room for possibly spin cycles or different things like that and then some open space for different programs like yoga and other things. The yoga could be a little challenging down in the basement after further thought with basketball on the first floor. So that we would probably rethink and put them upstairs. The first floor level what we would do in here is redo the gym floor. So you'd actually have a new wooden floor in that space. We would have an office space as well as classrooms and we'd have a neutral gender bathroom on this floor as well or a family bathroom. So that way there anybody with kids and everything could use that to make that easier for them. The upper floor, well there's also a proposal for solar panels on the roof and oh I skipped over one. We'll go back to the second floor. So the second floor we're looking at is has some offices up there. It also has a conference room and depending on what we actually need for offices we could make an adjustment on those and also have it as another conference space or rental space for quieter programs. But part of the idea too is that if we get our after-school child care program really growing is to hopefully have a full-time director that would actually oversee the child care program because if we grow that to where I'd like to see it happen we'll be extremely busy. So that said that is the overall renovation ideas on that facility. Benefits is that the city it's a city-owned facility. It is in the heart of downtown making use of all floors which is something we haven't really had. We generate a pretty good amount of revenue just renting out the gym from year to year. But if we get it so we can actually use the whole facility we could actually rent spaces downstairs and upstairs as well. So that would really expand on some revenue opportunities. The limit to this space is there's no room for expansion. I'll just go through some of the really big ones that we're concerned about. The cost is estimated at around $5.2 million just to renovate. And a real big challenge is that there's no additional available parking. And parking is a huge issue as much as we'd like people to exercise and do all those really cool things. Some of my highest intense exercise groups actually want to park right in front of the building before they run in and play basketball for an hour. So those are some of the honest challenges we're facing that a lot of people do drive. And we do have some parking issues around the area due to such limits. And as you know, the senior center already has challenges with parking. So when we're really busy at the same time then of course people park over there as well. And another downside just as a thought is it would really limit some of our special events like one of the events that we're having challenges this last year we weren't able to do because we couldn't get a space was a ski and skate sale. And that gym, the last time we used our gym for the ski and skate sale was like 27 years ago. And now since we moved it to the high school, we basically doubled the space and the amount of equipment so we could really never go back to a smaller space as that that has grown as well. However, going into the new facility thoughts, COVID has gave us a lot of time to think because we were put on hold with everything which I totally understood. And it gave some things because originally when we were looking at facility ideas the first time we were included in a pool with it as well. So the cost seemed very prohibitive to folks appetite because I think we were talking like around a 14 or more million dollar facility. So what we're looking at doing is creating a new facility and we are working with a company called Breadloaf who's supposed to they're working with us they're going to do some drawings on what we could possibly do within this space to maximize the use. And what I'd like to see as a thought process is that we'd have at least two to three basketball courts in there, high school sized basketball courts that would have multi-use lines on there so we could do many other programming things as well. An indoor multi-use track. We would also have rooms for classes and exercise rooms as well as meeting rooms and probably try to create rooms that could be linked together to create a conference space because one of the things we really don't have in the city as well as a large conference room that could host multiple groups from around the city. We would also want to see what the other thing we thought of with this too is we have a huge need for basically year round access to bathrooms that we could put a door on the outer part of the building so they'd be accessed from the outside and heated so that way there we didn't have to worry about them freezing. Currently we behind the stadium we have some bathrooms that are basically open from April until usually the end of October when the water doesn't freeze because we can leave the doors open but this time of year we don't have that access. So this would create that opportunity for anybody in the park to have an opportunity if they're renting the pavilion and the pool is closed or for some reason there's a baseball game and it's rarely busy over there. They would have bathrooms right next to the tennis court area so which I think would be a huge plus and be available on weekends for those groups that are renting the pavilion. This would also create more opportunities for our summer camps as far as our summer day camp that would be actually our officially licensed site currently right now it's our pool house but this would allow us to not only have that program hosted there but we could also do some of our soccer camps if we had to move inside or any other program we have down there that needed to be inside due to the weather would give us that space. It would also allow one of the things we were looking at on this was having a actual garage door that could you'd enter from the outside for programs such as our ski and skate sale or we have trucks pull in to unload we could actually just go straight in the building have the trucks park at the door and literally unload trucks really simply and then you know your eyes are getting bad when a little bit of lights are on. Let's see it also puts a lot of our facilities in one location so now we have if we had a rec facility down at that space we have the pool right there we have the baseball fields so a lot of our administrative tasks could be handled right on site instead of having to scoot across town if something something happens down there which knock on wood we've had good luck and hasn't been a big issue some of the limits it removes a you know the recreation field it does take a field out of use but I think there's ways to work around that the parking still a little bit limited but it's far better than the site that we're on right now and the cost for this building I'm going to adjust that just a little bit but I think bread loaf said somewhere between I think they said five and seven didn't they that sound about fair so between five and seven million dollars but it's for again a brand new building and one that should meet the longevity for the community rather than you know I'm afraid with the berry street facility that with you know so a lot of effort we're going to outgrow that space pretty quickly not to mention that we don't have the parking to begin with so that makes it challenging but I want to see for the capital city of Montpelier that you know we have a facility that we're going to be able to grow with into the future and I think I look at Montpelier as the hub on a wheel for lack of a better term or in the surrounding communities come in on the spokes because every community that we set up for our youth basketball program our youth soccer program drives through Montpelier to go to another community so it's kind of a neat setup for the community to have something that creates that kind of convenience and it's going to draw a lot more people to the community and option three let's jump into that this is this is an option that became a new idea for us because we learned about this a little bit later but there's a group that in Montpelier that's called the hub and they're looking at doing some work with the Elks club and trying to develop a facility for themselves up there but there also is room up there for a facility for the city to build up there and we have a really cool picture here of the facilities the black and in space there is where we would project that's for the rec right yeah so that's where the rec center could possibly be developed um here's a nicer picture yes that's the one i'm looking for so this this gives you a good idea of where we can of some of the things that could be done with this facility so there's the projected rec facility place then you have the hub in the back and then the other place is the current elks club that they're looking at doing some renovations doing a restaurant and a few other things they do have a current um child care facility there for kids under the school age group so they do have that so that could be an opportunity for us to work with them to develop that infant child care um you know that the city would like to see happen depending on what happens with the golf course and stuff there's thoughts of you know this is some stuff that the hub has had drawn up on different field possibilities on what could be out there as well as i think they put an outdoor tennis court someplace didn't you yes i'm going to zoom in because this is very exciting um we also do have two members of the hub leadership team here to answer any specific questions you might have about this but this is a really lovely diagram of the potentials that they see out of the site because it is over a hundred and thirty acres um of potential land use which will not only create a space for us for indoor space but also a ton of outdoor space opportunities and i think there is some bike paths that are already going to it or through it so it'll create a create quite a recreational opportunity right within the city right to level set if people don't know where this location is i'm going to zoom back out so this is the roundabout when you're headed towards berry um so this is where the bike path goes or the seabed away the multi-use path goes right by here um and this is where the train tracks cross um the bridge here i hope that warrants folks where we're talking about so this is currently the elk lodge and the golf course here um here is a space also so you can see that um the white building would be the space that the hub is um sort of reserve and putting on reserve for potential exploration from the city give me just your thumb no you're doing good doing good it's all about it's all about a team effort um so the new option that kind of came out when like i said cameron and i kind of jumped on board late because we had heard through the grapevine somewhere that this group was working on this and we're like we should have a meeting so the hub plans on moving forward regardless of the city involvement um they they have plans on again doing what they're trying to set up with their tennis um slash pickleball facility um but they thought it would be kind of a great opportunity and we can't agree more that this would allow us to centralize um many services and you know between recreation classes soccer clinics and other opportunities um right into one area um and we can also i didn't write that down um but we can also use this as a as a space where we could really grow um there is there is a lot of uh land up there so if for some reason you know 30 years after i'm gone and something something else comes up you can say hey we can actually build on here and create additional opportunities um you know i look at things you know when we're talking about buildings and projects and stuff i always look at things and kind of 50 to 100 year plans because we want stuff that we build to be here long after we're gone the rec center i think has really lived its course um it was a great facility when the city got it in 1969 i believe it was and i believe they bought it for 25 000 from the united states military which is a great deal for the military because they don't have to renovate it um but um right now we're at a place where something has to be done because that it's just not an accessible building it's been great for me because i have to run the stairs every day but for folks that do have access issues it is a real it is a real um challenge the other thing with that space too is that if we even could have youth basketball games in there there's no place really for parents to watch you know so it's very limited but option three is is a very exciting option i mean i really like option two as well but i think option three does give us a an opportunity to really work with another group in the community that we could create a really outstanding facility um and on an offer the folks that live in the capital city you know some great opportunities um the one thing that i think is really important in vermont and i i can say my kids aren't crazy about winter you know is to have an indoor space where people can walk because a lot of your seniors cannot be out on slippery sidewalks um and places that you know dangerous footing and just in general to have a place where people can walk and meet and hang out it's an opportunity to create a real community center which i kind of feel like we should have here you know it's just montpellier is a wonderful place and that's the one thing we're we're missing so i would highlight a couple different things about um yep i will highlight a couple different things i i think yes um i want to highlight some of the other benefits of looking into this option um you know the land right now is zoned for recreation and i think that there's a pretty good um uh hmm i think it would be wise for us to continue to look at what that means for the future of the city if we were to consider purchasing that land even if we aren't able to build something there what does that mean for the city i think that um some of the other benefits really would be that part private public partnership because i i think that the programs that the hub are offering or saying that they want to offer are really great and expansive and some things that the city just can't do um and they we are able to do things that they wouldn't be able to do as a private entity so it's a really great way to explore sort of a symbiotic relationship there that we don't really have um currently uh we didn't really touch on the fact that we have no idea how much this would cost um uh at all um we can assume i think that the building cost would be about the same as the one we were quoted for at our rec center because we are we still want all the things that we would want to put down at the rec field so we could probably estimate five to seven million dollars for that building as well but that doesn't include all of the field opportunities it doesn't include what we would need to do to support the hub and their work so there are some risks inherent in a private public partnership when it comes to investments i also want to highlight the fact that it's it's not in a walkable location it's very close to our bike path but the bike path does not get to it and if you walk that bike path in any regularity you know it ends right before the roundabout and then you're left on your own to cross a busy bridge so um that would be something we would need to investigate so just wanted to make sure those were mentioned and that could also create some opportunities with us with the schools to see if kids wanted to come up there after school to have them bring a bus up and drop kids off so that could be an opportunity of another partnership so i guess i'll yeah sorry so i do want to make sure that we are calling attention to the fact that all of the options that we just threw out to y'all really will require additional public engagement we aren't dictating any of the plans we've just been brainstorming on the needs that we understand the communities as communicated to us that we've heard from y'all that are very important um you know priorities for you um so we still need to go out and get more engagement um if we hear from you tonight or if you say you want more time to think about it what you what options you're interested in us continuing to work towards um we'll certainly turn that around and talk to the public more about that we also don't have formal site plans and construction contracts we've been working with bread loaf at the hub has been working with um black river design and so there's a couple different options there we don't have any formal site plans other than the renovation option um and all of these will require bond funding of some variety uh we don't have the budget to absorb a five to seven million dollar project so those are all just considerations to take in um mind keep in mind while we move forward and so our real ask of y'all is to just look at the options that we put out and um really give us direction on what you would like to see staff put their energy and capacity towards um you know we do recommend options that have a new building attached to it we really strongly feel that our building has outgrown its capacity and we are interested in um a new construction thank you great well thank you um so i'd like to at least just start with questions from the council and then i know that there are probably some folks from the public who would like to um either also ask questions or weigh in on this um so we'll start with just just questions from the council for now and then um then we'll go to the public yeah go ahead connor yeah and then donna a great presentation um never felt like totally good but putting the kai bash on the old like indoor swimming pool idea with the jump and splash folks so i'm wondering like if we had option three maybe now's not the right time but would that open the door to the future maybe reopen in that conversation and maybe looking at an indoor swimming pool up there as well yes