 Okay. It's September 8th. It's 504, so we will start our Board of Health meeting and pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of open meeting law, GLC 30A, Section 20, this meeting of the Amherst Board of Health will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. For information on remote participation, please see our agenda on the Board of Health website. There you will find a Zoom link and directions for telephone dial-in. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. Every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the town's website an audio recording of the meeting, and that's in the Board of Health. Approved meeting minutes will be posted on the Amherst Board of Health website as soon as possible after the meeting. So with that, I am going to have a roll call. So we have Tim, Maureen, and Nancy here. Is Lauren there? No. I don't see Lauren. Lauren is absent. Okay. And so welcome everybody. I have the great pleasure with Jen to invite, introduce you to our new public health nurse, Olivia Lara Kahun. I met her last week. She is an amazing asset to the health department. And thank you, Jen, for filling in both Health Director and Public Health Nurse. But at last, we have a public health nurse who is a true public health nurse. So, Olivia, I'm going to introduce you to, I'll let all the other Board members say hello to you. And if they have a question or two, they can ask you. Great. Thank you. There's Olivia. Hello, Olivia. Hi. And that's Tim. Hi, Tim. And I met, we met at some point, one of the clinics, I think, the PD clinic. Yeah. That's Maureen. Maureen, nice to meet you again. Yeah. Lauren is not in attendance. Do you have anything you want to ask the Board, tell the Board or? Well, I can just introduce myself quickly. And thanks for having me on, on Board. My name is Olivia Lara Kahun. And I recently joined Amherst, the town of Amherst. I'm very honored and happy to be here. It's great to work with a good group of people, wonderful team of people. And some things to just highlight, you know, we're doing our COVID clinics weekly, and we're waiting for the bivalent vaccines. But also some school vaccination clinics are starting up soon, which is great for some of the community members. And also, another exciting project we're working on is to team up with Tapestry Health to bring harm reduction resources to the town, such as Narcan syringe, clean syringes in exchange with the ones that have been used. And other types of services such as wound care and STI testing will be offered to the community. So we're really excited about this collaboration with a wonderful organization. And I have a lot to learn. But I'm also very excited to be part of it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And it's just so exciting to have you. It's so great. I know you say you're going to be learning and I'll learn alongside of you, but you're bringing so much to us as well with your background and expertise in TB and refugee placement. So thank you for all those gifts. Thank you. And don't hesitate to let us know how we can help and support you any way we can. Great. Thank you so much. Okay. Olivia, before you leave, I want to just introduce everybody or let people know that Michelle Miller is in the attendee. She's a town council member, and she wanted me to let you know that she's there. She can't come in as a panelist, but if there's any questions or she may raise her hand. But anyhow, Olivia, I'd love that you know that one of the town council members is here. All right. Thank you. Thank you. See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Okay. Bye. So next on the agenda is review and receive the minutes from our July 14th meeting. I've read them. And they look great to me. Thank you, Nancy. I don't know what other people think. I didn't see anything that needs correction or explanation. It seems they seem fine. Tim? Looks good for me. I can make a motion to move that we accept the minutes as presented. I can make a motion to accept the minutes of July 14th as presented. I'll second that motion. Any discussion? All in favor? Maureen? Hi. Tim? Hi. Nancy? Hi. Okay. Public comment on the agenda for topics that are only on the agenda. If there's anyone in the public who would like to say anything, please raise your hand. I don't see any hands. I don't see any. Okay. Okay. So next we have all business. So toxic chemical regulations. Tim and Lauren. And I know you have some things to add to that too, Jen. Yes. So I don't know if you want to start. Tim wants to start. Go for it. Well, I think I made the edits which were suggested and was sent to Jennifer. And I think you can take it from there, I think. Okay. So I wanted to know if I can have another month with this. I've done regulation revisions and created new ones when I was on the board, but just wasn't sure what my role is as the director. But I really went through it. And it's such an important document. I just want to make sure that I understand it correctly. And it gets disseminated. It's a nice clear document and gets disseminated. And it gets used. I mean, I like regulations because ultimately it's about people. So that's why we do them. So is it possible for me to make edits to this and suggestions and then submit them to people over the next month? I mean, can I give it to you next week to review over three weeks before the next meeting? Or what's the best process for this? Because I'll tell you, I listen to town council, how they say things need clarity, consistency, and actionability. So I like all those things, but really implementing it's the biggest part. I'm thinking about how do we really make sure this goes to the right department? Because the way I'm reading it now, it sounds like I will be reviewing every purchase. And I just don't think that's the intent. Yeah. So I just want to make sure it's really clear how this gets put into action. So anyhow, that was my thought is to do a little more tweaking and submit back to you. Well, Jen, as you know, we never get regulations move very quickly. Usually we take a while, the process to make sure we've done it correctly and there aren't any errors. And Tim, you can chime in. I am fine with you take what you need, send it to Tim, and then we can send it out for our October meeting. Is that okay, Tim? Yes, perfectly fine. It'll be also if you can make use of this time to share it with the fire department. And also in any offices procurement offices, just to see if there is something you know we wanted to modify or add, because they are going to be the implementers. So especially the PFAs are of some sort of a more, you know, more associate with the fire control and fire department. So they can have some sort of input to this one. So yeah, I've reached out. So yes, the answer is yes. I think that's a great idea. And I know you said that the last meeting I started thinking about like other departments, well, you know, DPW, diesel, we use gasoline, they use fluoride, you know, so they're all these chemicals. So I just want to make sure and then, you know, the 2001 regulation, you know, had its reference or the scope of what we're doing. And this one's a little broader, at least the wording is. So now this includes the school and I reached out to the school side. So I don't want to start doing too much and go down the wrong path. So maybe I can really communicate with you if that's appropriate about doing this correctly. Yes, I think sharing some of these actual what is involved to the to some of the owners, you know, procurers departments often is better now than afterwards. Doing amendment later on, I think we are not saying you have to stop doing that or anything like that. But we are actually saying that take all efforts to during the procurement to make the vice judgment. And I think, you know, clarifying with them, and how they how they interpret that, I think it will be very helpful for in terms of words, more things. Yeah, no, I agree. I think you're right. And then, you know, I'll be learning some things as well. I think if it comes from, you know, different contractors, it's standardized, they need to state contract, it needs to be the least toxic. But if it's a different purchase, it doesn't. So there's these different vendors. So I want to figure that out. And I think it's such an important thing that we have. And how do we do it correctly? So good advice. Thank you. So thank you, Jen. Thank you, Tim. And I'll share it with Lauren as well too. I know okay. Yeah. Okay, so any other comments on toxic chemical regulation? Move on to the community assessment. And we had a meeting the end of August on phase two, which is just about complete. Emily has been collecting a lot of very good data and has many, many questions that will lead to phase three and our qualitative assessment data. We have one other new, they're called four plus one master's students at UMass. They have high GPAs and rather than doing four years