 It's 7 o'clock, actually it's 7 o'clock, we need to convene the meeting of the Waterbury Select Board for Monday November the 21st 2022 in the steel room because of technology it will be solely an in-person meeting as will be we do not have a zoom capability tonight the first item on the agenda is to approve the tonight's agenda are there any move to approve okay we have a second to approve we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion on the agenda there being none all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes next item on the agenda is the consent agenda items for the minutes of November 7th 2022 to approve the first and first and third class liquor license for pine mar and LLC stone straw waterbury and the LMP adoption page completed in sign for submission to for my emergency management do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I'll move to approve motion in a second any discussion on the consent agenda items there being none all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions motion passes now is the time and the agenda is for anyone in the public to speak on any issues are not covered under the formal agenda is there anyone in the audience who wishes to speak skip got a couple of things under public that first I just like to thank the select board for the support on the 51 South Main Street project there it was your most well big turnout and we appreciate your support is what three more days to go yeah we haven't heard anything about a petition but we're hopeful things we've already started the ball rolling with down the street kind of a pre-option agreement that we've signed in so thank you for that and then I would met with you folks since bills big parties and open house here and things and all the work that Ingrid did sort of the open house was kind of from the you know the two boards and things that give the public an opportunity just thank Bill and extend their wishes to him so the commissioners had started a card thanking Ingrid for all our work on this behalf and I didn't know a few folks would like to sign and we would send it if so I'll pass it around and lastly this is the gift we gave Bill on behalf of the select board e-foot and the Waterbury citizens thanking him for his 34 years I barely got it done before the dinner on Saturday night so I know none of you have seen it you've only heard about it from the dinner but I put it together this is the part of a beam from 51 South Main Street that was built in around 1820 so it's a little over 200 years old and things that I I'll read what I wrote on it here presented on behalf of the citizens of Waterbury and gracious appreciation to William Bill Shepplett for his 34 years of dedicated service as manager and protecting and promoting the health safety and welfare of the residents of Waterbury well done good and faithful servant to Bill and this plaque is a piece of a hand-tuned timber from the Wells Crosshead House located at 51 South Main Street Bill as the manager was the last person in that municipal office when he left work on August 26th before it got flooded on the 28th so but he left his office that day it never looked the same after that and I don't know if you've noticed on Bill's office he has one of these kind of a metal sculpture of a fly fisherman standing up but I thought in his retirement he might go fishing setting down so I got one setting down and also this is a pen from Orvis made out of maple wood with a brook trout on it and we gave him a Orvis hat with a brown trout taking a fly on it so he would have a proper hat when he goes out fishing so that was easy to get here but perhaps at home so I just pass around you folks can see what your name is on and you said you were getting some kind of plate for that oh yeah what I printed up on photographic paper I'm gonna get in grade so it'll have a brass plate so whatever with screws on it there and the oldest picture I have of 51 South Main Street and also a picture of Bill and Bill's out there planting flowers Ingrid probably took that picture of you planting flowers I used to see him out there every day or so in May spending all day Sunday or Saturday planting the flowers on both sides of the walk that they used to do pretty faithfully so so anyway there's the rest of the story thank you Skip and thank you for all your part on helping that long thing we're helping that event go on it was very enjoyable I think everybody had a good time I don't know if we had any count of how many came on Saturday or not but it seems you mean that's a house yeah yeah yeah I don't have it but there's a guestbook that's been signed but there was a good number that could yeah probably by the end there was hundred and yeah some I don't know for certain but took a little while when Tom came in with his family there was almost nobody here so they probably went home saying well that was a pretty interesting send off Ingrid was probably pretty nervous that nobody was coming no Bill was nervous and then somebody said well it says remarks at 2 30 so they'll all be here to hear Skip make his remarks well it was good to see everybody I enjoyed it was great thank you all for your partner Skip I don't know if you noticed but I believe that that's lefty's bar and still standing there's been offers to burn it out or toy you know is there any other members of the public who wish to say something there being none we'll move on to the next item on the agenda select board items first an update on the ARPA funding survey and preparation for the December 5th forum that on the agenda the mailing went out with a lot of help from Alyssa and Danny in the composing of it and I helped arrange the mailing through the mail house