all right okay um donna um i didn't see a place where you were describing the hub services are they talking about specific programs or did i just miss that um yeah go ahead i'm going to pull up the map again on the screen so people can see what we're looking at um actually while you're doing that this might also be a good opportunity um i know uh ethan adkin is here if you would like to say anything um want to give you the opportunity to jump in um if not that's okay oh but you should you should either come up to this mic right here or you can come have a seat at the table hi i'm ethan adkin i'm the chair of uh the board of the hub we've been working on this for about a year and a half and um uh when we got far enough along in our plans that we were fairly confident this was something we could move forward with we felt uh it would behoove us to inform the city about it and i talked to the mayor and we talked to arnie and cameron about it uh basically what we said was we're not asking for anything from the city but we want to inform you that this is a project we're we're working on and you should be aware of it because it we we think it's going to be a huge asset to the community of montpelier uh we talked to uh dan groberg at montpelier alive he was immediately recognized this could be an economic development project that can attract businesses and residents and possibly even make somebody think of building more housing in town wouldn't that be a shock um so uh that's sort of the the quick background of how we got here and um both arnie and cameron sort of immediately recognize that this is really a generational opportunity i would be delighted to answer any questions that anyone has either here or individually later i did have an opportunity to speak to a couple of council members and uh but in direct answer to your question um i think cameron has brought up sort of the picture of what we're what we're planning to do is retrofit the old elts lodge and put put in a restaurant perhaps a brew pub uh with a a bar and um we look at that as more of a social center and so we're calling this a recreational and social center uh because we think that as much of what we're planning to do has to do with the social community social act activities as it does with the recreational activities uh so we would have game rooms there we would have uh social activities every weekend and in the evenings and in the summer we do have in our plans at some point to consider putting in an outdoor pool um we're thinking about trying to design it in a way that if at some point it could be converted to an indoor pool it would be designed that would have the capacity to do that these are all sort of future plans our media plans are too uh we're talking about putting in some of these virtual golf um machines or whatever they're called um which are extremely popular uh we understand from the property owner that they do not intend to continue with the golf the nine hole golf course there so that opens up all of the flat land up there which is about 40 acres the rest of it is um pretty steep and it could be great for walking or or biking you know bike paths or or or hiking or whatever uh we also so our plan is to have you know social activities like um you know chest night or knitting night or you know felting night or which would involve both instruction and act activities uh children's storytelling uh book readings you know you name it i mean any uh x tempo can come up there and do their um whatever whatever that is storytelling uh outside uh so next to that we're planning to build a what we're calling a sports bar and that would enable us to have indoor tennis courts indoor pickleball courts indoor practice area for soccer for ultimate frisbee or any other activity that people might want to do indoors we're thinking of putting a climbing wall inside um and uh and then outside we would also we intend this to be a year-round facility so we would have outdoor tennis courts outdoor pickle courts platform tennis uh disc golf a mountain bike pump track um cross country skiing which is already set up up there there's a apparently the best sliding hill in all of Montpelier we might put a rope pole on that because it's long enough to to accommodate that there's a lot it's also right on the river by the way the land goes on the river so you can put a you know a canoe launch or a kayak launch down there i think the there's already a plan to do one a little further up the river or is it up or down the river i'm not sure um the bike path that does end just at the property they're now planning to have it circle around to come back around the property so this would be uh you know for nine well eight months out of the year seven months out of the year would be very very accessible by by bicycle or by multi-use you know rollerblading or walking um and then we're just open to any other ideas that members have we intend this to be a membership-based organization so people will pay a general membership fee to join the hub if they want to have access to what we're calling the specialty uh recreational activities they would pay an additional monthly fee we want it to be very accessible that you know um two dollars a day basically would be the general membership uh we are also planning to have a after school program this won't happen immediately but uh where the schools that are interested can bus the kids there uh we would have a uh educational tutor who would work with them on their homework for the first hour do that give them a little bit of training on whichever recreational activity they were interested in and then leave them free to play until their parents get out of work and come and pick them up so that's a real quick overview and i could not be happy to answer other questions so the elk club is going to go totally away who owns the land so right now the the property is owned by city properties which is uh partnership with steve rubalini and uh alan lendway uh they have been extremely cooperative with us they have indicated that they're open to the possibility of selling the property um and they are um uh the elk's club when they they bought the property five years ago uh from the elk's club leased it back to them for five years at least expired in uh february of this year and uh after that they they shut down the the lodge and um city properties did try to run the golf court the nine hole golf course this past summer but they weren't they have no plans to do so in the future so would the hub be buying parts of the land that you're talking about using and then opting for the city to buy some and it's going to be a patchwork or so a lot of this is still up for discussion you've heard ethan just say a lot of things that also included some services that the city already provides and so those are opportunities that we'd like to investigate partnering with right and so we'd provide a service they'd provide a service ours would be you know freer reduced for the community their prices now the hub still is a private membership only so um to talk about the land purchase none of that has been decided to be to be determined okay sure uh jay yeah so as we as we think about a potential partnership with the city um i'm curious if there's a business plan and some support and or some sort of financing outlook to develop the hub and that so that we can understand that we're we're comfortable with the longevity of the of the prospect of the initiative which i'm super excited about but i'd love to you know learn learn more in the details especially around the financing yeah um also you know it's a work in progress if you will we have a business plan we have a financial plan um we are in the process of negotiating to get a loan to build the sports barn and we're raising money right now to come up with our 20 or 25 percent that we need in order to get the loan we're about a third of the way there at this point um and uh so our um we we feel quite confident that we'll we'll be able to get the financing together but until we have it we don't know for sure yeah okay any other questions from the council that i want to go to the public yeah go ahead jack obviously this is you've been working on it for a year year and a half it's still early but you have a timeline of what what you anticipate well when we uh first approached uh Cameron and Arnie we thought that we might be able to get this uh to open around this time next year i think that's extremely optimistic at this point um but uh we have not dropped that as our possible opening date yet um but i would not be surprised if it did take longer than thanks fair enough and so i i do want to highlight that that mention in the presentation that their plans are sort of going along your regardless of ours um you know that space if this is an option that you're interested in pursuing could be it's a very flexible space and um is different than the building that they're looking at so the timelines don't have to be congruent loren go ahead yeah thanks um i mean overall i'm very loud sorry um like i think this is really exciting and seems pursuing um and better understanding the options and how the partnership would work in those details like are you anticipating that we would continue to explore the pool option as well just knowing that there's you know unknowns and financing and permits and everything that need to get lined up for the hub project so is the plan um if council indicates this to look at the two off-site or two non-current rec center options um so that we have choices and like what would that entail is just the architectural design getting what would be the next phase of that um yes i i think that that's really important that we keep both of those options open i think um working with an architect would be very similar for both buildings of what we're looking for um there might there's more space at this option for sure so that does change things but the next step would be um finalizing that design and getting community feedback okay yeah just an answer to to our schedule what you do i'm john ray hill with black river design architects at a tennis player um and uh just a little history as to where we arrive at this pretty exciting moment in time we as people know our tennis facility got shrunk up at first and fitness when it was sold and we're down to one court which doesn't meet our needs hence the interest in playing tennis in the winter and we looked around and only couldn't find any buildings that were of adequate size didn't have posts in the middle and uh we couldn't even find any flatland that had parking then uh when we looked up at the elk club which was changing hands we looked at all this parking there's 200 spots there and the elks were busy they would have 300 people there for a big occasion so the parking was there it's a flat site and we had another athletic activity golf that we could cooperate with so we got together when we were going to do locker rooms and share those and the sharing was a great aspect of this because everything was half price um in terms of the renovations and uh we were very excited about that we had our building designed on the left hand parking lot and then all of a sudden uh capital soccer was very interested in outdoor fields and we asked for Bellini about the possibility of reducing the size of his golf uh facility and he said it's awful flat out there which was to us a a positive response and then two weeks later he announced not continuing the golf as it is so just as we thought we were all set to go ahead all these opportunities are exploding uh and it's all good but it's not helping our timeline so we have redesigned the building to be on the east side of the existing instead of the left as you can see so when you come in we're not blocking the access to this amazing site and if people aren't golfers and haven't been up there it is just an amazing open space and to think that there's that much land in Montpelier it's you only see a few houses it's just astounding so do take a trip up there so we've moved our building away from the access to this whole um flat area and it has the same relationship and then the idea of putting leaving a space for the city's needs they're all sort of around a central hub and we talked about you know some of the possibility of sharing staff and having a central place where you register and can we do it with punch cards there's seven million details to work out but but the possibilities are have exploded in terms of our original needs and so we're delighted to partner with the city because there's lots of things that we don't know anything about that uh there's room for you know we're amazed that the bike path didn't go to anywhere and now it goes to a big recreation center there were plans apparently to have the bike path come along the back of the golf course that'll fit in very nicely so it's it's really uh all falling together conservatively and uh it's not helping our timeline but but potential really is as Ethan says it seems like it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that's sort of coalescing thank you yeah go ahead Connor and then I want to go to um the public yeah go ahead you think a nine or 18 hole disc golf course the fastest golf sport in America I should say that the thought on golf uh well I shifted topics I'll answer your go the thought on golf is that we offer a different golf experience they've proven that the nine hole uh doesn't work for them and there are too many other courses around that are better so what we're talking about now is they much shorter cutting green pitching green indoor so that you could go at lunch time and play golf rather than committing your whole Saturday disc golf's another area where where the potential is enormous here because what I understand is if disc golf can play on through the woods and on the open so if you're a disc golfer we could use your help in designing that course sign me up so I think the drawing is 18 holes right uh that 18 holes is the disc golf course but uh so there's yeah once again it just shows the potential our our plan is to make this a net zero uh facility so it's going to be very well insulated and then we have a huge roof that's ideally suited for photovoltaics and uh Alex Bravakis is helping us with the uh the solar installation it's got some funding uh ideas and we'll be talking to Kate as well since she mentioned she's uh maybe able to help us great all right so I want to start with folks who may be here in person um anyone who's with us in person wish to either comment or ask a question or anything like that okay not seeing anybody um anyone online have a comment or question yes vicki go ahead oh and we've got to get you unmuted here she should be able to you should be able to I'm sorry um I'm I'm concerned at the two dollar a day thing that means $60 a month that's prohibitive for those of us that are on fixed incomes hi vicki I just want to point out that that is the private side of this public private partnership so we're what we're basically proposing as one of the options is to um co-locate a city building which would have the same low-cost uh community recreation programming next to this private service which would have more things that you could do for a fee so so the the hub itself is a private business that wants to open a recreation type center um that is private and co-locate that building next to a public building that's run by the recreation center so um that comment would be sort of for that that private business that wants to open so we we as the city wouldn't have if we entered into this very seriously wouldn't have any ability to influence their pricing structure does that make sense it makes sense as long as it doesn't become a haves and have not situation that makes sense thank you yeah the rec department is that's uh because that is a very definite thing that's going on now in Montpelier is the haves and the have nots and it's not pleasant yeah thank you and uh your your point is is well taken I want to speak to that further um after the public comments time anyone else um with us virtually wish to make a comment you can either use their raise hand icon uh under reactions or you can turn your camera on and wave or just simply unmute yourself okay I'm not seeing anyone so um actually I want to jump back to well actually I have a couple comments I guess I'll I'll start off here um I'm very interested in the potential for a public-private partnership uh with the hub I think that has a lot of um really exciting potential and I uh I was I mean we've been having this conversation over some months now um but one of the things that I was kind of surprised I guess about with this was that the city might have its own building I guess I had envisioned the city partnering with an existing building that you know maybe we were helping to subsidize some of the costs because you know thinking about Vicki's point of wanting to make sure that what we are offering as a city is accessible financially to everyone and I realize that that may mean that all of the hubs services may not be included in that package but then I want to be really careful and intentional about what is included and make sure that those are um um things that we've identified as a as needs you know you know at the beginning of your presentation that you had listed some um some activities so that's going to take some conversation and I mean I mean if it also means that we are needing to build our own building um up there as well then um so be it but uh let's I'm interested in all the possibilities there even if it doesn't mean we have our own building but I'm I'm saying that in a coming from a place of ignorance um and knowing that there's a lot more conversation to be had yeah so if I could just follow up on that matter mayor um that clearly is an issue I just point out that um both the rec department and the senior center for years did rent space from first and fitness so to use their pool to use their tennis courts those kind of things so we envision a situation where just because the facilities are there