 Good morning. My name is Jeff Fitzgerald. I head up the Municipal Project's Working Group for the City of Montpellier's Energy Advisory Committee. I'm here today with Kurt Modica, who's a City Engineer, and Chris Cox, who is the Chief Operator at the City's Wastewater Recovery Facility. And we're here to talk about the Organics to Energy Project that is the subject of the upcoming bond vote in November. Welcome, Kurt. Welcome, Chris. So, Kurt, get us started. Why are we doing this work at the City's Wastewater Recovery Facility? What's going on? The plant was constructed in 1962, and there's still a lot of original equipment to that construction. So it's getting more and more difficult for us to find replacement parts for some of that equipment, and it's really beyond its useful life. Equipment is generally estimated to last 20, 25 years, and a lot of this equipment is over 40 years now. So there's a need to upgrade what we have just to sort of ensure that we have good quality water, which is really the core focus of what we do at the plant. Chris, you're the Chief Operator. How dire is this need? Are we really needing to do this now? This equipment becomes more costly to maintain and operate it each year. Also, the chance of a catastrophic failure increases some of this critical infrastructure, so it's really worthwhile to invest in future infrastructure. So, doing nothing is not an option here. That's right. Okay, and what's it going to cost? What is just doing what we need in order to keep this facility operational? What's that going to cost? Well, we sort of have it broken out into 10-year segments. If you look at over the next 10 years, we're looking at a $13 million upgrade just to sort of maintain what we have at the facility. Okay, and the project we're talking about, we're doing more than just maintaining our current operational status, right? That's right. And why do we want to do more? What are the benefits of doing more here? This is an opportunity for us to save on our oil use at the plant, to reduce our electrical demand at the plant, and to also bring in revenue through tipping fees where we will be able to take in high-strength waste streams and treat it at a fee to the hauler. So Chris, you've been working with some folks from ESG Energy Systems Group. How confident are you in their work? Have you gone and visited other places where they've done work of this nature, and what did you find if you did do those visits? Sure. Kurt and I actually went down and visited a facility that ESG worked with, Frederick Winchester. We spoke with the operators. They were really happy working with ESG. They're actually looking to do a second phase with ESG to actually utilize the gas production that they're having. They installed digesters, made a ton of gas. Tell me a little bit about what we're actually doing here. How are we reducing our costs and increasing our revenue? What work are we doing at the plant with Energy Systems Group? Sure. A big part of what they're doing is increasing our digester capacity. We're going to retrofit one of our digesters to be able to heat and mix it. The whole concept of digestion. What are we talking about here? Sure. We're taking in high-strength waste, potentially, maybe from cabbage, Ben and Jerry's, their waste that's high in organics. We're sending it to an anaerobic digester. We have anaerobic bacteria actually break down the organics and are able to convert it into methane, essentially natural gas. What's this going to cost, Kurt? Over and above what we need to do anyway. Over and above that $13 million figure. What's this going to cost? The total bond amount that's going to be on the ballot is $16.759. So what can the citizens expect? What are the taxpayers going to get out of this additional money? Well, they guarantee about $90,000 lower annual debt service because of the revenue and savings that was said to be bringing in. But we're actually projecting about $230,000 of reduced debt service. So overall, by adding this $3.5 million scope of work to the project, we're looking at actually reduced debt service about a little over $200,000. The other part that should be thought about a little bit is environmental benefits. So a lot of this high strength waste currently gets land applied onto farm fields. And then during heavy rain events, that can end up running off to the nearby waterways and then ending up in Lake Champlain increasing phosphorus. So here at the plant, by bringing it to the plant instead, we're going to be taking that, breaking it down and then treating the phosphorus so that there's actually an environmental benefit to the lake related to the Clean Water Act. And how about just carbon footprint benefit? Sure, sure. Yep, yeah, obviously it's going to get the city closer to its net zero goal. That's obviously why, you know, MEAC's working so closely with us, which has been a great partnership. So yeah, that's what we're thinking about. Yeah, so, you know, there's just a little bit about this project that we think is an important one for the city and we encourage people to go and vote for the bond.