in Derry I got mine on Saturday I don't know if others have received theirs yet but okay so it is out there in the mail and Tom I believe you've already received a couple about 30 great okay so I just wanted to see what ideas we had about conducting the forum and I don't unfortunately I don't really have a strict plan in mind but I do think that it's worth taking a bit of time to discuss how we want to conduct that because we have invited the public to weigh in on these on these items so any ideas no I was gonna say kudos to Roger sometimes edit things for too long and in a certain point I saw it had been sent so thank you for getting it done I'm just gonna know that there is an online component and that that information is posted on the home page of the municipal website with the link to the online Google form I don't even know if I or Daniel have back-end access but we should like to make sure responses are going that way so folks can do the paper folks can do the online in terms of the question for December 5th I think probably there should be some a lot of introductory presentations staff if they're willing and then some structure whereas folks receive a certain amount of time to speak two components that come to my mind I agree with you there should be some presentation the question is between now and then with open meeting laws can we get together discuss yeah that's why I wanted to put it on the agenda for now how we would do that especially today we have to two out of the five right you know absolutely well I'll offer to do two things one is to compile the results unless Tom you're interested in doing all right well it's the fifth so he's no of a week in between getting back from Thanksgiving and the next meeting but yeah I appreciate your help on that and then I'll I'll work with you on compiling the rest so that we can present the results that came in either online or through the mail and then perhaps we can divide up doing a short presentation on why each one of those items is on the was on our priority list that sound reasonable how and then I know because with family things I've been away yeah one no I would have I think thank you in terms of presenting I think we can present it in my mind we presented this as an equal opportunity for folks to weigh in so I wouldn't want presenting of the survey results to come across that that was like that's some of the ways folks have chosen to provide input coming to this meeting is another way they can so just in doing that I would want to make sure that framing is clear you know like we said use any of the following options right doing the surveys were coming to the meeting so just would want to make sure that's clear and in terms of ideas also just framing that is pretty preliminary you know right yeah maybe we don't need to have present the results right away because that could bias people's input I would think you want to be as open as possible right let's get done compile things with the additional input that you do get at the event because I'm sure there's going to be given that day all right and then maybe we can just see what people's input is and we we could run off some more of those surveys so that people can mark their things without if they don't feel comfortable presenting in front of the public they can just film one out and submit it right there so that's not reasonable okay just a later meeting of just compilation of results from the right and the meeting yeah I think we have one more meeting in December okay I think that's sufficient anything else anyone has just okay it's because it was so clearly written I assume it's pretty self-explanatory I know a lot of people do like it's kind of like public meetings I've seen from a lot of public meetings people show up and make their comments that way versus write some things up you know it's just two different styles so I think you know we're on track to get input which is what's important we're gonna take all the input and share it and we'll well it's done and it's going to be an ongoing process this is not anything final this is a forum for folks to provide input we're gonna have input will help for the discussion totally agree anyone else skip you're up on your sewer presentation thank you for having me I don't know who chose the title but I would have chose a different title I saw Alex in the store the other day and he said oh you're coming to the select board talk about sewer presentation he said I said are you coming he said no I think a better title would have helped you know just sure from outhouse to toilet there we go now no no it's more focused so I don't know how many you know my background as civil engineer with my master's degree in sanitary engineering so this may be too detailed for somebody anyway this is the village sewer system from 1899 when they started talking or thinking about it to the current day you know in Waterbury back before 1899 they depended on outhouses and you were really at a luxury if you had an indoor outhouse and there are many houses in Waterbury today you can see where the indoor outhouse was you didn't have to go outdoors and that picture is one of my favorite postcards it was an advertisement for lifesaver if it doesn't have a hole in it it isn't a lifesaver I wanted to put it on a Duxbury Waterbury historic calendar and the ladies would let you so I got to use it anyway just kind of a quick time frame the village chartered in 1882 they built the water system 1895 they voted to design a sewer collection system in 1899 they actually built it in 1907 so good to show you the good things take a little longer but it did last until the recent Main Street construction it was in use we built the primary treatment