and on the private side of the thing you know this the city could rent tennis courts for lessons or that are then part of you know our program that then the public can have accessible they're still getting their hourly rates or whatever so it's it's sort of going both ways you know that's how the ice arena works for example okay so it's not you know it doesn't necessarily mean just because this is the private side doesn't mean the public doesn't get to use it it just means we have to work those details um yeah I have other thoughts on the other two options but I'm gonna save those for now other thoughts from council oh okay oh looks like we have some comments from folks online uh Colin O'Neill go ahead and I think you there we go there we go can you hear me now yes hi um Colin O'Neill I grew up in the area um I think this is an amazing opportunity I also manage the rights for recreation district which is a it's a special district where we combine the budgets of four towns to spread that financial burden and you know so I see a few potentials here to really build the greater central Vermont community you know not just focusing on Montpelier but bringing in you know more of the entire at least the entire U32 school district towns um so we're inviting all of those residents to use this facility the location of it is phenomenal for it to service all of those towns and then by doing it as a district you're able to assess per capita fee to all of those towns to help with operating costs and if I recall correctly I think that this that concept was in Arnie's plan four years ago for the Elm Street facility I believe to you know to spread the burden and the benefits to a greater area and really strengthen our entire community and not just focus on Montpelier. Good point and John Odom would probably want me to ask you where you live. Well right now I'm recovering from surgery living in Montpelier. Oh okay but you're in Montpelier great yeah but but I'm yeah so I grew up in Montpelier east Montpelier middle sex playing field and I'm the outdoor recreation director at Norwich University and I run right still. Thank you so much um and Vicki I'm gonna wait to um but thank you um well I'll come back to you in a bit here um comments from council lots go ahead Donna. I have some questions about Elm Street I got really excited about that and I don't want to leave it in the dust I would propose we spend some time there and it's good that you're thinking about the building being the same in either place I may have missed it did you mention how many floors? Um right now that's still right now that's still up in the air um because if we can possibly spread the building and not need an elevator that could you know save some cost in the overall building um but we haven't ruled that out to do a second floor at least around the gym area we probably wouldn't have a second floor over the gym I wouldn't imagine the the big indoor space. Okay and I guess along with that if indeed as you're sitting around the table with all these wonderful ideas and the focus goes to the Elks previous Elks Lodge property and the hub go back to Elm Street and think about those bathrooms I got very excited when you talked about year around heated bathrooms that maybe there's a way to do something there whether it's the current pool house or some other smaller structure with solar panels heat pumps something that we can do and not lose what we have in that rec field and still build it up thank you okay comments from council go ahead Jack very interesting ideas that we really hadn't thought of when when uh when we had the presentation for the renovation of the of the rec building I thought it was a very attractive project I thought it looked really good and I see I totally get where you're coming from that one of these other options is likely to be a better option for the city and I definitely think it's worth exploring I do think the fact that both of these other sites would expect people to to drive there is is a negative I understand a lot of people play basketball at lunchtime over here on Barry's street streets probably less likely in either of the other locations so that's that's something to consider on the other hand um knowing what my background is I see well the recreation center if that is no longer used for recreation have you done anything of whether that's it's feasible to keep the building standing and convert it to housing or is it is the thinking that it's bad enough that it really can't be maintained um there's a few options that we're looking at I will say that as for a city facility the the abatement and the ADA accessibility costs are a majority of the costs for renovation so if we did keep it um and didn't renovate it we would need to have that kind of conversation of what you'd want to see in there I'm not to obviously those conversations are new and need to be on the table um it is a very old inaccessible building though so it's one of the reasons I think we also talked about a little bit in the negatives of still looking at that option is that the abatement costs the more we looked into it the higher that estimate kept rising right I think that five million was really low honestly when it comes to um what the actual cost would be but I think that it's wide open of what we could use that for and construction costs have not gone down no they have not observed that never so true are there uh Connor and then Lauren yeah sure so I go back to strategic planning there and I mean Jack was adamant in that like what kind of city do we want to be in the future like is 8 000 a right population is it 10 11 000 and as I was thinking about that it does feel a bit short-sighted to look at the current location just like you guys are saying there there's very limited room to expand there and is it just a right now answer or is it the right answer I don't think it is so you know one thing I can put the bet in my own mind is I'm going to flip flop for my position a couple years ago I'm really glad we had this extra time to think about this and get new ideas on the table because I thought that was acceptable but it wasn't exciting right so so having these new options you know and I sat down with Nat from the hub today there he's a great guy uh got me kind of kind of jazzed about the new option I have concerns like everybody else you know the public-private partnership gets a bit dicey I think the devil's in the details on that um you know we don't want people paying for services that they're not paying for now I mean I think that has to be like a list of principles we don't have to adopt if we went into something like this uh we don't know what the budget is right um and the transportation I think is an issue although I wonder if that could be you know something we could bring my ride into the mix maybe a little bit try to beef up the ridership on that by this um so like long story short I you know I'm excited enough to keep looking at it and like I do wonder if one option on the table in the near future it sounds like we're probably pushing a bond vote off too like a year from March would it be possible like this march to have sort of an advisory question on the ballot if there was a direction we felt we should go because I think that would force the public input and give a timeline and force the hub and ourselves to get more community involvement and sure enough if they shout it down there well you don't want to put a bond down a year from now so it gives us a clear direction that we're going so just a thought there it's always a possibility also reminder that there are there's a November general election next year that could also be a bond vote you'll be too busy running for senator um lord yeah thanks um I definitely I agree with what folks have been saying I think it's worth exploring both of the new ones and think it it kind of changes what the conversation we had a few years ago with new opportunities um I you know just thinking about the ability to expand and grow I'm thinking like in our strategic planning there wasn't an idea of a BIPOC community center you know things like that that we don't have a space for and we wouldn't in the current building so being able to think about you know what are some of those center and community gathering things that we've um you know put forward and would love to see movement on um so would love to explore that kind of opportunity um you know and I just echo Connors and I'm sure all of us will be very conscious and you know just what what kind of agreement could we lock in even with the you know very you know well intentioned wonderful people working on it now but you know it gets bought by a hedge fund down the road and then you know what have we locked in for the city so um just wanting to make sure that the the values of accessible affordable and that you know we're a built we're able to um continuing offer offering everything we do now and growing and expanding that so how we would set up that agreement would be really important hey I'll uh Vicki yeah we're gonna go back to to Vicki and then to Ethan okay go ahead yeah um okay um something just came up on my screen anyway I wanted to thank Jack for um his comment because that was basically what I was gonna say is the current recreation center um you know maybe it could be uh repurposed into affordable housing or a homeless shelter or a drop-in shelter or something um combined on that um because we desperately need something and that is perfectly situated in town so that you can actually walk there if you're in town and also I just wanted to put my vote in for if they're going to be any place anywhere where the Elks Lodge was because it's closer to my house less driving I don't like driving on Elm Street too many traffic too much traffic anyway I would really like to see even if we had to actually take that building down if we replaced it with some really affordable housing not just affordable in terms of you know lip sync and and a homeless shelter we really need one of those um I mean I I do work with a lot of the homeless and I know a lot of them and you know on these cold rainy nights when you're tucked away in your bed and you're thinking of somebody who's not tucked away in their bed it's tough so that's just my two sets thank you thank you vicki uh right go ahead Ethan I just wanted to address the comment about uh hedge fund the the hub is is a although it's being called a private it's not a for-profit uh uh organization it's it's a 501 7 something it's not a it's not a 501 7 3 it's a I think it's a 501 c7 or it's it's a 501 c3 no it's a 501 c7 which is a non-profit organization that has a purpose of being a social or recreational center and so it'll be membership driven it will not be a hedge fund could not come in and buy it so for now Arnie and Cameron do you have the direction from council that you need I think so we will continue to explore the two new building options and come back with regular updates from what we're doing okay very good thank you all right thank you so much okay I think we are ready to um move on to the PFAS discussion but also wondering if you would like to take a break right now yeah so we're gonna take it's 751 we're gonna take a break we'll be back at 801 uh for the PFAS discussion okay thank you okay it is 802 so we are gonna come back uh from our break okay and we are um we are ready to take up our discussion about PFAS and for this we had uh been discussing um or wanting to make some comments about an upcoming uh permit from ANR um about leachate and so we had drafted up a letter well actually I should say really Lauren and Jay work to draft up a letter about that um so just so folks know the order of how this conversation will go I'm gonna let Lauren and Jay I'm gonna let you just speak to what's in that letter or just make any kind of comments you would like to about that um and then Bill if you have uh things I know we have uh other staff here as well if you have comments about that I want to invite you to um to speak to that as well and then uh I know we have some folks from Cassella here as well so I'd also like to invite them to come up in and speak to this as well and from there we will go to the public and then we'll go back to the council discussion so that's sort of how I'm thinking about the the flow of this conversation um but uh yeah so we'll start with uh Lauren and Jay if that's okay sure I can take a stab and Jay rounded out um so you know trying to really reflect the the conversation and input um that council had the um kind of updates that we got from the agency of natural resources um we wrote the letter that you know people can see on the agenda for today um really looking at an approach of you know wanting to make sure that what we're doing as a city is not just stopping taking leach aid and it goes to another community but instead continuing to work to try to keep on track the pretreatment of the leach aid so that we're getting more upstream at the problem so the um specific recommendations and actions that we uh drafted in the letter that interested in you all's feedback on were um making clear to the agency of natural resources that our city is committed to developing a plan to eliminate the intake of PFAS contaminated leach aid and associated releases into our waters um a piece that Jay and I kind of wrestled with some and look forward to your input was adding in a deadline of how long we would keep accepting the leach aid so um we put in as of July 1st 2023 the Montpelier water resource recovery facility will no longer accept leach aid that contains any detectable PFAS chemicals um we thought this timeline reflected what we heard from ANR of about you know a couple more months so like and then about a year to actually get the pretreatment up and running so we thought in a year and a half there could be pretreated leach aid and that the technology for treating it can actually remove the PFAS so if we can kind of put that marker out there that that's you know what we want to see happening um we put in here that we wanted quarterly updates from ANR to ensure to get you know mostly so that we can just make sure that this pro uh the project is remaining on track that um you know who knows what could come up and maybe we'll hear from Kasella any um any issues they foresee or you know how likely the timeline that we were provided is um but just really give us a chance to kind of stay on top of this and revisit if issues are arising or if new opportunities because this is such an evolving issue and you know maybe things could move more quickly and um who knows so we wanted to build in that kind of check-in as we go um we wanted to um in the second bullet in the letter um you know again just be doing our part to encourage that this pilot project to pretreat leach aid is moving forward that the best available technology is being used ensuring that ANR maintains a strong oversight role of the process and is really the ones in the diversity around determining the technology testing and monitoring protocols and implementation timeline um we also requested a more robust monitoring um that instead of being quarterly we suggested that we would prefer monthly testing um also looking um into you know be interested in what what are they testing for you know we heard some comments about the suite of chemicals so PFAS is of course of great concern but there's a lot of chemicals in leach aid so what exactly are we testing for and also ensuring that um it's multiple sites and not just kind of one spot that the testing's happening and finally uh we put in that Montpelier would not accept out of state leach aid which we understand happens pretty rarely now um but that was part of the permit and that wraps it up Jay what would you Thanks Lauren I mean I think I think you covered all all the uh big picture thinking um the only thing that I would would add here is that we felt like Lauren said we wrestled with this a bit um was that we felt like the timeline that we developed was um was some you know an appropriate compromise not compromise but it just felt like it not only allowed ANR to to um you know take the lead you know once the once the permit is is um is granted but to make sure that there you know that we we did have something of a line in the sand that we're saying like this is you know we're serious about this and we're concerned and we've heard from our our constituents about um the impact this has um uh on our rivers and and the Winooski watershed and that we're willing to be partners in um in providing enough time to make sure that we can work through the you know the pilot project but at the same time we're not going to be passive participants in in accepting it so um we felt like this was it was a reasonable timeline to work to to move forward and I think also part of part of what we did was build in an opportunity for the council a year from now ahead of you know budgeting for the 20 to 23 24 to be able to make sure that that what we didn't want to do is is have have the city staff the DPW in particular get caught off guard um and to give them an opportunity to be able to plan you know looking a couple years out to be able to revisit and say okay yes we're still gonna hold we're holding to this timeline um we're comfortable with the progress that ANR is is making in the implementation of the of the permit and um you know now's our chance you know as a city to be able to adjust budgeting etc for you know the wastewater facility to be able to manage that so um we just felt very comfortable with providing not only the state but also the city to be able to check in and and and you know make appropriate progress on what we're talking about great thank you great job guys great letter um right i want to go to either sure um i think we just had some minor comments what's the the letter i don't think kurt did you want to offer some of your suggestions you don't have to but can i just say kurt it's good to see in person i mean like two years i yeah i'm not worried about my voice going to robot mode here um so i'm kurt modica deputy director