of undergrad and two years of a master's, they start taking there some graduate courses, their senior year of undergrad. And there's one other student who's definitely joining and we got a communication from a second student who we're going to interview and he is probably going to join for three of the community assessment. And now that the classes are beginning, we might even get another one or two who are looking for graduate projects for their degree. And we are meeting next week in person at the Bangs Community Center to finish phase two and move into phase three. And Emily will be presenting the phase two data in our October meeting. Okay, any questions for me on that? You know, I just want to say thank you because we've used some of the data already. That's fantastic. Okay, so again, it's so frustrating. There's so much data that's not available, not accessible, probably doesn't exist, that should be in existence. So next is the gun safety. And I brought that up because of gun violence escalating. I still believe that we should assess our protective and risk factors in Amherst and Hampshire County. And I went into August 2022, the American Public Health Association had a very good article in the nation's health on gun violence and gun safety. And Massachusetts is one of the five states with the most restrictive gun laws. It is good. In 2020, there were 45,000 deaths related to gun violence. In Massachusetts, at that point in 2020, we had one of the lowest fire on mortality rates in the nation. However, Springfield had an increase of over 50% in 2020 of deaths related to guns. In Massachusetts, we're doing a lot of very good things. Massachusetts banned assault rifles, limited the magazines that anyone could buy to 10 rounds, have comprehensive background checks, have red flag laws, new applicants have to undergo a gun safety course. We banned semi automatic weapons. You have to be over 21 to purchase a handgun or large capacity whatever they are. We have stricter standards. We have a Massachusetts coalition to prevent gun violence. And one thing that the American Public Health Association has come out with that said that licensing laws are health. But what's more effective than background checks is gun safety training to get license. And we have that here in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts and the Massachusetts coalition to prevent gun violence and the APHA noted that Massachusetts does a little bit more to address the root cause of gun violence by having community based violence prevention. And we do have social services that can help prevent people from using a gun as a last resort to settle an argument or commit suicide. So I thought that Massachusetts is doing well, but I would still like to hear from the police department their view of our protective factors and our risk factors. Just, I found that so helpful when Scott Livingston came to our meeting, I think it was in 2012. And I think it would be behoove other board members and the community to hear what the police department and maybe even Cress is doing in the area of guns. And I want to put it gun safety more than gun violence. We're using safety to prevent the violence. And I prefer that as our public health approach than saying, oh, gun violence, but it's really how can we improve gun safety and safety measures in town? Nancy. Your thoughts. Yes, Maureen. I had a question if you've seen anything from the state where responding to the Supreme Court decision, which restricts the kind of regulations that had been enforced in Massachusetts in New York, where you have to have a good reason for a concealed carry and that's no longer, you can no longer do that. You have to, you can still do training, you can still do licensing, but you don't have to have a reason like that you're at a special risk or a special category of person to carry a concealed weapon. Is that red flag? No, that's red flag is, I thought that was, if someone seems dangerous, you can take their gun away. Oh, okay. But this is different. And I know in New York, one of the things you can say is, well, you can't have a concealed weapon in certain areas. Like, I know they're trying to define, like, what is time's way. Yeah, okay. So there's a different approach to trying to limit concealed weapons. Yeah, I know that. And so I'd be curious to know what, I haven't read about it in Massachusetts and I'd be interested to know how the state and local areas are responding to things like that. Okay. If you could just send me a little more about that and I will do research on that. Okay. Because I really, yes, yes, I really relied on the August APHA work. Right. And I don't know if that took into account these decisions. No, that was written as the Supreme Court. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't enough time. No, you know, yeah. Okay. So I will look into that too. Yeah. Did you have a comment, Jen? Oh, I was just going to ask you if you'd like me to do anything. Do you want me to email Scott to see if he's available or the chief or a representative? Let's hear what Tim has to say. Tim? Well, couple of questions or at least something to think about is what is something with the state regulations are missing, which we could actually address. And usually I think when we have a local bylaws or whatever it is, and usually we add or address some of the things which were not covered under this into the state laws. So that's one thing we need to find. If it's already under the state regulations, we might be having a redundant regulation happening. And I think the second one is it'll be helpful. I know you mentioned Springfield, but I think it'll be very helpful to see Amherst and neighboring towns. What are the statistics related to gun violence? I mean, we could include the neighboring towns. So as a region and see if we are facing imminent threat or anything like that in terms of trends we have, we see. But I think those two will be helpful for us as we design our policies to have a good justification to move forward. Okay. Mine isn't to write a regulation per se. It's just to see, to assess our risks and preventive factors. And then do we have to take an action? But I will gladly look into that. And I think probably having Scott come to our next meeting to talk about what the police department is doing and what they're seeing. And I know they link up to UMass and just to hear that again, because that was 10 years ago that we heard it. And I think it would be good for the public to be aware that the Board of Health is, knows that this is a public health problem and that we are looking into it. Not that we definitely have to take an action, but we need data on our protective factors and our risk factors. And is there anything that we as a Board can do to help with that? I think maybe when we invite, beyond asking them what they are doing, but we can also ask the same questions. Are there some things we could help them with, beyond the state regulations? And also see at a much more regional level. For example, you mentioned Springfield, what is there any potential vulnerability that there might be a spillover of that violence into minor valley communities? I mean, they might have a better idea about based on their experience and case studies and how that inter-town interactions occur. I didn't look at the most recent data. I looked at the 2020 data because that's what the APHA had out. So, do we all agree that having Jen invite Scott to our, and possibly having Earl Miller there too, because Crest will be part of the looking at root causes and de-escalating situations. So, I think both of them might have good input for us to hear. It would be for us to listen and then ask if there's anything we as a Board should be doing. Okay, Jen, how is that? Yep, absolutely. Do you want to take a look at the email before I send it? I'll draft it just to make sure. Okay. Sure, but I'm sure it will be fine, but you can shoot it off to me. Sounds good. Okay. My agenda here again, exactly at 5.30 and we are moving on to our new business, our geothermal wells. And here we go, Ed. Thank you, Ed. All right. Thank you. I see in attendance, we have Hannah Kowalski, who is from Dandelion Energy, and she was with us two months ago. I think when we had four applications, we've got three more tonight. I've shared information with you and I think they're all quite straightforward. Let's see. The information for number, the ones that were labeled number one, that's the 24 North Prospect Street address that's right near the Historical Society in the center of town. The, I think it's three boreholes are located in the south yard. And I saw no yard, so. Well, this, these systems can fit in existing lots. They don't require, you know, a two acre lot. They seem to fit, you know, in all sizes of properties in town. And from talk, I did an inspection this morning on McClellan Street, one that we talked about in July. And the installer who was there