state system which is down by where the pump station is by the underpass now in 68 then we had the secondary treatment system which is the lagoon system down by the old Henry farm and we converted the pump station the primary treatment system into a pump station to get it there in 2003 we changed our charter and moved the responsibility of the sewer system to the water commissioners that prior to that the trustees had the sewer in the water commissioners had the water and then in 2014 we added the tertiary coma process to the treatment plan specifically to remove phosphorus and this is a little bit of the interesting history of the early system that in May of 1899 they engaged a engineer VR Nash from Providence Rhode Island to draw up the plans he was a civil engineer Chuck Magnus recently gave a copy of those plans I believe from his grandfather that he was a engineer from Norwich and involved in government yeah I'm in his house and Chuck donated a woody house of now you'll see some prints from it so skin yeah looking back at that last thing there he commenced work on Monday and has two weeks and one week to get the report so how come it takes like and you notice he's made surveys for them up here electric railroad and the sewers in Winooski and things so yeah I read that and he hadn't done in a couple weeks July of 1899 he had the report done in May they had already had four village meetings about it they haven't voted to do it as you'll see in a little bit the waterproof record of all things was the community newspaper by Harry Whitehill who started WDB they were against bonding for this thing and you can see that comment that the wealthy man and the man with the small tax or equally divided on both sides the wealthy people wanted to build it and Waterbury record had convinced the others that it was going to be too expensive for them to do it so some things don't change in divided they had four meetings this was in July of 1899 you know village corporation opposed to progressive improvements they'd already had five public meetings and this was a meeting where they had a warning to do it and you'll see at the bottom there they voted to pass over the article from 70 to 109 so see they were divided this is a couple little articles about that controversy that was that more about the sewers there on the left that it wasn't particle they were thinking about improvements that the village isn't is going to want other improvements over the next 20 30 years and they're not going to be able to keep pace and on the right there was they were critical of the majority of voters have voted against putting in the sewer system and some day they'll have an epidemic of typhoid or dip theory and that's produced cesspools in Waterbury did say how much of the they wanted for the bond pardon how much was the bond 25,000 yeah and so they didn't build it in 1904 every drawer that you've heard his name as the utility district he was the village he was a water commissioner and he was elected village president and because they hadn't voted to build the system sewer system they were installing some individual lines to take the sewage from you know sort of the foot of Bank Hill where the businesses are going down Elm Street dumping into a reports of a small stream that comes from over Tolgrim Park goes underneath the railroad comes out into Main Street it goes down there they were putting in this line to carry that sewage down there and get it away from the district when he was killed in a cave in at the head of Elm Street October 4th 1904 it was a seven foot deep trench and it caved in and he couldn't get out of it there in time so he died right died right there so the failure to the install the sewers really cost them their village president and water commissioner and things I often think of that as I drive out Elm Street and would he end up putting in there's been more water leaks and other things at that spot in the system that is really jinks it is that's for sure so this is a propane or what part of Elm Street is it down to your house or right at propane right right there between the two was where the four inch line it comes down and it cut out over toward the cemetery bank there and things this is the plot that we have had made it came here a week or two ago but it's too cold we're gonna put it on the back of his gravestone Edward is buried out in Hope Cemetery here and they had a resolution at the next village meeting after his death that here it be resolved that the voters of the village of Waterbury hereby express their appreciation of Edward Ferrara as a worthy citizen faithful official and an honest man genealogy integrity and industry were striking elements of his character further it be resolved that this resolution be subscribed on the village records and a copy given to the members of his family so I found that in the village records where they said and we're gonna put this plaque on his gravestone and since I've been a water commissioner and village president I've stayed out of any trench so I'm amazed they were able to elect a dead person I've done that stuff happening in Chicago so they finally did in February of 2000 1907 voted to build the sewer system it was 84 to 31 so they were only a hundred and fourteen fifteen people came out where there was a hundred and eighty voting against it back in 1990 1899 so and it was not the cost to cost not more than thirty five thousand but they hadn't done the bid at this time that was the what they were voting to spend on it they didn't go out to bid and they had you can see on the right the count the estimates range from 17,000 up to what's the highest one 27,000 there well there's one that's 35,000 so they agreed to give