public works um so i did provide a memo to council just for providing some additional information um just want to kind of highlight some of the items in that that's all right uh one is uh there's beefos in the influence um there's beefos in every treatment plant um it is much higher in plants that do accept leachate there is a high concentration of beefos in leachate so um but i wanted to just recognize that um regardless of whether or not we take leachate from castella um we're going to be having beefos in our wastewater um one thought that we had is uh kind of following up on that is um would it make sense um to do a treatment system at the plant rather than at the landfill uh there we did talk to celebratively about that on monday we had a call with them um they're open to that concept it's not really the direction they're looking at right now right now they're looking out on site um but i was kind of curious if council had interest in exploring that option it's just something to think about there's uh there's challenges we can't accept all the leachate right now in order for castella to move forward with that i think uh we'd have to increase our capacity for um accepting leachate to that full scale which would mean probably an aeration tank build out so we could accept more b o d um but it's just one other option that you know that council may want to consider um as far as the timeline i just uh i wanted to note that the timeline um that council's looking at now is really uh to only have a pilot system in place at the landfill so um you know in about a year and a half castella would have you know under their permit they'd have um likely just the pilot which would only treat and maybe 10 of the leachate at the landfill so um they expect that uh there's a good chance there would be a reduction in the PFOS through that but an elimination full elimination because it won't be the full scale treatment system installed at that time really it's 2025 that they're anticipating because there's you know the permitting um construction if you think about the upgrade we did at our plant it took like three years uh that was a design build project fast tracked um with kind of known technologies uh the technology for um PFOS treatment is very new and you know they have to go through a pilot system before they can prove out that it's going to work whereas you know our project was known standard technology so it is going to take longer i don't see that it's possible to have full scale PFOS treatment in the year and a half that either monthly or or a landfill um and just to follow up on that uh complete elimination of PFOS i guess i'll maybe could speak to him more but i'm not sure that um would be possible either i think you know getting it maybe to drinking water standards or some level um in that range could be feasible but a complete elimination i'm not sure um but that's achievable but i'm not an expert on PFOS treatment and these folks do know more about it than i do um and then you know just a little bit on the environmental impacts um we're the closest um treatment plant to the coventry landfill it goes anywhere else it's a lot it's more trekking so i just you know just wanted to point out that um there'll be more emissions there's more diesel fuel used up there's an environmental impact to bringing out other places beyond just the PFOS discharge um you know and of course there is the financial impact i think that's kind of you know not the focus of the concerns but you know it is real it's you know it's probably going to be over half a million it will be over likely half a half a million annually if you consider the revenue loss and then our sludge disposal so um our sludge our sludge has roughly the same PFOS levels this is a treatment plants that do not accept leachate but it does have PFOS in it and it all goes to coventry and then it runs through the landfill and the leachate comes back to Montpelier so it is sort of this cycle but um but i just wanted to point out that you know it will be a revenue impact it's um you know there's will be project potential impacts it would affect the sewer master plan um you know we'd have to do some thinking about you know it whether it's not rate increases or cut to projects but there would be a real impact to what we could do yeah yeah questions um Conor and Donna and then i have some questions too and then uh general yeah what would be the benefit of treatment at the plant as opposed to at the landfill i'm not that's right i was there last year yeah so the um well like i said all all plants have PFOS in the influent um so it's not just leachate it's what's coming down the pipe from all the all the residential users um so we could take out you know we could treat all of the wastewater not just um the leachate that's coming to the plant so you get a full you know full treatment process so do we do we know what our level of PFOS is because you talk about all these different sources and right now you've quoted drinking water level so there's a standard there so if we have a measurement now and we continue it is there a way to say we want this much reduction yeah um so a couple of points on the sampling and testing is um there is not a approved surface water test procedure right now um it's so new that it's just not fully developed and approved um there is a test procedure that's approved for drinking water and that's essentially what's been being used for wastewater effluent um so and we do have results from the state i think um it was 2019 there was a report put out a uh Weston and Sampson Sampson Engineering um so our influent levels based on that report are about 169 parts per trillion and the effluent was 69 parts per trillion um a comparison to Norfield which does not take leachate they're at about 10 parts per trillion influent and three parts per trillion effluent uh drinking water EPA standard is 70 so our effluent currently meets the EPA drinking water standard the Vermont drinking water standard is much less it's 20 parts per trillion which we do not meet with our effluent but we're not making drinking water at the wastewater plant obviously but well i was just going back to the statement in the letter that i thought you were addressing was no longer except leachate that contains any detectable PFOS chemicals so would you be more comfortable with that statement referring back to the drinking water level yes i would i would recommend making that change that meets the man me and the Vermont standard is more stringent if council wanted to um use that Vermont drinking water standard okay do we we meet the 20 Vermont drinking water standard not currently no no our effluent is uh like i said it's 69 parts per trillion i didn't get all the numbers okay and and EPA is 70 is 70 but Vermont is 20 well i just i mean again i'm just trying to think something that really is reachable um but if we don't meet this Vermont standard we're trying to meet the Vermont standard but we can't do that until this pilot project gets done right and there's better treatment right no i think yes we do they have to stop taking leachate or the leachate that we're receiving would have to be um you know treated to reduce the levels coming into the plant so if if council was interested in um revising the wording to meeting to having the leachate meet the Vermont drinking water standard levels for PFOS um you know that i believe is achievable but you know i'm not i think i would defer to kasella it still would be a goal to be higher than where we at correct okay and likewise the date that i heard you which made sense in the timing of the pilot project would be 2024 not 23 um the pilot project i think and again i've deferred to kasella on the on the exact timing of this because they're i'm looking at the the permitting process and everything else that would be required to build it but i believe within a year and a half the pilot project uh would likely be constructed but that again only would treat a small portion of the leachate from the landfill the full scale build out to treat all of the leachate is 2025 because they're estimating it okay okay thank you i'm trying to figure out how to word this um so if if we're saying that we don't want to long term except leachate doing this build out seems like a lot for something that we're not going to do long term and so what would happen with that building or the all the renovations that have to happen in order to take in excess amounts of leachate what would happen well i think if there is interest in building a PFAS treatment system at the plant we i think we would need or would want to commit to a long term um agreement with kasella to accept the leachate i mean we wouldn't want to do that type of investment without having a long term commitment okay thank you so um this idea that we could treat for leachate in maupilier i'll just say for myself it is very interesting to me especially because we know that there's PFAS in what's coming in anyway aside from the leachate so um if it's um yeah i feel like i just need more information about that like as a possibility that because that's a really it's a really interesting possibility um you know if it's just an an aeration tank that doesn't i mean i'm sure that it's probably you know like a million dollars on its own but it doesn't sound like a lot um is there any way you could flesh that out a little bit like what does that look like well the aeration project is probably a five million dollar okay the other area we'd have to look at is the uv system to make sure that they're that you know there weren't issues um with increasing our receiving and still maintaining our uv uh we haven't explored it because i didn't i wasn't sure if there are interests that's fair like counsel so we haven't really gotten to any details but you know that's kind of one of the questions i wanted to bring up tonight yeah lauren go ahead just tied to this line of questioning um i mean is are there opportunities to put in a better filtration system knowing there's PFAS and other contaminants i'm sure anyway on the site that isn't locking us into isn't tied to the isn't like accomplishing the kasella pretreatment but is instead just a better filtration system for our own contaminants and part of like we had talked a little bit last time but i know that their specific PFAS contamination funding was part of the infrastructure bill that just passed for for wastewater treatment facilities so like i would hope there would be a potential funding opportunities around this who knows i'm sure that's a competitive grant program and stuff so nothing we could count on but it seems worth looking into i don't necessarily love the idea of locking us in to be the long time offtaker of leachate but i do like the idea of us better filtering our own system anyway if that's an opportunity but i don't know if you feel like they have to be because like of the economics or the volume or something like that they would have to be tied together it would be an economic challenge just given the other needs in the sewer fund you know CSOs and you know there are still some aging infrastructure dealing with the solids disposal so there's a you know just a lot of other competing needs it certainly could be done as a standalone project but it would be a high cost interesting any other questions or comments recurred okay um all right and i know we have some folks from kasella here so if you'd like to come up and make any comments you are welcome to do that and then we'll go to the public as then we'll we'll chat yep just share just move the mic wait if you're speaking you've been sitting in the back you know well thank you mayor we appreciate the opportunity uh my name is sam nicolai i'm vice president of engineering with kasella uh joe gay is here he's the engineer for kasella for all of vermont kim krozby sitting in the back is our director of compliance so we're happy to answer any questions i guess maybe just a couple of remarks we certainly understand and frankly support the city's desire to move forward with removal of the PFAS you know our primary concern is the timing um you know as as kurt kind of laid out through the permit and through our engineering planning we expect to be in the pilot by next year so the pilot will actually 100 be operational in 2022 assuming that the agency and act 250 can get us the appropriate permits um and so we'll we'll absolutely see a reduction by july of 2023 um i'm not convinced that we will be able to get full removal by then because we need time to scale the pilot system up we hope to do that quickly we hope that the pilot goes extremely well and the agency will support you know that permitting efforts we have no reason to slow down we have no reason to drag our feet on this i actually had a conversation with john kasella even today that he fully supports moving forward as quickly as we can but i would encourage you to to consider we need a little bit more time than that proposal to get full removal we're hoping that we can scale up to the full system after the pilot you know through 2023 and 2024 and be fully operational by the end of 2024 so by 2025 we're in really good shape um i wish i could give you you know drop dead definitive deadlines on that but we're just not there yet and out of an abundance of caution and wanting to get it right we want to make sure that we commit to that um a couple other thoughts would be you know we are committed to getting the pilot running at the landfill next year we have the option to propose a pilot at the city that that is definitely an option if the city is interested in looking at the potential to try to pilot something and and see how it works we would happily have further conversation with the city on that and so that may be a way sort of step into is this an option for PFAS treatment at the city and what does it look like and what's it going to cost to mine all those things so that's certainly something that could be considered that would have to be worked out over the next couple of months but absolutely it could be considered um but other than that i think we'd be happy to answer any questions that anybody from the council has thank you questions yeah go ahead i could just jump into it just for a second um it's important to know too that um you know i've been administering to this permit the specific permit in coordination with bob fisher before christ was here um since 1998 we've had a great relationship with the city of Montpelier we do accept your trash your waste um it has the PFAS in it um we also accept as kurt mentioned the sludge that comes in with about the equivalent amount of PFAS in it um you know we want to continue the partnership that we've had we've worked really well with the city of Montpelier we want to continue to do that um you know i think it's i think it's uh what's best for vermoners um sam didn't mention i live in under hill um i'm a mountain biker um i love the mamba trail network down here um so you know it's it is important we take it serious um john's committed the company's committed um we you know would like to partner continue to partner with the with the city and work forward together um you know with a solution to this um so you know we we do have the permit we've gone through the permit we're going to sit down with kurt and chris tomorrow go through some comments on the permit we'll be responding with our own comments and um and look forward to um starting um you know vermont is on the leading edge of PFAS research um now you know we're going to be a big player with that especially with the wastewater and we're engaged and we're committed to you know trying to figure it out thank you all right so questions uh for you all um so jay you had your head up earlier um so i'd differ to you first and then lauren yeah go ahead um yeah i just wanted to appreciate um i definitely appreciate the partnership and i appreciate that there's um um you know maybe you know the timelines don't necessarily line up ideally i'm curious part of this conversation you know we we had our last meeting and and that in doing research we've come to understand there may be a potential for storage um where we we can we as a city can commit to not be discharging the PFAS into the into our waterways um even before you know so that that they can be captured and stored in whatever state before the the final whether it's end of 2024 or 2025 before the you know the pilot project has come online and um and they can be you know pulled out of the lee jay is that something that's a possibility how um can that help us bridge that gap i guess is my question i think if i if i understand it correctly you're referring to one of the technologies that we're looking at has the ability ideally to pull PFAS out without having to do a lot of the treatment of the rest of the lee jay and if that were successful then we would be able to pull PFAS out at the landfill and then continue to bring PFAS free or PFAS low depending on how successful we are lee jay to the city of Montpelier if that may be what kind of what you're what you're trying to get at yeah it's it's essentially hedging you know like knowing that the technology might might not necessarily be there yet but being able to to hold on to that before discharging it into the watershed so yeah so under that scenario you know even as once the pilot is operational you would see an immediate reduction of PFAS coming you know to the city you won't be PFAS free yet um but again then the opportunity to take that pilot and scale it up would be the ideal goal to follow up with that directly would so in theory if you did something like that at the city plant could that pull out the PFAS from non-leachate as well i think that as all the resources that we've done if for the city it's a different technology i think everything that we've learned says that if a wastewater plant is going to to try to get it you're going to take all of your existing infrastructure and then at the end you're going to filter either with a resin or with carbon to remove the PFAS you wouldn't use the same