doing the piping between the two boreholes in the house and had just finished a pressure test. They test the system at 100 PSI and it operates at 30. And it was a, it was a pass, was a successful test. But it's, the company is getting a tremendous amount of interest. Yes, there's a good heating while growing up. Yes. So do you want to look at those in detail? What would you like to do? I trust you, what would the other board members like to do? I have some one small question in there. This is the 24 North Prospect. Yes. Okay, that's the number one. Yes. That was the attachments label number one. I mean, after installation of the borewells, I'm just curious, is that a garage or I'm just, there's, is that a garage access to it or which will be on the top of this borehole? Sorry, is it on the lawn? It's in the lawn. It's a little hard to see. Yeah, it's not. It's some red arrows in there. They're kind of behind a sign that referenced the labyrinth that the homeowners had made on the lawn there. It's just behind there. They're set a good 20 or more feet back from the street and in from the neighboring property to the south. Number two is 252 Strong Street, which is a property of the architect Chris Riddle. And that's not quite down to where the train tracks are. His property is set way back. A flag lot, I guess. There's plenty of open room there. It's a largely flat property. They had already, in that case, they had marked out where the dumpster was going to sit that was going to take away the spoils. There's a better word for it, you know, the product from the borehole. I was just going to say, ed, spoils or drill cuttings works. Either was fine for us. Okay. Thank you, Hannah. And then the third property is 64 Mill Street. This is one, if you looked at the aerial pictures that were part of Dandelion's packet there of plans, Puffer's Pond is just visible, but it's still well set back and away from Puffer's. There's no issue with wetlands there. And the property is very accessible. And in fact, these are going in the driveway. And I believe the driver will continue to be where it is once the connections are made to the boreholes. Of course, the Puffer's Pond. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. No, how far is it? The Puffer's Pond from the boreholes? Actually, I have to find that letter. I think it was at least 150 feet or just over 150 feet. Is that a... Yeah, it's just over 150 feet. I'm looking at the support level, the support letter I put in for number three. When I walked that property, there are two boreholes in the driveway there. So is it... This is just a general question. I know there is a 200 feet buffer for a lot of water bodies, right? The state regulations. So this one falls within that. Am I correct or not? It is within 200 feet. I'm not sure that it applies in this case. I think wells have to be at least 100 feet from wetlands. I don't have our regulations in front of me. Sorry to say. Oh, go ahead, sir. No, these are considered some sort of installations, right? They are not wells, but they are some sort of modifications done. I'm just curious. I mean, if it is part of the River Protection Act or it would be good to check that one. I don't know, Hannah, if you're better able to speak to that than I can. It's a sealed borehole. Yeah, so it's... Go ahead. I was just gonna say, it's one of these, from my experience, and we do work with different towns and different towns, you know, have different municipal regulations on what they feel comfortable with. Because they're closed-loop well, they're kind of in this gray area. We're talking to the DEP back in April when we started applying for these well permits. Because they're closed-loop, they don't necessarily apply the same way that like a drinking water well would or an open-loop geothermal system would work. So I haven't really gotten super clear guidance from them on what laws they want to apply. Basically, we've been going on a town-by-town basis what folks are most comfortable with. But I can definitely reach out and double check with you or with the state about the 200-foot area. I do know that there is a 200-foot resource area buffer for, I think, streams, perennial streams. And water bodies. Yeah. But I'm not sure... Let me pull that up. We're on the zoom here. Okay, so some activities are allowed within the 200-foot buffer based off of, you know, the impacts to the resource area. And per the river mass... Or, you know, I'll just send this to Ed. The mass.gov website listing, it says the burden of the proof is on the applicant to prove that the work done within the resource area will not have a significant adverse impact on the riverfront area. So my interpretation, and obviously I'm the person applying for the permit, so I'm biased, but my interpretation would be it work is allowed within that 200-foot resource area provided that we do not make significant impact to the resource area and we return it to its native state once our work is completed. I've found something relevant to... This is a document from Mass DEP. These are guidelines for ground source heat pump wells. This was from December of 2013 and it was put out by Mass DEP. I can share this with the board too. On page 18, I'll get back to that. Yeah. Ed, I looked at those too because Tim's questions kind of last time we talked about these made me think about a lot more things to do with these closed-loop wells, which I thought we didn't really need to worry much about at all. And when you Google things, you come up with those 2013 regulations, which do consider the closed-loop wells in different ways, but they were revised in 2017, although I couldn't actually I found something on the DPH website that said they were 2017, but when you open it, it's still the 2013 regulations. And they took out a lot of the regulations about the closed-loop. They found that the closed-loop wells weren't causing any problems and they kind of reduced the number of regulations on those. But I'd be curious to know what the current their guidelines were because these keep coming up. This seems like it's not a flash of the pan here. Oh no, no, I think this is the low end of the bell curve. The part that I was, the 2013 section that you and I have read does say that closed-loop and DX wells shall also be located at least 25 feet from potential sources of contamination. Closed-loop and DX wells shall be located at least 50 feet from private potable water supply wells, not within zone one of public water supply wells, and shall be located at least 10 feet from surface water bodies. So that's actually what we're talking about, I believe, with Puppert's Pond. So I can check with MAST EEP tomorrow and see where, I mean, see if they can give me a link to the 2017 revision and see if that bears on this. Yeah, and I just sent you, I think I sent this to you before, but the email I had from Joe Saruti back in April hilariously also links the regulations that go to the 2013 document. So I sent it to you just so you could have it, but I don't think it's going to be helpful in this instance. Okay, well, thank you. It might, and again, I know I'm the applicant, so it's up to you guys to make the final decision, but I'm okay tabling that permit until next month, until we can get a better answer, because it's close to a water body, just to make everything more comfortable for you guys. I would feel more comfortable with that. Claire, what about you, Tim? You're the water expert. Yeah, I think the 200 feet riverfront, when it was written, it had some specific needs in terms of protecting the water body, but I think since this is within the 200 feet buffer, I'm just curious there is going to be construction, that's going to be, I mean, of course there is going to be restored to the original state, but there's going to be some disturbance to that buffer area. So clarifying with the DEP, just to say this is part of the riverfront buffer, is it okay? And if it is fine, I think we are talking about a few feet, I think, because it's above 150 foot, it is going to be something the DEP wanted to give a feedback, I think it will be much more, we will be much more comfortable doing that. Yeah, I can certainly reach out to our designers, the only thing that might prevent us from moving the wells closer to the house is usually just making sure we have enough room for the equipment to move around and that we're not going to, you know, hit anything with the mast of the drill where it's going up and down. Sometimes there's power lines, sometimes there's tree limbs, things like that, but if we can move it, I will definitely reach out to the design team and see if we can get it further away from that water body. Okay, my measurement was that it was at least 150 or just over 150 feet from the water's edge, the two, and they're in the driveway, they're in a, not a, you know, it's in an improved part of the property already. The machine will be accessing the borehole sites on a driveway