the bid WS teach out of Essex and if the cost was going to be 25,000 but is bid with 17 so I don't know what where the other 8,000 came from that maybe it was that on work or something there I think WS teach out there's teach out brothers in Essex that is a plumbing and heating business and I think it's a that's the same family that was doing this work and he started in a spring and they were supposed to complete it by November and here's the end Nash plans that he did in two weeks of the sewer system that this is a couple page that of the sheet and then he had the individual lines profiles of them and things and it had two maybe three discharge points one you can see on the lower part of the picture there which is going down along the cemetery bank where Roger and I walk every day it extended out to the river right there just before the Winooski Street Bridge and the other discharge point was down by Thatcher Brooke and then the plans show one on the right hand side there that was more down on the southern end of town there I don't know if it was ever there or not what he thought maybe they ran into a pipe when they did Main Street there so that's with no treatment no dream they thought the treatment was putting it in the river here's some a table of the quantities and stuff and what you're gonna see in the next slide it was built by Italians kind of by hand and there was a newspaper article about Italians being in a trench that was 12 feet deep when it started to cave in and wow you know you're you built it by hand and it was 12 feet deep how long is that take and I went back and looked at the quantities and trench over eight nine feet deep there was two miles of trench that they dug that were over nine feet deep about you know five miles of trench that was under nine feet and they must have dug them by hand and Woody and I were talking they must have hauled the dirt out by bucket because I don't think you can throw it out over your head 12 feet wherever you threw it it would be falling back into the trench and things and the water system was also built by Italians as well as the Malmance of the electric railroad so I know the laborers for the electric railroad came from Boston I don't I assume these maybe did as well and a little history point I would be interested to know if any of these Italian workers actually stayed in Waterbury and have descendants here today but I don't know that and these are John Collins's notebooks that he had when he built the water system he was the same engineer on the water the one on the left is the water book and the one on the right is the sewer book by the engineer Collins I don't know how they survived the flood of 27 they must have been stored somewhere or in somebody's house to have made it through the 27 flood without being destroyed and Woody you have both of these right and he used the sewer one this past couple years when they were actually digging up the sewer that they built in 1907 so the record of who's connected you can see in these record books the page on the right there is the page for Elm Street you can't it was pretty faint you can't quite see it but you can go down through and see the stations along the distance and whose house they connected and if there wasn't a house there they said that they were open you know James had he is he built where the prohibition pig is and there was a laundry you can see toward the middle of the page was where we put in the Elm Street parking lot and things so and on the left there is the water book that's just the names of the streets where you find where they put the water lines in and the ties to the valves and things so pretty amazing that these have survived this is a you know where they told about the Italian workers that constructed both the water and sewer system on the left there as it tells about they are on lower Main Street in a dug a ditch to 12 feet in a cave in seven of them left the job after that so and on the right there it talks about 25 workers employed and they're going to increase the number of laborers there and stuff and I know the water system has experienced interactions with Vosia over the trench and trench and we've been fine a couple times for not having the trench box in there so they've had experience with that now you're up to 60 1966-67 when the you know the primary treatment plant was supposed to be built here's a salty spaulding Olings was the manager from Booth Bay Harbor at the time he was our first manager when they were talking about the design of the system and we bonded and got a grant for it in 1960 1967 there I couldn't find much information about it other than this that it cost 639 thousand dollars at the time to put the primary treatment which is primary settling and chlorination and discharged they had a little drying bag down back to where the pump station is and the clarifier that was there this is that where that primary treatment plant is that's the pump station now there's the plot that was put on it 68-69 and the trustees were Pete Martin Jim Littlefields who lived where I do and Jack Shea he was the police chief I didn't know that he was also a trustee at the time but he was and you can see the pump station in the center there and then the snow on the right is where the clarifier was I remember in my early days somebody I don't know if it was Bubby talking about the clarifier getting filled with concrete and what he remembers oh yes we let Anderson supply empty their concrete trucks their waste concrete into the clarifier that kind of fill it up I wondered whether they had removed it but obviously not it's still there under the snow and then there's a chlorine contact tank out back you can see the railings and stuff