types of technologies that that we would use for for leachate directly okay all right loren thanks really appreciate you being here and getting this information and just credit where it's due uh we did testify in parallel on upstream trying to get PFAS out of a range of project products which appreciated castella support on that legislation and hope we can continue that um as we all try to deal with the the downstream generational contamination um i guess my question um so we heard from kurt some concern over the the level are we understanding right we had previously heard that the actual treatment if you did something like reverse osmosis you could get it to a non-detect of PFAS in the the treated water is that right and is the idea that either you'd be looking to blend in some or that they're or are there different technologies you're exploring that would be less clear so when we had been thinking of a you know non-detect level it would be the the treated is what we'd be looking to ultimately get to for for the city and we'd just like to hear more about that sure so i would say our ultimate goal is to get all the PFAS we're not going to advance a technology that only gets 75 of it the goal would be to use technologies that are successful at treating getting to zero is always a difficult concept for anything PFAS anything else which is why as a society we have permits that have standards and and you you meet those standards but our goal is to remove it and we're not going to pick something that's only going to get part of it our goal is to get it all out that doesn't mean that i can guarantee you that every drop will be a hundred percent PFAS free nobody can guarantee you that but i would say our stated goal is to remove all of it i would say in the absence of a standard you know a and r has asked us and this is directing us to remove as much as we can i will point out that by legislation they have to have a surface water criteria in the state of vermont by 2024 they don't have one today but they have to buy by legislation so by the time that we're fully operational there will be a standard that will apply to you and to us and to everybody else and as mentioned earlier too um for even for drinking water the standard is 20 parts per trillion not zero i go ahead one and then we'll go to donna just one um other follow-up do you know yet i know you're still working through the pilot like what percent you anticipate would be going through the pilot program as you build it i mean do you have any estimates at this point how much leachate we would test through the pilot we don't we haven't settled on it we estimated that we were going to be in the 10 to 25 percent range but i'll be honest and say i don't know yet we will know in a few months but we're just we're not quite there yet donna see you partly answered one of my questions right now you're saying you don't know exactly what standard you'll be at until you're into the pilot project but yet you said you felt very clearly by 2023 there would be a decrease so you would just be guessing on what you've read about the treatments of what that decrease would be and i'm asking because i'm really working for a what i call a true statement that if we can ask for a standard that is reachable such as the drinking water standard or the federal standard by 2023 or another standard by 2024 so i'm i'm trying to be reasonable here it's i would say i'll say it this way our goal and our understanding of the technologies is that those technologies are designed and will remove the vast majority of PFAS out of what's treated why i hedge in the reduction part is mostly based on volume we just won't be treating all of it by that point we think what we will treat will be as close as we can to non-detect we just won't be treating all the volume and so that's why i'm concerned that we can't say to the city of Montpelier we're going to bring you no PFAS in any in our elite shape by 2023 does that that help okay so and likewise if we treated on site you treated on site the landfill and solid waste plant treats it there would that because that would also cover all the stuff that comes from our homes would that get closer if i would say that again it would be a difference the technologies but the goal and the expectation would be if you treated at the plant that you would be treating all of it and would be trying to get as close to zero as technology allows us to do it okay and kurt i have a question for you do you know now how much comes from our homes and how much comes from the landfill is it separated that way any anyway too separated yeah well we don't have um we don't have exact numbers but we just have a comparison to um the wastewater plant in norfield which does not take leachate oh okay um so you know it is um the majority of it is um is in the leachate yes yes probably you know almost 90 percent 90 percent you know roughly in the ballpark yeah okay thank you other questions um i have a follow-up question um also not sure how to word this um um do so well so a couple things one is um are you in your view is it sort of an either or in terms of if the city treats it you all would not or is it sort of the um so the possibility of both i mean to be fair i think it's an either or uh just based on you know let's say i'm trying to end but i think just based on the the sheer cost of what it's going to be to put a full system in um i think it's one or the other and i'm just current would you would you agree with that okay for the leachate um and as a separate question um if we uh i mean you all have mentioned like yeah you're committed to uh treating the PFAS um i think i know they answer this question but i'm going to ask it anyway um does that commitment extend beyond whatever we decide to do or is it dependent on our decision to take leachate or not we we're committed to removing PFAS from the leachate period period um we're we're hopeful that not only in the short term but in the long term we can continue the partnership with the city and and one of the technologies that we mentioned would be most viable to pre-treat and then bring it to the city and then on that case you would be looking at a potential long-term opportunity to work with us yeah um but but yes i think an answer to your question we're committed to the removal one way or the other okay great thank you that's that's good to know um lauren go ahead just on the technology so you were describing one that it seems particularly designed to remove PFAS does that address other contaminants or is it really like somehow attracting the PFAS chemical or something like would we be getting leachate with um is it do different technologies are you assessing them by the a broader suite of contaminants or just really focused on PFAS the the one technology that that i was referencing that focuses more on the upfront is based around the idea of foaming which PFAS likes to do so it would primarily get PFAS it will get some other contaminants but there would still need to be substantial treatment after that so that's the need to continue to bring it to the wastewater plant if you're the alternative of course is looking at RO and RO you're going to get clean water out the other side it's going to treat everything so obviously there are differences in costs and how those are those are handled but RO being reverse osmosis great other questions uh connor go ahead yeah i think we've heard it from others but just from the horse's mouth if we didn't take the leachate where would it go yeah so so that's one of my responsibilities for the company is um to have uh contingencies upon contingencies upon contingencies like the landfill does itself um we have redundancy built in there for for for the environment in this case to answer your question we are permitted to go to platzberg new york conquered new hampshire franklin new hampshire um and now with this permit amendment uh it would be you guys um so if you guys said no platzberg conquered franklin and certainly we're going to continue to explore more options um to be able to treat it but for since i've been with the company since 1998 we've had essentially um five locations where we've been able to take leachate and i'd like to speak to the new hampshire out of state leachate just for one second it does sound like you've made up your mind that you don't want it um i just want to offer that um i have two landfills i'm responsible for one in new hampshire and one in vermont and the leachate primarily goes to conquered from the new hampshire site and primarily comes here for the vermont site yeah but there's times chrystal call me up and say you know we've got something going on where we're we're upgrading and we've got to be down for two weeks i can't take your leachate for two weeks which happens um it's really not that uncommon so i'm in a role where i need to be able to say okay i've got a place to take the leachate while the plant's down so it goes to conquered the same thing happens in conquered conquered goes down for whatever reason and the new hampshire leachate needs to go somewhere if you know there's more limitations in this permit so it's going to be a little bit more problematic down the road um but i would call chris and say chris can i take two loads of coventry the vermont leachate and two loads of the new hampshire leachate um to get us through the period that conquered can't take it and in the past we've been able to do that so it's a it would be unfortunate if we weren't if we didn't have that provision to do that and it's very rare but it it does happen from time to time does the same happen in vermont are we down and we need to go somewhere how often once a year twice a year um so we're going to platzberg um a lot we've met in platzberg a lot this year with some of the plant upgrades and so forth i don't think the vermont leachate's gone to conquered at all this year and i don't think the new hampshire leachate has come here at all this year in 2021 i don't even think it happened in 2020 to be honest with you um so yeah it's very rare but it does happen um and it just provides some flexibility for the operations um of of these landfills thank you uh loren go ahead oh was just curious is that um landfill going through the same pretreatment technology or is the vermont one like the trial pilot project vermont is really leading the northeast if not much of the country with um you know moving forward on this so uh new hampshire has done some testing but doesn't yet have the the um framework in place to to consider what are going to be the standards and how how that's going to be treated landfill or not landfill the wastewater plants are regulated very differently too between the two states uh jack i don't know if you'll have the answer to this question uh when uh peter walk was here uh last week i asked him this and he thought it was just too imponderable or whatever to really give you an answer but i'll try it with you guys too because you're actually handling your material if mondbillier just said stop but we're not taking anymore they were like don't we're looking at two different possible courses of action one is we take it you know subject to conditions and limitations the others just say forget it we're done which one of those not vermont pillier but for the whole water system of vermont and the region which one of those would be lead to a better long term region wide outcome i understood the question can you yeah the idea is that whatever whatever happens in mondbillier is not going to change the the fact that there's people in our wastewater and in the and in the solid waste stream so what's the best way to reduce and eventually eliminate the chemicals from the from the waste stream and from the environment so lauren actually mentioned it earlier when when the emerging contaminants were first identified we and a lot of other people said the very first thing we've got to do is stop producing this material the landfills and the wastewater plants are at the end they're the sinks where all this material is is ending up and as long as we as a society keep making door text jackets and car and fabrics and carpets and everything else has got this stuff on it we're going to be producing it the good news is you've got a voluntary ban in place in the us you've got manufacturers stopping using it and you've got documented blood levels that are dropping so i think 98 of all adults in the united states have detectable concentrations in their blood that's the bad part the good part is the chart shows that those levels are dropping each year so the more material we stop using the less this stuff is produced the better off we're going to get unfortunately all of us including you and me and everybody in this room has got carpets and fabrics and jackets and everything else sitting in their houses that are going to have to be dealt with over the next 20 years and so it's going to take some time before we are able to resolve it but the positive thing is we're on the right path we just got to keep moving forward and as people's blood concentration is going down i assume that's because over time it's being excreted and so that winds up in our wastewater and going to our sewer plants again that's exactly right and presumably you we've got again no fault of companies but we have landfills full of this stuff that's going to take years to process too it doesn't just all so even if we're could completely stop in production we've still got decades probably of stuff to process to get the jack's question i'll try to see if i can frame it just slightly differently the question i think the question is which if my pillow was simple the choice is my pillow keeps taking it you work program you're talking about when we just say stop and you have to figure it out somewhere else between those two options which of those would result in the best overall not just for Montpelier but overall environmental outcome and or is that impossible to answer that's exactly the question yes so the the practicality is if Montpelier stopped taking it tomorrow it would primarily go to Platsburg there are opportunities in Concord in in Franklin but for the most part it would go to Platsburg and so it's the same watershed it's it's going directly eventually into the same lake Champlain watershed so the only thing that would change in the short term is we would be carrying leachate further more diesel being used more trucks to a further endpoint so in that standpoint it's a worse outcome for the overall environment now that's not an argument to keep the status quo right we all want to see this stuff be removed we all want to proceed forward and we fully support that but in the most immediate short term the only thing that changes is we're hauling leachate to a further location with more emissions and it's costing you know people will say oh it's costing a cell it's not costing a cell it's costing their monitors in every waste that comes into the landfill does that and I want to follow up with that yeah one of the concerns that was expressed by the state official camera who was was that the Vermont because of Vermont is on the leading edge if you were to take it to Platsburg or New Hampshire their requirements aren't as stringent as Vermont's are right now for discharge of it so would you have the same incentive to continue doing the pretreatment that you're talking now if you were not being required to do so in those other states I heard you say we're committed to doing it but would your time frame change or don't you want to not answer that in public I get that too but our commitment is to to remove it we don't view hauling leachate out of state as as any kind of acceptable long-term solution for Vermonters so we we expect that we're going to work through this process we expect that it's not going to be easy we the technologies are are not as proven as we would like or in some cases the you know and ultimately even these technologies they're separation technologies what we're doing is pulling PFOS out of leachate and getting it in some another media that has to be dealt with so all that has to be shaken out but our commitment is to move that forward independent of how things you know address the Montpelier having said that as Joe pointed out we've had a long relationship with the city we would love to see that relationship continue and us to be partners in improving this thank you for answering that thank you Jane and Donna um I think your point is very well taken and I appreciate the the impact of you know of um what it would mean to to ship it out of state um in the scenario that if we decided tomorrow not to take it anymore but I think that's exactly why we proposed um to stop taking it about 19 and a half approximately you know a year and a half from now not tomorrow um because we want to keep this we want to be in a position where we're keeping this process moving forward and that you're incentivized to find to to develop this pilot program and to look for alternatives so that you know you're not we don't want to paint you in a corner that's the last thing we want to do we don't want to just say hey that's it forget it we're not taking it deal with it because we understand what the environmental impacts of that would be we also don't want to be you know putting these PFAS in in our waterways I know it's the same watershed but we're we're talking you know in our backyards in in in rivers and streams that our kids are playing in on a daily basis so I think that that's why we felt it was a very reasonable but also motivational time frame to establish where a year and a half from now that's that's when we would do it it's not just tomorrow and and and you're stuck but there's there's motivation um uh an opportunity for you to work towards better alternatives so I just wanted to make that point appreciate your points and that you you know you it's got to go somewhere right and and you know it's not a solution that you can just obviously if we could if it could have been figured out overnight it would have been but it's going to take some time but at the same