itself, so rather than on a lawn as we see in the other properties. I mean, it looks like I think there is some space for the 50 foot. I mean, if we can see if the design can be altered to not fall within the river protection, I think that might be the easy approach. Yeah, of course. And if we're going to, you know, table this until next month anyway, that'll give us enough time to, you know, play around, see where we can fit it in the yard that's as far away as possible. And hopefully we can get outside of that 200 foot buffer. If not, at least we'll have talked to the, you know, the DEP and kind of have guidelines on what they want us to do going forward in terms of, you know, obviously we put up silt fence to prevent erosion and we make containers for the drill cuttings and spoils, but, you know, going forward, I'm sure this will come up again. It would be good to have an idea of what they want from us as a contractor. Thank you. So if we table number three, can we take action on number one, 24 North Prospect to number two, 252 Strong Street? Yes, we most certainly can. Do we have a motion to accept those? Okay. I'll make a motion to accept the two geothermal wells, ground-sourced geothermal well permit applications for a number for a Strong Street and for North Prospect Street. I second it. All in favor, Maureen? Aye. Tim? Aye. Nancy, aye. Thank you, and you'll get back to us on the Mill Street home. Did I see one on Cosby? What did I see? No, I didn't. Okay, thank you, Hannah. Yeah, no worries, and I'll talk to Ed tomorrow or late early next week to figure out next. Yep, thank you. All right, thank you. Anything else, Ed? Can I quickly ask a very general question? Yes. Maybe Hannah also can be here. So we had been seeing more applications over time. I think last time we had some applications, now we have three applications. I'm just curious what is the trend in terms of applications in the future and what type of density we are looking at in terms of these geothermal wells? As a contractor, I can speak to RN just so you guys know what we're looking at here. So there's a number of reasons why this is kind of growing in popularity. Just from a personal carbon footprint thing, people are interested in having this technology that makes a significant impact on what your life and your lifestyle is producing for carbon. As oil prices fluctuate, it also is nice to kind of feel like you have a little bit more control over how you heat and cool your home. So that's a benefit. We also have people who like it because they like being off-grid a little bit more. We're definitely seeing a large increase in the number of people who want geothermal systems, both because the nature of oil prices is fluctuating a lot more, I think, now than it previously has been, but also because there's a growing number of government rebates for these systems. So both on the state and federal level, and I'm terrible. I literally just fell out of my mind. I think it was the Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed this summer. Yeah, they basically increased the rebate, the amount of money you could get for doing green energy solutions pretty significantly. So before I know in Connecticut, you could only get like $15,000 back, and now I think you can get $30,000 back depending on your circumstance. So there's motivation for homeowners to do it because, you know, just financially, the overall cost is a lot lower. So from our end, we're definitely seeing an increase in the number of people who are interested. And I think at some point, we'll probably hit, you know, maximum capacity that people want is going to do it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this being a more regular thing. Thank you. Any more questions, Tim? That's good to know, Inna. Thank you, Inna. Yeah, anytime. And like I said, take it with a grain of salt, because I do recognize that I'm biased. I'm the contractor. I clearly want people to like the systems and do well, but that's the latest knowledge I have. Thank you. So anything else before we move on to the next piece? I think I'm sorry. Yeah, thank you, Ed. Thank you, Ed. All right. Thank you. Thank you. How is are you involved with, you know, student, I got some emails about students moving into apartments that were a mess. Are you part of that inspection piece or is? Yeah. Yeah, I came on board with Amherst 11 years ago, primarily doing housing inspections, half-time in North Amsterdam, half-time here. And I continue to do that. I've become a building inspector on top of being a health inspector. And John Thompson and I, the last several weeks, you know, were have been ramping up to we're doing as many as we can right now. It's not such a great number, but it's definitely a sort of a panic time when a parent or a student, you know, has come in and they're trying to sort out what are their rights, what are they responsible for. And every occupant messages has the right to a housing inspection if requested to the board of health. And those come in directly to us in the inspections department as health inspectors. So yeah, we do see them now. I came just before this. We do some sort of preemptive meetings, especially with the Greek houses. And we were sitting down with one of the North Pleasant Street houses and introducing ourselves. We have a team of the fire inspector, John Thompson and I, Bill Laramie, the community outreach officer, and Augie, the new comfort dog that the police department has taken on. And also liaisons from UMass, Sally Lenowski, and the off-campus housing office. So, you know, sometimes people will forget the perpetrators and sororities are off-campus housing. And we work closely with them at the beginning of the semesters and do thorough inspections during the semesters and respond to complaints from within and without the houses. Plus all of the private rentals in town. Yeah, I got a circuitous message about a parent upset about a housing situation a child was a student was moving into and I just said contact inspection services. So have you seen an increase in those with the student move in? Yes. Okay. Yep. And many of those we can, we're really just facilitating communication between landlords. Most of the landlords are used to working with us and we try to affect, you know, positive outcomes as much as we can. The market for student housing in Amherst is difficult because the move-ins happen so much all at the same time. And you have an inexperienced consumer of this product, they don't know what to look for, they think they do. And they, you know, unfortunately those criteria they have about privacy or, you know, close to campus or whatever, don't always work out when they come up against, you know, an issue like a lack of hot water or, you know, responsiveness or something in a landlord. So we do the best we can to help them. How does vision you were getting bombarded in the last week? Yes. It's the busy season. It is indeed. But you're handling it okay. All right. Do you have enough resources? Well, you know, there's certainly talk about revising the program so there would be pre-inspection and we did have some western mass health inspectors had a training a month or so ago with the Williamstown health inspector who was, has been in place for a long time. He was there before and during the implementation of a mandatory inspection program for all housing units. And he was saying how difficult it was until they all got inspected once and then actually the benefits of the program have really been kicking in. But those first two years he said when they were trying to get everybody done once it was just nonstop and they got better and better at it. But still if we move to that we won't have the resources to keep up with the normal sort of complaints unless we have some additional help, I would say. Now is that going to that the TSO committee of the town council? Are they involved in that? I believe so, but I'm not. I mean, I know it's it's an offset. Jennifer Taub and I believe. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, let us know if there's anything we can do to. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for all your work, especially as all the students come back. It's great and appreciated. Thank you. Okay. All right. Take care. Okay. Next on the agenda, I added something, the chair's report. After last month's meeting, I realized that the fiscal year for Amherst is July 1st to June 29. And everybody has reports. So I decided to go through and I went through all our meeting minutes. And I just want to give you sort of a summary, first of the accomplishments. We've done so much in the past year. A year ago, the end of July, we had Jen assume the position of interim director in public health nurse. And think once again, for doing that, she became our full time director in December. And up until last month, she was filling both roles during the parts of the COVID pandemic. We spent a lot of time on the COVID pandemic. The board had mask regulations that we put into place beginning of the pandemic. And then we adjusted according to metrics and the variances. And then last September, we were the first town in the US to require FDA approved COVID vaccine for students entering the public school that was implemented by the school committee. And then we, we didn't do it with some of us helped it, but especially Maureen supported the health department with all the vaccine clinics, the safety measures and education and testing. So that was a tremendous accomplishment. Last June, we did the listening sessions post vaccine clinics. And that material is going to be rolled into the community assessment. We did the our racism statement. And we're in phase three of our community assessment. We wrote the proposal, the data collection tool, and then we reached out to UMass School of Public Health and have Emily and two other students now working on it. Jen with a little bit of input from myself put together orientation binder materials for new board of health members. None of us had that, but now Jen has that new members, you know, we all did it by the seat of our pants, but now there's thanks to Jen. And then a lot of what we did was reviewing and revising our regulations. We completed the biological labs were in the middle of the toxic chemical and then refuse collection of mandatory recycling. We've been working a bit with Zero Waste Amherst and Darcy Dumont. We passed a motion last January asking for the town council and 10 manager for input on moving the Zero Waste proposal forward. I emailed the town council and that the TSO group of the town council is going to meet on September 15th and they're going to be discussing the refuse and mandatory recycling. So that's a lot. Then I have to find my paper here. I went back and looked at our regulations again. And we have one, two, three, four regulations under aquifers and well water regulations on summer from 1990, 2000, 2012, 2011. I don't know if we really need to take any of those on completely right now. We have a group of tobacco products and smoking regulations and I have questions there. We have prohibiting smoking and vaping in workplaces. We passed that in 2021. We restricted youth access to exposure to tobacco and nicotine in 2020 and Jules is in a big lawsuit. But part of all this is we have the tobacco handlers quiz and I'm going to ask for follow up on how that's going. Is it being used? And if we have a regulation and a quiz that's not being used, it doesn't do us or the town any good. And then there's also a landlord multi smoking disclosure in multi-unit residents. That was 2011. And then we put a model landlord disclosure of the smoking policy. It wasn't dated, but that followed that regulation. And I don't know if we need to address that. One area that when I started reviewing is under wood burning regulations. And I was on the board when these went into effect. In 2013, the regulations were revised cause regulation governing emissions from solid fuel burning devices. And that's really the opacity of smoke. And I know it's very complicated to learn to be an opacity viewer. And I know a Julie had to go out and do that. I don't know if Jen has had to do that, but we have regulations governing the licensing of wood burning devices operators in 2012. And if you have a wood stove, you have to get a license. We have to get a permit to install it. Then you're supposed to get a license to use it. And there is a quiz. And I don't know how this is enforced and with, I know we have geothermal wells going in, but I'm sure other people are going to start burning wood this winter with the price of groceries going up, up, up, and the price of heating oil going up. So I have a question on that. The other regulations that I don't know if we need to address, there's regulations for body art establishments that were amended in 2012. And that's after the state approved tattooing. We, and all the others have been addressed. So I wanted to bring that up. I don't know if you want to discuss any of that right now before I do my other two. Does anyone want to comment on the regulations? Nancy, I can comment on the tobacco handlers quiz. Okay. Coming up next week, the Pioneer Valley Tobacco Coalition is a collaborative, is meeting in person and Cheryl Sbarra is going to be there. And you know, I'm just looking at my schedule. I'm not sure if I can actually make that. I'll send you the information. Okay. But one thing they're going over is retail clerk training. So I know, and that's, I believe that's no, I can't say if that's new or not. But I know when I looked at the tobacco handlers quiz in November, December, I remember thinking, you know, here's this really important tool. Here I am new coming to it as a clerk might be, you know, how does this work out? And, you know, I thought there were some things that could be looked at, and maybe modified, improved or updated. Then I went online and there's something online, there's training online, but through the Massachusetts MHOA. And I did that quiz, I was like, wow, that's really a great thing. You know, it was up to date and it was sort of snappy and attainable. You know, I felt like someone could do that on their phone or an iPad sitting somewhere. So I just feel like since this was a put in place, there might be some benefit to listening to this new method of training. Most definitely. The quiz was put in place for education to help prevent retailers from getting fined. But if there's a whole new and Cheryl Sabara, because she is the queen of tobacco regulations, working on that, that would be a great thing to put in lieu of our, our quiz. Yeah. And, you know, I also I'm looking at the report from the Pioneer Valley tobacco collaboration. And I see that there's education checks, but I don't know what that refers to. I don't know how new that is, if that's something that that's been done. It looks like it was done in 2020. So anyhow, I'm not sure what that is, but I'll send you the information on that meeting. Okay, great. Do you want me to send it to you, Maureen? Yeah. Yeah, I will be back Thursday afternoon and Friday. So if the meeting is earlier than that, I won't, I won't be in town for it. It's Thursday. Oh, okay. Maybe I can make it. Okay, I'll send it. And then I'll get training in wood smoke density, but I just haven't thought about it. No, I agree with Nancy thinking that there may be an increase in use. Since 2013, I think the new wood stoves are significantly improved in terms of their emissions. But I think you can still use old stoves, but you can't sell them or install them. So I don't know how quickly those would be phased out. But if we have regulations about having to get educated and take a quiz, we should probably know who's monitoring all that. Yeah. So is that something you can look into, Jen, to give us an update? And is that a regulation given the environment and everything else that we should be? Because that one was 2012, it's 10 years old. Regulation governing the licensing of wood burning devices. I'm trying to look into that. That might fold in with something else I'm interested in. And also the permitting of wood stoves, too. That we don't have. Well, that's not, yeah, I think. That's not us. But that's probably like something, you know, that there hazards from, you know, I think that is, I think that might be inspection services. So this is where I need. Yeah, let me, I can look into that definitely. You know, I'm sort of interested in these air quality monitoring, the purple you know, and then you think about climate change and particulate matter and just, oh, you know, I just think about all those things. So it sort of, it comes together. So I can look into that. The answer is yes. I just remember the air in certain areas of Amherst in the early 80s when their energy, various energy crises, and it was like a haze. Lowered into the like the cold. Yeah, into the low spots. In the last energy crisis, when people were using wooden boilers, I went to the APHA meetings and I went to the environmental section and I kept asking, what are you doing about wooden boilers? And I couldn't get any answers at the American Public Health Association, which was very interesting. Massachusetts might have limited those. And then smokestacks have to be so high and there's this inversion of where the house is located and it's all beyond me right now. Any other questions on that? So we'll start looking at the wood burning regulations and figure out what we'll do from there. And then I thought our plan and goals for 2023 is to continue the regulations, review and update. And then, I don't know here, is the infrastructure of the health department. I talked a little bit with Jen about it. When I first came on home, I was on the community advisory board in the late 80s and early 90s for the health department, which no longer exists. But back then, there were the inspectors and