where it eventually discharged and this where the switch treatment is right now or is this the station right down here on the other side of the Thatcher Brooke yeah yeah you can see the other side of that telephone pole yeah and the square thing in the center frame is our trench box skip that was only good for you yeah and your backup generator sits on that well hope the flood mark yeah platform there so it would be if the plant was upset you could smell it from here if it was still in operation there so so that acts as the main pump station now all the sewage all the sewer lines come to this point where the old treatment plant was and then that you can go down was it three stories 30 feet so you can go down that deep there and there's pumps there that pump the sewage down to I think there's one sewer line that comes in here that doesn't cross the road where there's one that comes down from the roundabout and it'll come in by the driveway underneath the train trestle and then it goes into one central manhole before it comes into the actual main station building all the rest comes in under that your book clear across the wreck field because underneath the Thatcher Brooke yeah so this is the map on the left shows the sewer line going down you know out between my house and next door as it comes down Elm Street goes down around and then crosses over toward the Lewinsky Street bridge then all the way up the wreck field that goes under Thatcher Brooke into that pump station right underneath home plate yeah the old outfall when you come down around here where it takes the corner to go over to Lewinsky Street it went straight out to the river there so and then we had to increase I don't know why they did it but increase in payment on the bonds from four to four and a half percent at the cost of that plan was five hundred and twenty four thousand dollars and now that was in 69 we built that then in 1977 the state came along and said well that's not good enough now you got to build secondary treatment and I didn't know it but Charlie Grinnier is working for DuBlois and King at the time he helped design this plant and when we were started designing it Alex was the town manager during those times you can see Newton Baker I don't know if he was president or a trustee but he gave him a hard time you know we just built this in ten years you know nine years ago and they told us it was going to serve our needs for some time and Baker said we're looking for people we could put our faith in so he was criticizing them for things they sort of said the excuse was we were getting more than 250,000 gallons a day of infiltration stormwater into the primary plant that's why it didn't work very well so you know this cost one point eight million dollars we had to buy 48 years of laying down there and conversion so it handled stormwater as well as sewage it did then yeah it was going there but it was designing a lot of more designing there all around the hospital and stuff those old sewers you saw the original design when Nash did that system he said it could handle a quarter-inch of an hour of rainfall so obviously you know they were looking for those sewers that take away the stormwater maybe it's in subsequent of these slides but as I understood one of the other things that had to happen here when this one was done was they had wasn't this the state had its own sewer treatment plant over there yeah yeah got rolled into this one yeah yeah that the state had a primary plant out back of the state hospital they're kind of like a between the powerhouse and you know where the walk path is there now and they didn't want to operate that and they didn't want to upgrade it so they talked and joined in with the village at the time they still operated a pump station after that for a long time yeah it was a pump station the old just like ours our primary plant turned into a pump station all the sewers at the state complex went back to that primary plant there they could go back to a pump station that was working right until Irene and that's where we used to get a lot more flow from the state I tried to find the date that they built that but I they ran out of time to find that I think it was in the 60s that they built their their plan yeah I think it was very similar to the time when we built ours anyway I think the bonds for this one up in the historical society I found a bunch of village of wannabes to pay their right sewer system I gave a couple of them to John Sherman and then the rest have to be upstairs so you look at the price differential and what the costs were back then compared to it's like it's like everything but it still amazes you I like the last paragraph where Charlie Grenier says a plan recommended designed to be operated with low electrical cost how much of the electrical cost if it's what the plan they're huge yeah yeah and they're still huge and we're going to put in the FDEs and all kinds of energy saving things for ages and ages just running the pumps so $42 a year for user the sewer up until the 1990s was paid for by a property taxes yeah so we change that after you were here yeah when we when we upgraded the water system and got a lot of the new meters in and stuff like that we converted the sewage over to tax because you have you know people with high value properties with no flow that would pay a lot more than some low value property that was a restaurant or something just was all backwards there's the little quote from trustee Newton Baker reminding Grenier that the state officials that's your surences were given when the primary plant was built in 1968 that it would serve water brain needs for some time so that's where it says it plagued with deficiencies and forced