time we have a role to play in what we're willing to accept in in our own back in you know in the watersheds that that are um that our community you know engages with you know you you mentioned earlier the idea of asking A&R for regular updates and I would offer to you we will provide updates on whatever frequency you would like if you would like us to come and at the same time or at separate times Joe and I are happy to do so and tell you what's going on how's your progress you know how are we meeting these goals we'd be happy to do that thank you Donna I do think it is quote our purchase our waste in the landfill it's ours to deal with so I really want to work with you and the pilot project I really want us to push our agency of natural resources I think that's the one who we're really directing this letter at more than you because they have the resources to help us do this and do it better continuously and if indeed we keep 2023 I would see changing some of the standard in that sentence we could then modify it at that point and say okay this is where we are where can we be in another year is that hard for you as a business if indeed we're reviewing this every year and then saying okay we're going to do it for this year but we're going to ask for this much change and this year this much change is that too tentative for you as a business could be it depends on the results I don't think that's an unreasonable ask I think that as long as as we have the ability to come to you and say hey this worked really well oh this didn't work really well and we have ups and downs and you're willing to work with us on that I would say we support that again we're being transparent here in our in our desire to to move forward and be successful if I could tell you exactly what number that I could meet I would so that we all could be comfortable with it okay because likewise I don't see us I see us just leaving it in the landfill if we're not doing part of the pilot project it's not being treated it's not improving so we don't have any chance so to me to be a partner and be part of the pilot project to me is working towards a solution and not just dumping it further down the road so thank you thank you I think it's um uh worth to and extending an invitation to come up and get a tour of the landfill we do that to all the council members I think it would be uh very helpful um and uh worth your time thank you uh all right any other questions for these folks for now okay all right thank you and we may have any further questions even later but but I appreciate your taking the time this was really this was very valuable um and so at this point I want to turn to the public I'm going to start with folks uh in person though I'm guessing that there's nobody from the public who would like to make use to be city or cassella stuff yes one of the person yeah that's okay that's my mom mom do you want to comment okay great all right just checking okay all right all right so virtually um yeah any folks will wish to comment you just wave two if you would like to okay uh Darryl Bloom go ahead thank you thank you for letting me speak I am mightily impressed by the depth of the questions and the information and the participation by cassella and the mutual goals here of protecting the waterways and the people who drink them um I really appreciated the letter as it is drafted um the fact that you were asking for a tight oversight for the pilot project seems excellent to me and the increased monitoring I do have a couple of thoughts that I'd like to add one is that it seems to me that I as far as as much as I can I understand that this is not the time to set standards for the levels of PFAS in the water and that standards are expected from the EPA in a year or so um but it would seem to me that it would be wise to have parameters points at which the um ANR would say oh that's too high and that then ANR would have an action plan for what to do when the monitoring said that's too high whatever it would be if it was the EPA standard for drinking water or I don't know but that that seems to be an ANR responsibility to say what would be too much and to have a plan uh to say what do we do if it gets too high um either from the leachate or from the from the discharge and then the other thing that has been referred to and I'm sure it's being worked on it's just not being talked about at this meeting but I couldn't resist commenting on the need for ANR to be working with whomever is the right party to figure out how to hold the sludge store the sludge until we know what to do with it because that seems to me that it's foolish to send it back to the landfill it's an opportunity for those little buggers to squeak by us um and we don't know what to do with it because we don't know how to break this chemical down yet so I am just advocating that it seems to be somebody should be looking for the a way to store the sludge and that I don't know if it'll be appropriate for that comment to be a part of your letter or not um those are my those are my comments thank you for letting me speak and I'm Daryl Bloom and I'm a resident of Montpelier thank you very much um anyone else virtually can you hear me I'd like to speak go ahead Nat and then we'll go to Shayna thank you uh am I uh can can I be heard yes you can okay good uh the two things in my mind one is that uh there are some uh uh jurisdictions who have opted out already there used to be Newport and I think there used to be Essex and there may well have been other communities that have opted out of of the leachate program uh am I right and this or wrong that's accurate but uh carry on so uh do we know why why do we know why they decided to stop taking leachate is there a narrative here that we need to pay attention to so that's a question um in some ways I think uh this meeting should include and maybe it does include and maybe those maybe the uh the uh agency of environmental conservation or whether it's called at the moment maybe they are in the loop I don't know that they are in the loop but the people who are working on uh withdrawing those chemicals from the marketplace need to be a part of this discussion and and need to be uh we can't just deal with it on the leachate treatment side we we've got to deal with on on the marketplace side and the imperative has to be clear and the energies need to be connected I don't know whether I'm making a point that's being understood I hope so um I wonder here's the third question I wonder whether the affected communities drawing water from the lake champlain uh watershed or from lake champlain itself I wonder whether those communities are made aware that uh there are sending communities like Montpelier are sending this stuff through the ecosystem into the into the lake champlain watershed and possibly affecting the health of people who are drawing water from that watershed is there a connection there as well so these are these are leach tree concerns and thank you for inviting me and others to speak absolutely thank you Nat um did you want to answer any of those questions I mean if not that's fine I just I wanted to wait till Nat had a chance to to say his piece if you if you want to address it great if not that's okay I guess the the the only comment we I would add is that um historically Leachy went to two locations of Vermont Newport and Montpelier and to a much lesser extent to several other facilities which were served primarily as backups and no longer goes to Newport because of an act 250 determination not because of a A&R nor a city of Newport determination so that's the only change that has resulted in Leachy no longer going to the city Newport the permit the former permit also allowed us to take one load a day to bury with a very low BOD limit and the size of the tankers now didn't warrant us to go there so we we just let that drift off of the permit Essex Junction was another facility they land up by their sludge and there is some concerns about PFAS we don't even take Leachy to Essex and and so that's the issue there the city of Burlington also took our Leachy and we collectively with the city of Burlington opted out only because they don't have the storage infrastructure for the Leachy for storage to be dosed into the system so those are the reasons thank you all right uh Shayna and then i'm going to go to the bathroom i'll make it quick i'm having computer problems so i apologize can you can you guys hear me if i'm on my phone for audio okay um yeah my name is Shayna Casper uh district two resident from Montpelier and community action works um and closely associated with the national PFAS contamination coalition um i also wanted to raise attention to the fact that the EPA released data yesterday that suggests that you know new talk data for two PFAS that show that they're extremely more toxic than previously understood which could trigger a really drastic reduction in what is considered acceptable double amounts in drinking water and so the EPA report shows that PFOA and PFOS were found to cause health problems at thousands of times lower reference doses than um previous known and the reference dose is the is the maximum amount of uh chemical that can be ingested but that doesn't result in an increased risk of cancer or other other health disorders and um the EPA uh you know forwarded the science to its science advisory board for review and if they agree that could really lower the federal health advisory limit for these chemicals um you know 14 000 times um in vermont you know we already regulate lower than the federal government for our drinking water protections and we're regulating you know six PFAS in our drinking water and the most common testing methods for drinking water in vermont so EPA methods 537 and the draft method of 1633 for surface water do test for more PFAS um these are 40 PFAS compounds and so standards are coming and we don't want our standards to be in the way of that as we've been talking about and thinking for you know for month failure testing we could look at what um you know cumulative of of those PFAS um of kind of what we would be seeing as appropriate risk for that also just wanting to note that there's you know eight billion dollars in the infrastructure bill that just got signed on monday for small-scale water systems that's been noted and i also kind of want to echo what dana has said is that i don't i don't necessarily i'm just like raising all these points but that doesn't seem like there's really a decision to make it seems like we've got a letter written by the city to a and r and it seems like there is general consensus around it say for some small changes around the testing methodology and um this letter calls for you know PFAS release rate and calls for encouraging the state to move quickly and with more oversight on the on the on the on the monitoring and and oversight on the on the implementation of the treatment um technology and you know want to call on the state to up their oversight and and do more monitoring and to move forward with um you know pilot projects i just want to make sure that as we're kind of raising all these different issues and having a lot more conversations that we're not getting too distracted by the signing and the sending of this letter from the city so just wanting to um you know voice voice my uh encouragement and support for that thanks thank you um anyone else and i'm gonna i'll be right back anybody else in uh in zoomland who is uh trying to be recognized i'm not seeing any hands up but i want to make sure everyone who wants to be heard is heard okay we'll go back to the council uh donna well i i just want to strictly loren and jay wrote the letter if indeed there's any openness to modifying the sentence about the july 1 2023 will no longer accept lishi that contains any detectable is there any do you have any give on that statement are you willing to modify it i think that's where we are yeah council discussing uh the language and what so i'm asking about um i mean one thought so part of what i heard this evening is there's different technologies that get a different level of outcome like reverse osmosis is more expensive but you get a cleaner product if i don't know if this is true but if our standard is pushing towards adoption of the better technology um where and you know and maybe there's a one part per trillion or something that gives some of the wiggle room that that like zero is always hard for for anything but i mean i i do the study sheina referenced and stuff i mean i think those standards are the epa ones are really high i think the state one i think all of this as we learn more it continues to be they're worse than we thought and the standards keep going down and down and down so i want to be both realistic keep us on track but know that these chemicals are just the more we learn the worse they are at really low concentration so i don't want to set too high a standard um and you know i mean i could see if we're able to take for example pre-treated reverse osmosis water that's come out the other end this part of this then maybe we're able to live up to that and it's a portion and then some other portion is going elsewhere in a year and a half so i'm i'm open to other people's input but if we're able to encourage better technology that gets to lower output or cleaner water that's my motivation of trying to keep stickerly tight on yeah i was just asking that within the year that they're going to have and part of that is starting the pilot project if indeed you would accept something closer to like the ramon drinking water standard just for that first year you can say no that's a project go ahead i'm curious and i'm glad the guys from cassel are still at the table because i'm curious i heard you say well reverse osmosis system can get you to essentially zero if if we were to say well you have to get to zero and the only and you from your perspective know that the only way to realistically accomplish that is to do a reverse osmosis system which i gather is a lot more expensive would you then make the choice to say well we can't afford that we will continue on what we think is the reasonable and realistic technology path and if that means we can't take our leachate to Montpelier then we might as well send it to platzberg i would say our goal is to find the right technology to get us as close to zero as we can because ultimately a full-scale system is going to be millions of dollars of capital and to shana's point it's likely that over the coming years the standards are going to continue to change we're going to find out more information so we're not going to be in the rat race of getting to five and then having a standard drop and then get to three our goal is to find the right technology to get the PFAS out my hesitation about the 2023 date is mostly if not entirely volume not concentration we don't intend to somehow select something that's only going to get partial treatment it's only about our ability to treat the volume of leachate in that time frame I think it's clear that the standard is going to be lower and what I'm envisioning is that detection capabilities will become much greater so the standards we're going to see maybe parts per quadrillion right that's the way these things go right I my own perspective on this is that I I like the idea of a standard or a deadline and maintain the pressure but there are a couple of ways of doing it one is to say you know if you're if we're creating a deadline or a deadline that you're saying now it's just not realistic that you're ever going to get there I'm not sure there's a point to establishing that as the deadline and so it might be better to have a farther out deadline while also reserving the right to get out of the contract if it doesn't appear that adequate progress is being made and obviously the alternative is to say we're going to establish a deadline but we'll we'll kick it out if but if it looks like things are going well and they they just need more time to meet it either way I think that we'll want to have some some flexibility and as we see how that how things progress I'll just state the obvious that you control your own destiny and you will in six months from now and you will a year from now so you have the ability to to say something to us at some future date I we're just trying to convey to you that today I don't believe that I can tell you that we will get 100% of the PFAS out by July 2023 I do understand the goals of wanting to send messages and and convey a desire by the city fully understand that but from a practicality standpoint we won't be there by July of 2023 I don't believe I have a bunch of thoughts but go ahead Jay all right so my inclination I absolutely appreciate Shayna's comments and your feedback and and I appreciate that we can have a you know it feels like we have a shared goal here and I appreciate that we can collaborate on this and and try to find the best best path forward my I have to say that my inclination is to to not waver on a deadline but to acknowledge that if there is a moving target that it's around what the standards are and right now the best standard that we have is what is in my opinion is you know the Vermont standard which is 20 parts per trillion for drinking water correct which is different than the EPA standard so to Don as original question is I would prefer if we're if we're going to try to sort of quantify this is that we we hold to the deadline but we use that as the best available standard now so July 2020 July 1 2023 then that would be what we'd be willing to accept but knowing that that standard as you know as we're learning more about the impact of these and as we're you know you're more developing technology to move us towards a you know a level of zero that we we still hold the deadline but we use that as at that point as an acceptable acceptable acceptable acceptable standard but knowing that we could revisit that standard not the deadline my two cents it sounds like we're moving towards the direction of some kind of agreement which I think is encouraging I appreciate the distinction