it was this big, vibrant health department. And then even up until five years ago, the inspectors were all at bangs. And there was always this free discussion. You could look up and ask Ed or someone a question. And I think the health department lost by having the health inspectors move to inspection services. So I think looking at the infrastructure of the health department and possibly moving the inspectors back to the health department might be helpful. And then I put down succession planning. My term ends next, I think June, I don't know, something like that. I don't know, do they all end in June? Is that it? Okay, so I ended June, although I was appointed in on October or something, I don't know. So someone's going to have to replace me. And then we need to prevent long-term vacancies and we need to appoint members to the board with skill sets that will help us with a lot of our decisions and then help the board develop public health services as necessary. And then also, so I've been chair for quite a while and then, poof, I'm gone. Who's going to be chaired? Will you need help in learning what's going on or are you going to be stuck taking the emergency to your pants and being a chair? And we have an absence, we have a vacancy right now and that we really do need some skill sets for board members so that we can ask the right questions and know how to get the correct information related to a lot of decisions that we're making. And Tim, when we look at Wells, your skills, we need engineering skills and other skill sets. It's not just come and sit on this board and, aha, you can do it, you really need skill sets. So I just wanted to bring that up. And that's the end of my report for, I thought, okay, no one's ever done this before. In the 20 years off and on, I've been on the board more on than off, but I think maybe we should have a chair's report every year at the end of the fiscal year or something, or you could pick a calendar year, but I decided to do it with the fiscal year. Do you have any questions for me? I appreciate that review. I think it's also looking forward in terms of, you know, clearly looking at regulations that are 10 years old makes a lot of sense. Some come up periodically of their own accord, but some of them just sit there. And all these well and water ones, we really need people with expertise. I know we have Tim, but we've always had like two engineers that could work together. Yeah. Since I've been on the board, there's always been like two engineers, two, like a nurse and a physician, and then another skill set, a varied skill set, but it is important to have engineers with all the water well and septic regulations that come before us. Permits. So what's happening for getting Steve's replacement? Anything? I know they have had one or two applicants, and when they get a certain number, then they'll present them to us. But I can check back. I check in frequently with the town manager's office. Yeah. And it might be a good idea to look at engineering, civil engineering. And because I'm coming off having a nurse on, because I know Julie found that not having a nurse on the board was a hindrance to the board. So possibly. I think the idea, I mean, someone with real public health background like yours is extremely helpful. You know, I feel like my physician role comes in handy on certain things, but I don't feel like, you know, while I have some understanding of public health, I'm not fully trained in those areas. And where a point of view doesn't come immediately to mind in a public health, I'm a more like, you know, you deal with one, one thing at a time, kind of know the way. That's what's beautiful about all the skill sets, how they come together. And I think that's an important one of the skill sets we need. I mean, there are a lot of different things that come into this in terms of very technical things. And we don't know if another pandemic is coming more in the pike or another serious God knows what. So just even the thing about the health assessment, you know, for the community and thinking about things and how we, what we do with that information and how we take it forward. I know Jennifer has that, that, that straining in interest and ability, but it helps also to have a board member with some of those same skills. Well, thank you. So one thing we can also consider is, if you are not able, I mean, we don't need to depend totally upon the panel, I mean, the board skill sets itself. I think we should have some sort of a invite external experts, you know, occasionally, you know, because I think that's very important, we should, we should also do that, you know, keep that in mind, because many of them will be available for one time, you know, coming and giving us a consultation, but committing like a long term participant in the board, they may not be. So I think we should use that alternate model too, to have a much more broader skill set. Yeah, is that, I wondered about that. I mean, is that looking at volunteers or is that hiring someone? Is that, I don't even know if we have a budget for, I don't know how that would work. The Board of Health has zero budget. We have no money. That's what I figured. I'm sorry. For the health department. But if we knew people who would be in, with those skills that we know of, who would be willing from a, on a case by case basis to be able to come in and review something, that would be a good list to have. I agree. Yeah. We had a former board member who, who was willing to come back to answer questions, but when Jen and I reached out to this person to ask a question in the past year, that person wasn't willing to jump on and, and help. Remember that? Jen? I don't remember specifically. Yeah, it was, but it's hard to get people expertise in volunteering and, and willing to, but if we can get that, that, that set of consultants or whatever, it would be wonderful, Tim. Yeah, it need not be a paid consultancy because I think there are a lot of consulting companies which could charge like a fortune. I think, I think some of the public universities like UMass, you know, has so much expertise. They also have these types of consultancy as a service. You know, they can do it voluntarily. And I think that's the best way to go forward. So Jen, this came up when I started working on the community assessment. I think maybe I can meet with you and you can meet with Paul and we can meet with people in the School of Public Health to get a more formal, get a formal, not a more formal, getting some connection, some formal connection with the School of Public Health. Well, I, I, I agree. I mean, let's keep talking. I agree that, you know, we, this town, which is just incredibly experts, you know, the possibilities of the two colleges and university, you know, when I talk about wastewater surveillance, I can tell you I had two calls today about wastewater surveillance from, I think, from the university. So, you know, there's interest in what we're doing. You know, could we have someone come in and talk about, about that, for example, you know, but we need to get more of a, of course, when I started this whole process to get students to work, we need a more formal agreement or connection with the School of Public Health. And then we could get, we could possibly get help. And then also the, with Tim and the School of Engineering. Yeah, Nancy, I agree. I know when you said it to me, I thought it was a great idea. I still do. And just to figure out how to do it, it'd be a shame not to. And I was talking to you about it and you weren't the director yet. Oh yeah, now I'm thinking about the director. It could be like a, some sort of a memorandum of understanding between the university, not just the School of Public Health, but also we have CNS and College of Engineering. Oh yeah. And the big, right, the big grant to, and I apologize to the professor, but around TIC study, huge, huge. That's a immense, you know, expertise in epidemiology, modeling, disease spread and everything like that. And I think if we have some sort of a informal agreement that, you know, with the universities or Amherst College, see if we can tap into, because I think that one of the mandates is, as a public university, UMass, as a mandate to actually serve the communities in Massachusetts. So I think that is, they will be willing to do that. I like that. I think that's exciting. So this discussion is doing well. They've been great partners, you know, Amherst College, UMass, you know, I don't connect so much with Hampshire, but every time I speak with them. And the School of Nursing has a new dean and they just got a lot of money. So they're another group, because when I was reaching out to the School of Nursing for the community assessment, it was a very poor response, but we have, there's a new dean and it's a new school. They're having a new dedication and they have a lot of money coming into it. Good for them. Yes, Elaine Marib. I had her as a professor