to handle more than its capacity because of substantial water infiltration into the sewer system skid what were the initial pipes made of when they put them in what were the initial pipes made of when they put them in in the early 1900s quite what were the pipes made of yeah they're there was a little cock in a round over anything pretty standard back in that day a lot of them cracked and broken and hard to tell when they have with a giant excavator I mean I they weren't everything was working the stuff that we put in last couple years last as long as those quite as well yeah of course hopefully the tree roots won't be able to grow into the new ones as they could go into the clay true so June of 2077 we had a bond vote for this 1.8 million dollar secondary lagoon system I didn't have time to I was going to go look in the records and see how many people voted it probably about 40 people but maybe more than things that almost nine million dollars and these are down at the wastewater plant something Pete put together for tourists or tours and things about the plant it was seventy seven five point one million gallons a day and he had a hundred and fifty thousand gallons a day average flow since Irene we're gonna see later on now it's up to about 290 and it was what before that yeah I'm not sure Pete what these numbers were but yeah before I mean it was it was hard to yeah which 2014 was that one the tertiary treatment yeah in a state a little bit of a story behind that the state first wanted us to just throw chemicals out in the pond and let the phosphorus settle through the bottom and then we'd have all this sludge to get rid of that's expensive and we said no we don't think you ought to kind of pass the save on your capital costs and pay you know make us pay the O&M cost so we went to the legislature and convinced them that the state you know should include O&M cost and determining you know what's the most cost-efficient way to do these improvements and that they would fund the most cost-efficient way including capital and O&M and I think they put that into the Statue or something so that was one of the battles that Bill fought for us along the way in his 34 years there are things we'll talk more about some of these things as we go along there this is the current sewer map that Matt and Tony have down at the plant now that shows the manholes and it goes all the way up the metal crest up toward blush hill there and the pump station down at the ice center on the other end of the system there how far up is the that line that goes up as Marigold press where's that ending right well we're in blush hill yeah what you'll hear what you'll still right the bottom right so it goes up to my head over at the end and both a corn drive over the states which is as high as it goes up East Street and goes up you have a pump station up on Lincoln Street extension so right near the parking right is the last area there but you know shawls and the car wash and a little shopping where the townhouse drive is and then Ben and Jerry's is on and then the former church in Colbyville the yellow building that's the gallon shop now that excavation that's going on there now it's getting there. Is that why there's a concern in that area where I know there's talk of if if they ever use that as kind of a bypass road that sewer line being there? No, the sewer doesn't go up, you're talking about the one that goes to the golf course you know the community path. Right, the community path. There's no sewer line up there. It stops just above the pump station. All the people coming to and from still wish that bypass was there. And this is where the leaving the pump station a force main I think it's eight inch that goes along route two down to the treatment plant there. Woody said it it doesn't make that jog when it leaves the plant they board under the railroad track when they did the roundabout so it's more of a direct route there but it comes out of the pump station it's about eight tenths of a mile. You can see the Harvey racetrack there across the river so this is down at the plant the first lagoon is the biggest one the second lagoon and the third lagoon and they easily have a retention of 30 days total for the design flows and aeration and the sludge settles to the bottom and you can see the solar panels over the drying beds we have Chris Parsons installed a few years ago with a contract here and I believe this is approximately where the outfall goes or that would be that would be approximately yeah so it's treated F1 after it goes through the coal mag and chlorinated is this is looking 30 feet down into the pump station just across the brook here and it comes in it goes through a bar rack and rags and things you have to winch it up in pales there every couple days and dispose of it in the dumpster thing so any items that you'd like to present but it does have a significant feature see that spiral staircase to go 30 feet down not offered to go down it with me and I went about 10 feet and said I don't need to go but that is an impressive sterile spiral staircase there and there's two 40 horse pumps that pump the raw I flew it after it comes into the other side of the pump station where you saw the buckets and things goes into the force main to pump it all down to two spiral staircases one on the dry side where you can get down to what's on the left and then one on the wet side so you can get down to see the real workings of the fire rack and so this all fled during tropical storm area it was water on the well above the first floor probably you know yeah I mean how did that all get pumped out it fire just no we just waited the water receded went down and then imagine they had to pump off the dry