between either we're messing with the deadline or we're one variable is the deadline one variable is the concentration right and one of the things that I heard through this is that Vermont's is either Vermont or the EPA is going to have to have some surface water drinking or I'm sorry surface water standards by 2024 which is not the same timeline that we have been talking about you know one so my thinking had been well what if we say that we you know we'd like it to meet whatever established surface water standards come out in 2024 that's the goal or if we keep it for but or in the absence of that then we go to the Vermont string drinking water standard if for whatever reason the body that doesn't that's supposed to put out those standards doesn't that we have something to fall back on but that would be a 2024 thing if we keep 2023 you know having some standard whether it's the Vermont drinking water standard or the EPA standard I think is fair the more strict one seems good the the question I would what what I could picture happening as a result of that is that we would potentially because it sounds like it's it's really a question of volume at that point like how much we would be taking right because if you're substantially treating a small volume then it's sort of like how much how much else can you add into that to send to us and is that a truckloads worth if it's not a truckloads worth then it wouldn't be worth sending I assume that's math that I don't I don't know if that's even a fair question to ask you would that even work out to be worth sending to Montpelier at that point I don't know if that question is clear well I sure I think I think we would send you a truckload if you would take a truckload would send you a truckload okay the permit the permit allows for 60 000 gallons a day irrespective of the pilot study it's 60 000 gallons a day which is not all the leachate that we produce okay thank you at times that's helpful um you know one of the things that I also really appreciate is that you all are committed to doing this regardless of what we say right in a sense that takes the pressure off of us you know what I think about jack's question of like big picture what's the best for the environment you know in part like well they're going to do this work regardless of what we do know to be fair you know I have faith in the state of Vermont and I like our our our standards um and so I want to believe that uh there's still some value to us um having that pressure um and being a part of the the dialogue and the relationship with a and r and with kasella moving through this um there there's one other thought I had about this um oh this is a little bit of a minor detail on the broad scope of it all but uh in terms of testing um I think it may in the section that asks that we uh would like to have monthly testing I think it makes sense for us to um have both upstream and downstream testing um both of those because it's it's really a question of um you know what what are we adding at that point like or like how effective is um is this for our community and in part I actually kind of wonder if it would be worth doing I would it would be great to have that testing done now so that we have some kind of a baseline so that when the pilot kicks in we'd be able to compare it and see like oh yeah it is it is dropping um this is effective or it's not and we can reevaluate sorry I have a lot of thoughts um another thing um by putting it out to 2023 or 2024 or whenever um this council would still have an opportunity to revisit that if for whatever reason um you know circumstances change or we you know want to either tighten things or loosen things whatever um works so in a sense anything that we say beyond this uh beyond our terms right is um aspirational um that's that's fine but I think that's still okay I just want to acknowledge that um last thought uh between the prospect of having a sort of an in-house treatment versus treatment at the landfill if it wasn't either or you can't have both my inclination would be to have it be at the landfill because so much because 90% of the leachate that we're sorry of the PFAS that we're processing comes from the leachate and one of the things I'm interested in is exportability I guess of like if if you all can prove that this works and is a good system and other landfills decide that they also want to jump on board then that's a potentially an easier model to replicate than one that came off of a much smaller site like ours or you know we're not treating as much PFAS if anything I've said in there is not accurate I welcome correction but um so there was I just had a whole bunch of things um curious for further thoughts yeah Jay and then Donna just a just a minor thing is one one thing that you know Lauren and I talked about and maybe we could have been a little more specific but we did include language that said um the testing while would be more frequent would also happen um we said out of variety of sites and so the implication would be that it's not just like you know 10 feet downstream from where from where the water from where it's being released so we could add we could very easily set a variety of sites including upstream and downstream um from releases from the premium plant so so anyways yeah uh Donna and then Jennifer yeah okay yeah well I I felt you were leaning to 2024 and I'll just put it out there I don't think I think of minority I leaned to 2024 just because of the pilot project and what we what we've heard around the other standards coming out at that point we would know a lot more to go to the next step but I also heard that I do think eventually we'll have to treat that 10 percent that's happening now at our plant and so if we don't start it now we start it later just cost more but maybe the techniques way better but but we do have that 10 percent we still have to deal with on at our plant and then uh it hasn't been talked about except in the discussion with Cassello but the statement here no longer accepting out of state I do feel that may need to be tempered and so I wondered if there's a way to say um not accept any regular out of state or only emergency out of state I think our plant itself has to sometimes take things out of state go somewhere else and so if we're doing it again only on those exceptions and maybe you can give us some language of what that would be I think we need to tone that to go because we also sometimes need that exception thank you I appreciate y'all being here this is probably not the easiest thing for you to do um I have a very strong feeling about this and I am just going to keep it to myself because I think I am the only one has this strong feeling about it but I would like to just personally defer to y'all's letter I feel like you've done a lot of work and a lot of research and I appreciate that um and I appreciate that you want to kind of hold firm on something so that's all I'm going to say on this I'm not gonna say anything but thank you for being here okay sorry sorry go ahead Lauren and then Jack yeah first on your monitoring suggestions I just emailed some suggested language for that paragraph that so it would just read uh getting to the paragraph or the sentence that I made a change we also urge a broader suite of testing for likely leachate contaminants including and beyond PFAS chemicals at a variety of both upstream and downstream sites around the wharf and baseline testing as soon as possible so we can better understand the impacts of the pilot program as it comes online oh yeah great okay does that address what you were trying to um um and just on the timeline and standard I mean I get I would rather stick with 2023 I think we can revisit I think part of what we're calling for here is a regular check-ins with A&R appreciate Kasella's offer to be part of that and keep us updated so I think you know the future council could adjust but just keeping us on track it's already a year and a half of continuing to you know take this um you know if we're gonna do a standard if we if people aren't comfortable with the the non-detect which would mean that we were just able to take basically the pre-treated small volume that had gone through the pilot which could be one option um you know and and maybe if if we wanted to go that route then I you know maybe we set it like one part per trillion just to give a little bit of you know just getting to zero for anything's hard but I mean alternatively I I guess I would say the state drinking water standard would be the other one if people aren't comfortable with both 2023 and non-detect or one part per trillion I mean personally I'd love to see it combined 20 parts per trillion for all of the PFAS that are being tested I mean we very well it could be which is not our drinking water standard to be clear so we're testing for more but knowing how concerning these all are that could mean that our test is showing 400 parts per trillion of APFAS chemical just doesn't happen to be one of the five that our state has regulated due to lack of scientific data even though all evidence points to you know concerns at least about all PFAS in the class so that's one thought that is more protective we'll be testing for it anyway so we could tie it to you know the the EPA standard the monitoring that's going to be happening anyway well team I think we need to make some kind of decision Jack I move that we set the timeline at keep the timeline in 2023 and set the standard at 20 parts per trillion yeah I don't know if it requires a motion just kind of discussing it but yeah we can get it moving yeah that's good it's good um is there a second and that would be with the updated language that Lauren yes is there a second okay all right so Jay is seconding further discussion I really want to hear what Jennifer is really thinking I mean it's it's not directed towards anyone you know it's it's a cultural thing and what we have done to this planet breaks my heart and so the fact that we even have to have this conversation is really hard for me and just thinking about what's going on with all of our water systems all over the planet and it's just a it's a hard conversation to have and I don't think a lot of people think about it when they're shopping and when they're doing their lives and you know I have small kids and you have one coming and you know we're we're leaving a huge mess for the next seven generations and it and it's very hard so I'm not angry at anybody in particular it's just it's a hard place to be in as a I couldn't agree with you more yeah to be honest I couldn't agree with you more in fact you know if you just look at the genesis of the line landfill or the reasons why we have a line landfill is to protect the environment for those reasons right um now because we have to collect that wastewater which is a good thing right at least we can capture it it's not going into the environment when we nearly we can control it and manage it and what we're talking about tonight yeah it's it's it's I think we are trying to all work towards their the right goal and that's to you know um and how the safest drinking water is humanly possible yeah and we're we're in between a rock and a hard place and we put ourselves there and that's that's the big picture that is the hard thing to swallow I think Jack I was going to say this earlier and that hearing what Jennifer said I I agree with everything you just said and this is this a problem that's not a Montpelier problem and we're not doing this to say we don't want this in Montpelier water we're protecting the environment for the whole watershed that affects the whole state but I bet we're they're not having this debate in in city council meetings all around the state I bet we're the only ones because we're the ones who have the uh have the plant and so we're like responsible for doing what we can to protect everyone's environment yeah kind of yeah so probably not like directly to the motion but we just have a general chance and I'll leave it to you so like uh first I want to thank you guys for coming in and I think it does put my mind at ease to know the direction you're coming from and I also want to say to the the wastewater plant guys we're probably putting you through the mill on this but like in my mind you walk on water treated water but none of this is like none of this is criticism but I just want to be honest I'm hanging by a thread that I continue to take it that's right it's uh I want to profess I'm a bit ignorant on the science so when you talk like parts per trillion a lot of this is going over my head what worries me is like okay we hear the you know the levels are different or much different in northfield as opposed to our discharge place here I think we have to ask the question like okay we all consume this you know we all have a responsibility to do this and we should be accountable towards it but are we putting residents among failure in our region at disproportionate public health risk by being the one discharge point in the state for all of this because I don't feel we're responsible for the leachate coming down to Hampshire I don't feel like it's the rest of the state and I think what I'm gambling at it probably everybody is is okay what's better for the environment overall you know I want the direct responsibility do we have to the people of this community uh whether to take this or not because I'll be honest you feel like you're a bit of a sucker the only ones taken into the state why did everybody say we're not taking it so um I'm worried about even putting like a deadline a year from now to reassess this if it comes back in a quarter from now and it doesn't look good I want to be able to say no thanks you know and again it's no criticism to anybody everybody's working in the same direction on this but when you're the only ones doing it you ask the questions right so I don't know if anybody's telling me we are not putting our folks at a disproportionate public health risk but haven't this the one discharge point if I'm wrong on that I'm happy to learn more and I do want to continue being educated on this but I mean that's the only conclusion I can come to my head at this point thank you honor no yeah so you guys we whatever you need to do we certainly support I've given this a lot of thought just as our role as manager and in the community and unfortunately in our society um and particularly with waste management this is kind of how it goes you know the the town of Coventry is taking the waste from the entire state and it's in there they've got a risk and I don't know what the deal was for them but that's what happens and they get the trucks coming in you know someone has to take this and for better or worse we have the infrastructure to do it and to do it safely and uh or as safely as it can be done and we're trying to get it done more safely so I respect whatever decision we make but I think it's important right then that we don't think twice about sending our trash to Coventry and the folks up there that deal with that you know when someone else takes you know hazardous hazmat stuff you know I don't know who's taking all the batteries and all that's you know I mean someone's taking nuclear waste right so um different places are taking different things in our country and it's not evenly distributed and I it's just that's kind of where I came down to make myself feel at peace with it anyway so just share that yeah Donna go ahead do I need that on there no you can hear me okay I don't want to come across as caring less I mean I don't need a granddaughter to let me care about our environment but I have consistently felt like it's why we recycle we should be responsible for what we do why we're asking manufacturers to do circular economy if they produce it they should handle it and re-handle it until it never ever disappears and so I feel we are responsible and a responsible thing to do is to do the best we can to improve the discharge and deal with these elements I do not want to pass it down the road so that's where I'm at I'm concerned about I don't know what standard that is that you just created because I didn't get the email you probably if you send it out you probably send it to my city email and I can't get to it from here so um that's another long story so I would rather have a standard than I know that's all if you've created a 1.1 billion I'm like honor Vermont drinking level standard I can relate to so that's all I would want a standard that's more defined and our drinking standard probably aren't as good as they should be not as I would have them but at least they're there and they're known so if you can tell me why you chose that in simple layperson terms I won't oppose it otherwise I prefer a standard that's more knowable that's all so I think Lauren's language only dealt with the testing and I believe that you said the 20 parts but that that was the Vermont drinking standard I heard his motion so he said he said the 20 parts per billion but that is the Vermont drinking standard I believe that's why I was confused because I didn't have the I just forwarded it to you by the way to your other address Lauren was talking about one part per trillion just so because you can never get to zero and I said well let's keep the deadline of 2023 but set the standard at the Vermont drinking water standard of 20 parts per trillion that's my rationale fair enough this I agree that this I feel like we could keep talking about this for a long time you have motion yeah I know we've got a motion and because part of me still wrestles with in all honesty like if they're going to go ahead anyway then do well then why you know why would we bring it to Montpelier you know what but yeah I think but I so I just like genuinely feel conflicted about that I do feel like it's it's hard to be part of yeah I see this as part of the healing also I think this is part of being responsible anyway that's that's just what's going on inside my head anyway um any other thoughts or conversations or conversations any thoughts or comments about this uh and if uh the other city staff want to weigh