in the early 70s in polio. So now she gave millions to, well, she died, but they gave millions to the School of, it's being renamed the Elaine Marib School of Nursing, College of Nursing. Okay, so director's update. Okay, I have a few things on here, but I think it's going to be, some of these things will move through quickly. So the COVID update, so I sent you and it's posted on the Board of Health webpage. Go to the packets and see the data. This is something that's populated by Joseph Afoso, our contact tracer. Every day he goes in and he puts in the new total cases, the number of cases that people are in isolation and new overnight. So this morning we had 9,996 cases total since we started March 2020. I bet it's up to 10,000 by now if we looked, but the numbers are beginning to tick up. These are case count numbers. They're beginning to move up and we know this is not the accurate number. It's an under representation as we've been saying for a while. PCR testing is down, home antigen tests aren't reported. So this is something we'll be continue to look at. It's one of our key public health indicators, but it's not going to be the only thing. I sure love the interactive map from DPH that comes out every Thursday. We also look at other things like our vaccination rate, the hospital, bed occupancy, the ICU bed occupancy, but also I do want to talk about or just draw attention to our COVID surveillance, the wastewater testing. And that has a great website. It's been created by IT department Brianna. We post the reports as they come in. We collect the wastewater during the week. We get the results at the end of the week. So there's a little bit of a delay. I think there's like a two-day delay. But I did get phone calls from two residents today saying that we skipped some data points. So I'm going to take a look back at that and see what the issue is. We try really hard to communicate this information because we love this program. So I will take a look at that. But we do know we look at trends. So that's the really important thing. It's not going to be a little blip on the screen, but we sure want to be accurate this time of year, September, with new residents and students coming back and watching that. But again, that's one key public health indicator. So that's what I have with numbers. It's something we continue to watch very closely. And I'll just give a shout out to Joseph who I mentioned before. The Department of Public Health Massachusetts states that we do not need to be doing contact investigation, but municipalities can decide what they do. So we've decided for now it's best practice that we're contacting everybody. But what that means for the Amherst Health Department is we contact a priority. We go for the most vulnerable populations. So Joseph in the morning will look and see who's three-year-old and younger and do any cases. Eight-year-old younger, 15 younger. And so we'll look at group homes and 65, 80 years older and we'll contact people there. The CDC kind of relaxed their requirements a little while ago. And there's some real benefit for people taking care of themselves, what you should do. It's up to you to notify your contacts. You should know that you isolate for five days and then you put a mask on if you're not symptomatic. We have it on our webpage when you're COVID planned. But here in the health department, we're charged with keeping our community safe. So we'll continue to look out for our vulnerable population best we can. That's it for numbers. Let me know if there's any questions. I do want to let people know last night around 5 p.m. we got an email saying from the state, would you like more free antigen tests? And they said you don't have to take everything. I filled out the little survey. I said we'll take it all. So we're getting another shipment because I thought the last one was going to be it. I think sometimes these funds I'm worried about them wrapping up. But we're going to be receiving 20,340 rapid antigen at home tests. So those are two tests per box. The last question, the expiration dates. Yeah, extended three months. So these September ones are January. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so we're just thrilled to get these. We've always shared with our partners like Emma Survival, Craig's Doors, Nancy Schroeder has been great at getting them out to different agencies, social services. But now with all this, we're really just so psyched to get them into the hands of people that want to use them. How do you use them correctly? I love antigen tests. I'll say it again. If your question is, am I infectious? It's going to give you a really good answer. So that's the beauty of it. So I had friends come in from out of country, out of state, and we all had a swabbing party. You know, even for me, I knew I was going to ask them to test, but it felt a little funny. I mean, it wasn't funny when I asked. But you know, I think it just, I want it to be more commonplace. It's like, Hey, have you tested? You know, we're going to see grandma. Going on to COVID clinics. The new bivalent. Thank you so much, Maureen, for helping with orders. We have ordered the Pfizer. We ordered that a few weeks ago, and it should be in any day. We've ordered the Moderna recently. The bivalent vaccine is only a booster. So I should say bivalent booster. If you haven't had your primary series, it needs to be with the original monovalent. So we still have some of that every now and then we have somebody come in that wants to get the vaccine. The first experience is such a good feeling. But 12 years and older is the bivalent. So if you go in to get your booster, as we hope we all will, because this is such a milestone to have something new like this, they'll give you the bivalent. You don't need to ask for it. But the bivalent is the original strain, the Wuhan strain, and then the Omicron dot four and dot five. I'm glad they kept the original strain in in case there's any other mutations coming up. And I'll tell you where I got that little tidbit of information. Your local epidemiologist, everyone should subscribe to that blog. It's really interesting. So in Amherst, we're going to be giving it Thursdays. We have these office hours are 12 to 2, but we're going to be expanding them in the next week. But I do want to tell people that all of our partners already have the vaccine and are just up and running. So UMass has clinics Thursday. Oh, well, you know, I guess go to the website, I would say they have them going on. I can't vouch for what they have. Oh, no, it Thursday, so one to four, Wednesdays, 10 to one, they have 12 and older. But anyhow, check their website. Northampton, who's our partner, regionalization partner, boy, they're so active kudos to that team over there. They have two long clinics during the week. So there's a lot of different places to get them. I think there's kind of a rush right now. It might be a little harder, but it'll be easier in the future. I talked about the surveillance. I think that's it. So that's my COVID update. Any questions on that? I just wonder, is it too early to see what's happening in the public schools or, you know, is there a sense of what's happening here? Regarding cases? Yeah, just, I don't know. So I have, they've been up and going for two weeks. I haven't heard about it. Yeah, no, it seems too early to see. Yeah. I mean, their program has changed. The state isn't supplying them with different, with the pool testing. We'll definitely partner with the schools, you know, let the ARPS community know that they can come here for those antigen tests. But no, no, Maureen, I haven't heard any. Just curious. Yeah. Yeah. Item B, the remote meeting provisions. I meant to talk about this last two months ago, but it has been extended through March 31st, 2023. So that's the remote meeting provisions. So we can stay online. And, and at some point, there'll be some kind of transition to possibly hybrid, but we're good until, until then. Originally, I think we had asked, or, you know, the people that put this bill forward to have it extended to the end of the calendar year, 2023, but March 31st it is. Item number C is Public Health Excellence Grant and Regionalization Update. This is a grant that we signed on to about a year ago with Northampton, it's the Public Health Excellence Grant. It's something that the previous director here had talked about possibly putting into effect with our neighbors, but it didn't come together in time. So we're in with Northampton. And what they're looking at is some shared nursing services. Right now, that's the first phase of it. There's going to be some phase with data collection or maybe that started, and possibly if we choose, there's no, no need for us to, it's not mandated inspection services. So that might benefit some other people that are part of this Public Health Excellence Grant. But right now, what's happening is we've spoken to the public health nurses in this grant, and