in on what we're about to vote on that would that's welcome I just want to give you the opportunity if you want to want to understand the motion about a year and a half if we don't meet the drinking water standards I'm on drinking water standards um but just we heard from Cassella that only the pilot system will be on at that time so that would mean that we're either stopping taking the at that time or we're only taking you know the percentage the 10 percent or so um of what is treated I just want to you know make that clear for council that it's essentially saying we're not going to take leachate anymore um because from the timelines Cassella's laid out they're not going to have full-scale treatment within that time frame 25 to have full scale so one one option would be um that the pilot system one alternative motion for council's consideration and it's fine if you don't want to do that that's okay it's getting late understand that this is to require that the that the uh effluent from the or the treated um leachate from the pilot system um meets is that one one or less parts per trillion um by like 2023 the year and a half time frame and then we could use um that standard the treated um system from the pilot to require that on the next as the next kind of requirement you know council meet again set a new motion that the full scale would have to meet what the pilot achieved it's just another way to approach it that but I understand this is a tough topic and of course we'll support whatever you brought up a point I guess I've always felt that this is not necessarily the door shuts but that we really stop and reassess this is our gold and we don't reach the gold I didn't assume that would it be an automatic door slamming but that we'd be sitting down reassessing what we know why we know it why they didn't happen is that need to be written in here or does no one else feel that way I don't think it needs to be written because I think that we could always revisit the decision and decide to do something else based on information that's coming to us as we proceed and so I you know who knows if any of us will be on the council on July 2023 but in the months leading up to that we will be continuing to get reports on how things are progressing how when they expect to get to the best possible standards and we could at that point say okay you're doing exactly what we wanted you to do and we're going to give you more time to get there I can easily imagine that happening well and that's written in the letter right that that we we expect increased monitoring and testing that we have quarterly reports from N.R. and thankfully Stella being part of those and then an opportunity before next year's budgeting to to revisit so that our DPW can you know adjust as needed so I don't think that that's outside I mean that's that's written in so so maybe that's a commitment to ourselves that we'd like to reevaluate this uh situation by in a year just looking at the the letter Jay's question is correct it's one of the authors but clearly states council will revisit this policy timeline to make any desired adjustments on it before November 2022 so next year at this time so they're saying because of July 1 2023 we won't take it but we're gonna review this in November of 2022 to see if we want to adjust so it's actually more clearly stated than I recall or we could say tomorrow we're not taking anymore and yeah yeah and that's the point I mean I you know maybe the pilot project you know progresses further but I just think it's important that we're saying that hey this is a this is a time frame that we're holding to um and that it's not open and if you don't have more time you know so yes it could go either direction but the point is yes we have the opportunity to revisit but it's it's making sure that there's accountability throughout the whole process I think even going 18 months to some of us maybe feels a little bit long but knowing that there's accounting accountability built into that time frame I think is really important and the pilot uh pretreatment testing should be you know it's not the whole it's it's not the full scale it should um be treating some portion of the leachate at KSL by July of 2023 is that right yes okay some portion will will be being treated see will low results right so by the permit we must be operational in the pilot one year from issuance of permit so assuming the permit is issued let's just call it January 1st we must be operational by January 1st 2023 so in November 2022 when we're all sitting here in this room just try to yeah be sure you may or may not be operational you may be close Joe and I probably hope not to spend Christmas at the landfill so we'd like to be I spend Christmas every year at the landfill okay well the idea that we would revisit it in years also I've comforted to me anyway we'll have we'll no more we'll be a little further in this process uh all right any further discussion about this okay um and just checking that nobody else online who would like to say anything all right um all in favor please or there's been a motion in a second all in favor please say I and opposed okay so the motion passes and so that we have a something to give to ANR comments on this permit and just so i'm crystal clear so the language will change from any detectable PFAS to PFAS chemicals above the Vermont drinking water standard I think actually leaving at that I mean if by some chance they changed the drinking water standard hopefully to make it more protective in the next year and a half that could keep us at least up to date with them and then with that monitoring language that I don't know Donna if you got that but that just adds the upstream and downstream and that we want baseline testing yep yep okay I could I could edit that send it then we get it submitted send okay great beautiful thank you okay thank you all right um thank you staff yes thank you staff yeah okay much everybody okay uh that is all of our business um council reports I want to start with Donna shocking okay yes thanksgiving is coming next week I hope you're all better prepared than I am but I do have one request that's more in the serious note and that is you all had Doug and Paco here when I was gone talking about the central Vermont public safety authority and then talking with the twin city teams which is Barry and Montpeliers public safety staff and the city managers from both cities they have reflected to me that they would like to to take the public safety authorities report and look at those recommendations and come out with her with the next step especially how to fund the 3.9 million equipment that came out of those recommendations and they would just like to work as they do as a staff committee and I would like to know I think Bill would too a nod if indeed the council supports the city staff putting that time in to try to advance a capital purchase on the public safety items and then they'd be working as a team and they can invite whoever they want in including the consultant that will make available to them to try to advance those recommendations that came out of that study if people have a nod a thumbs up that would be good to have the staff do that I asked Donna to raise it I think we we they've been that agenda item to appoint us as a formal committee and I think we just said hey if we're staff we can work together but before we put you know if the council either council doesn't want to pursue the televate study anymore tell us now before we spend a lot of time on this you know I'm not guaranteeing again like anything else you're not committing to it but thank you thank you and now just to you some of you may have been familiar with the Karen Kitzmiller's coat drive and my Montpelier Rotary Club took that over and last year due to the pandemic we didn't collect used coats we actually made a deal with Lenny's and buy retail coats we did the same thing this year and there's some like 800 coats that we're distributing so I just want you to know that is in the works and people will have those coats again supply chain is hard but we did fundraising and believe it or not people who've done this for years bought our raffle tickets and had a big social party still bought raffle tickets still donated the money for the coats it was really very heartwarming you know that people will come and support that effort and there's kids there's people on the street but there's all sorts of families coming who just need winter coats so it feels really good and I hope you have a chance to support it in the future if you haven't already. Do you have a question Karen? Yes, so I can. So I can let the homelessness task force know and other folks who might need those coats have those already been distributed or how do they get? Who do they contact? I'll find that. Okay thank you. I thought you were volunteering for a winter coat. Is that it? Okay Connor. I'm going to continue being a bit contrary tonight. So on Monday the legislature will reconvene for a special session there to consider a compromise that the governor has put out saying that all right the governor doesn't support a statewide mask ban right but he's willing to consider a deal where municipalities on an individual basis may be able to institute one but they're going to have to reconsider it every month and they're not going to be able to do it past April. Every month they have to reconsider it at a meeting if they want to keep it going. So I just like you know I'm a bit upset that I don't like you know municipalities being treated like political footballs in this case you know either it's the right move for a statewide mandate or it's not but I think we've seen like studies show that the piecemeal approach doesn't work and really what it is is the executive branch shirking the responsibility and passing what should be a statewide responsibility on the municipalities which isn't effective and all it is is a political sound bite. So I just want to tell everybody I'll be. Want us to sign your petition? I mean I guess I'm taking the temperature should there be collective response on this before it goes to print on like Monday the special session that we don't support this or I mean I'm happy there's something individually too but I'm just letting you know I just don't like it you know it's not right so it's my reward. Yeah. I'm losing brain cells but if you need anything more formal from us let us know. I mean I guess it's a question do other people feel similar to you? I agree 100% I would support a collective approach saying that you know passing the buck down to municipalities you know where there's no clear borders I mean it just is ridiculous it's it's a waste of time. I mean we've done it in the past when you know there was no other option there was you know the state of emergency had been just passed and I guess I don't regret doing it at that point but you know where you're in for this it seems so. So to be fair if we do get that authority I think we should take it seriously like if or when that happens but should there be a statewide approach? Yes. Yeah that's where I am I think that this is the the one train that's going to get us to having the authority to create a mask regulation here in Montpelier because he's already said he's going to veto anything else and I think he probably will. So if the question is do we pass something encouraging our two representatives and our three senators to vote against the vote I clearly would not support that because we think we should have that authority should we consider maybe putting a charter amendment on the ballot to say we want the authority to to create a public health order when it's you know whatever the language would be then we might want to consider that so it's not limited to just the present crisis. No that's that's not a question we need to deal with. Yeah and I'm not even saying like when it gets the legislature our delegations to vote against us but I don't think like you know playing games like this should not be called out in a public fashion and if we support a statewide mask ban we should tell the governor that in some formal manner yep since we should direct bill to write a living on that in there. I mean how we do it on behalf of people. Sure and you feel like you've got the sense of this conversation. I'll just point out and and and I personally agree with the sentiments but I'll just point out that typically the municipal governments are seeking to have our own individual decision-making authority and resisting state mandates on us. So this is pretty much a 180 on that however you know I don't know I get it but and I think the distinction is for just like what things would you know the whole notion of state and federal regulations for things that don't recognize boundaries and this is clearly something that doesn't right now. That said we might take the authority to protect at least people within our boundaries and require it. Just pointing out that we're I don't know if we need to see some towels would come out of that. Okay. Okay. Jennifer I'm complete thank you. Okay. It's in Jack. Well just two points one we all heard this week but Senator Leahy announced that he's not running for reelection and as a great senator a great son of Montpelier who's done tremendous work not just for the United States but specifically for Montpelier you go down town see what is the funds he's brought to the city has done for us at the library and probably many other places it you'll have plenty of time for recognition but I think he he deserves that recognition and just on a very much lighter note in through our debates tonight I noticed the use of the word y'all from at least three members of the council counting the mayor so I think maybe the influence of the assistant city manager is making itself known. Yeah and I didn't hear you. All right Lauren great well you took my rant on the mask mandate off the table thank you check that off my list. I just wanted to acknowledge the good work of the activists that pushed the administration to actually extend the hotel program for our unhoused population so was I know that we still have lots of work to do lots of issues and lots of things that our community can still do but it was great to finally see that move through thanks to some great activism and work from lawmakers pushing the administration so yay and lastly our little lobbying committee is going to meet next week so if anyone has policy ideas of advocacy or policy positions that you think we all should be supporting as a city that could go on that legislative agenda would welcome everyone's input. I would just remind folks that tomorrow at four o'clock we're gonna have a redivocation of the Challenger Explosion Memorial which is at Montpilier High School it's sort of by the very small orchard that we have there and so yeah I think that is it for me and no John's not here so yeah. Jack I would just say that if we were up to you we'd all be saying use guys right. I have a couple things I think she already mentioned the lobbying committee so that's good just a reminder that actually the alternate side parking went into effect this past Monday November 15th and we will begin active enforcement next week on Monday the 22nd so everyone's got a week to get used to doing that but parked on the odd side on odd nights and the even side on even nights just fortunately we haven't had really much plowing and just more seriously just to get you folks prepped for the next time we get together we spent virtually all day in this room with the department heads working on the budget half day yesterday on zoom and some more time and I think all of us collectively as a team and perhaps all of you had some hopeful illusion that everything was back to normal and I think that we got a big reality dose this week and I described to the mayor is saying we have developed really good appetites but are covered in refrigerators still not full and so we've had to make some you know hard decisions and so we're trying to clearly reflect the strategic plan and the priorities and also the departmental needs and all of that but I guess what I'm here to say is it will certainly not meet all needs what's recommended probably not even close and I think we have to remember that we cut the budget last year or four percent because of COVID and so we're trying to come back from that reduction but our revenues are you know parking and rooms meals and alcohol were the big ones are just not they're coming back they're better but they're not back to where they were so even getting sort of back to where we were with all of the priorities that we've laid out which were ambitious and plentiful are going to be very difficult so we're doing the best we can we're trying to stay within the guidelines that you gave us with the surveys and I think we'll do that but just it's not as rosy as maybe it's not going to be that great thing where we just do all of that list and say who we did we figured out what it was cost right to do all of that list and it was 12 percent or something like that you tax increase so we figured that wasn't in the guides 12 percent yeah that's I think we'll have to work really hard with our community because maybe we haven't shared enough of the pain with them they really think everything's back and I think we all did yeah obviously you know but I mean everyone all of us here and all of us and you know people were asking for the thing and we're all like yeah we're this is going to be great and it's it's still it's still not all the way back and I suspect probably local businesses feel the same way and another so yes it's better yes we're coming out of it yes we'll probably be able to do better on our services but our capital projects and our some of our extras are going to still be tight unless you do unless you tell us otherwise in which case we can go back to the drawing board so yeah okay on that cherry a little reality okay uh all right thanks everybody uh so that is the end of our regular business so um without objection we're gonna adjourn 10 0 8 fair enough deceptively short