they're going to be coming to Amherst, to the Banks Community Center, and providing us some education. So we're really excited about using their expertise. So I've joined with Haley Bolton down in the senior center and the Public Health Excellence, and they'll be coming in doing a medicine reconciliation in service at the senior center, and they're coordinating it with the drug take back day in October. And I'm sorry if I don't have the dates right, I'll try to get that out. But that's such an important part about making sure that people know what meds they're taking and then get rid of the meds they're not taking health-wise and then also prevent someone taking those meds that they aren't prescribed to. I believe they're doing a blood pressure clinic. They also have Narcan training, some other training. So those are scheduled and on the book and they're happening this fall. So thanks to Meredith Over and Meredith O'Leary in Northampton, you know, building this. And I'm going to be joining their group sort of on the board there to talk about how things are rolling along. They also can help with contact tracing. That's another service we've used now and then when we've gotten into a surge mode. So with contact tracing, UMass takes care of UMass. They have a really strong system of contact tracing there. Great group. And then we have Joseph here. We also have Olivia, our public health nurse. We help with Amherst College. They have a team. But if we get to the point that we need help, we can use the shared services. So really exciting thinking about this because I know how do you how do you say at the SAPHG? I used to call it SAFE 2.0. I don't know if it passed completely without through Charlie Baker. There were some revisions, but that was looking at regionalization. But we're really taking this, you know, really strongly now there. It's something that we can retain our autonomy, but but look at shared services. And that was part of the blueprint that came out in 2019. Moving on to item number D, childhood immunization clinic. This is something that had been started back years ago with the school Robin Supernaut and Julie Federman. And we we sunsetted it 2019. But since COVID, we've had a lot of requests and particularly from the schools to see if we can start this program backed up again. So again, another thank you to Maureen helping me look at these different orders for childhood immunizations. So what it is, is a clinic. And I started a standard operating procedure. Let me see if I can read this quickly. So what it is, is I had it a minute ago. It's a small immunization clinic that's for Amherst residents only, it's for uninsured students or residents that need childhood immunizations. We can give it to them free and the child immediately can attend school. So what I've always said is it's one part vaccine and nine parts support. So they come in for a vaccine, wherever they came from, they need a polio vaccine, they're not up to date. So we can give them a polio, we can give them a happy. And then we say, listen, if you need health insurance, Deanna Soler is right down at the Misanti Health Center. She's ready to talk to you, get mass help, whatever you need. And your next vaccines need to be with a trusted provider, you know, medical home used to be the term. So we're starting that back up again. We had the state inspection audit, we have everything in place, we've ordered the vaccine, and that's what we're waiting for at this point. Yeah, thumbs up. That's great. That is fantastic. It is wonderful. And part of it was, you know, putting everything together, which we had so it felt pretty comfortable. But we reached out to the Misanti Health Center. I said, you know, I want to let you know, what do you think? Is this a good thing? And they were thrilled. They're like, oh, my word, we have social workers, can we refer to you? Deanna Soler, and you know, it's like, oh, my gosh, can I walk people up and introduce them to you? I was like, yes. Then I also spoke to two providers, two pediatric offices, and they were both were also excited. They said, that's great. This is wonderful. Every now and then we really need your help. So it's supported by the community now. And I think that will be great. Item number E, mosquito control update. So in the beginning of the year, and maybe May, we started the process to join the Pioneer Valley mosquito control district. And we were conditionally approved. We are on the wait list now. And I'll tell you what the glitch was is that we were ready to move the finances to them. But if I get this right, the Pioneer Valley mosquito control district needed it specifically written by the town council that we were moving these monies to them. And it had to be worded in a different way. So it just took a little bit of time and it finally got to them. But there are a few towns that are still wait listed. So we've been receiving the benefits. I don't know if they've done trapping here. The state may have done trapping here. But that's something that's where it is. And we'll pick it back up again in the off season. So we're ready to go next year. And it's been a dry year. So West triple E, you know, out in the cedar swamps. Those have been pretty dry. Triple E has been way down West Nile. There's been a few cases because they breed in standing water. This last rainfall may change that. So maybe we need to all be a little bit more careful because I've seen like one mosquito. And I live down by Lawrence Swamp. Item number F is sanitary sewer overflow. So as a health director, I get emails from Department of Public Works, and they're named SSO reports. So that stands for sanitary sewer overflow. And the first time I got one, I emailed back Amy Russeki. And I said, seriously, what is this? Because it seemed amazing to me that we would clog up our sewers and they would have sewer overflow. I don't know if it's sewage overflow or sewer overflow. I think it's sewage. But just then recently, we've had a larger event. And it was posted on the news feed for the town of Amherst. And thank you to the Hampshire Gazette for picking it up and anyone else that did. But I can tell you that what happened, and you may know this, but August 26, the town experienced a sewer line blockage, and it caused a sewer overflow, thousands and thousands of gallons of sewage that affected a single family home in two Amherst College dormitories. So when they took everything apart at great cost to, you know, the people involved, you know, it's a big team that has to do it, you know, and construction, what they found is that that's oils and grease had solidified. So when you pour hot oil down, it gets cold and it makes this big plug. So I'm just saying to everybody, let's just think about it. The other thing that wasn't in the article is a lot of times what they get up from these plugs is sewage. But what they find is people flush dental floss, face masks, and then flushable wipes means they can be flushed, doesn't mean they degrade. So they cause problems. Yeah. Anyhow, I just wanted to say something. I think it's a big problem. I think we can do better. So, you know, if you have grease, trap it properly, get rid of it, get a little container from Target, put it next to the toilet. Don't flush dental floss. Thanks for listening to that. So that's my director's update. Thank you. Next, if there's any additional public comment, and we have three attendees, and Chris Riddle has his hand raised. Oh, thank you for seeing that. All right, Chris Riddle, if you can state your name, where you live, and then what you'd like to say. Chris Riddle at 252 Strong Street in Amherst, and I'm calling to apologize for being late for our let's see our application for a geothermal well. And mostly I'm asking if there's anything I need to know, whether any kind of decision was reached? And is there anything I must do or what do you need? Can I do anything to facilitate that? What is the status of it? It was approved. Well, that's fine then. Pointing that I didn't have to be there and speak personally in favor of it. We approved it. Thank you very much. That's awesome. Yeah, the luck with that. Yes, exciting. Well, yes, you're looking forward to it. It is exciting. Happy geothermal heating. Okay. Any other, no other hands. No other topics not anticipated by me. Although for our November meeting, I am going to be out of the country. So someone else will have to chair the November meeting, or we have to move it. And I have nothing else. Does anyone have anything else for the good of the board or the community? If not, we need a motion to adjourn. Our next meeting is October what? October 13th. Okay. All right. I'll make a motion to adjourn meeting. Okay. Seconded. Okay. We moved and seconded. Tim, voting on adjourning. Yes. Maureen? Yes. And I say yes. And thank you, Jen. And thank you very much, Nancy Schroeder, for taking minutes. And have a good month. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.