side yeah look at you floodproof doors is this likely you get flooded again there hopefully it's certainly the floodproof doors are a big help they would I wouldn't stay in there but it'll make some room but it'll hold the back a lot of water yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah question fill out from the wet side which is usually what happens when we have problems there the pump goes down the wet well fills up and it goes up you know 20 30 and it spills over on the other side yeah we we've walked off those process process that have been fixed now so just before you go on those are the two new submersible pumps right the blue pumps are the ones we replace that can be flooded now and still function okay that was a post tropical storm I ran project in Asia yeah we put in new submersible pumps and then there's also there's also basically a place where you can buy that so this is the lab down at the what a people plant this is another one of Pete's notes that he put together on you know the phosphorus upgrade TMDLs as the department calls it that we went under a 1270 you to order for about 20 years waiting for them to decide what the phosphorus limit was gonna be and you'll see later on that we do have a real npds permit now but I think if you bring that closely like the second sentence there right into the upgrade for phosphorus we were discharging about a ton of phosphorus into the every year and now we discharge 200 pounds a year so it's a huge reduction this coal mag of the process that we use for removal of phosphorus that use magnetite he didn't put the magnetite in here with the chemicals that we use to flocculate the phosphorus and pumps there this is the skater diagram of the coal man process at the plant that went in in 2014 and I just remember the number of six million dollars that about what yeah I think that I think it was a little more than seven when it all was said done we can't remember what our share was we wanted for I think it was 285 or 325 something like that so it was probably seven you know and at the water plant the mosquito system that's kind of number I mean what do you call it would you have the the initials make up the word there some yeah we went about ten years and then we had to spend a hundred thousand dollars upgrade the statuses we're probably do not grade this if it's 14 and it's coming up on ten years all the computer parts and everything you change and you can't get them this is the budget for the sewer plant the expenses on the left there one point one million dollars and revenues on the right there 933 thousand so this is where we think Bill does his magic in his financial how he you know spends one point one million and he only takes in $900,000 so it's Tom's job fortunately the one point one includes significant capital expenditures that didn't really happen there's some borrowing on the right side that's in from for those of you who are on the sewer system you'll probably see another brain increase but yeah it's the sewer system has been the water side makes more money because it has another 200 customers and things whereas the sewer is 200 short because we don't do you know up on the loose system and we don't do that's very more town and the rates have been as high in the sewer system so we've gradually been grappling to raise the revenues to meet expenses and things so you can see we're still a little short how many customers do you have 800 so about thousand water customers that the water system has about a thousand 200 I mean a hundred with that's very more town and a hundred when we picked up the old so these are some of the guests at the water treatment plant you can see they like the hospitality down there enjoying the summer swim they make a mess of the place Pete wish they'd find another spot there's they're probably contributing to successfully discourage them from further residing here he goes out every day and scares them off there's also an eagle they used to come Pete would tell me about and sit in the trees there's bullpout they put in that on 20 years ago that are still there and the eagle catches them every now and then and there's turkeys in the field down below and everything so he he really you know liked it as a nature reserve there and this is the other day when I went down to get some pictures that's the lone resident doc you can see out there I think Tony said it was a pintail duck still he hadn't left for the south and this is a sludge drying bed with the sludge comes off the clarifiers and things that spread out here for the D water drain into the sand and really the freezing and thawing breaks up the water bond and really dries it out and then you can see it's scraped up and we send it to Canada at the back of the drying bed where the sun gets in the little you can't quite see it here but those are tomato and pepper plants that grow from volunteers in the sludge yet Tony was he saved some seeds and he said he's the tomatoes so that's very common and sludge the tomato seeds and stuff and this is the sludge after they scraped it up and they stored in this bin to you get a tractor trailer full and then it's loaded into a tractor trailer and shipped to Canada for disposal why Canada it costs like $10-$12,000 a load I think the total cost last summer was in the 10-12-15 thousand I don't know what they have to do to get through customs you should show you the pictures of the three goons in the organic this is this is mostly the phosphorus sludge that gets put up onto these goons there is some addition of organic sludge now because we bought a sludge barge a few years ago but we've in the past think three times in my third years here we've had to remove you know dewater the goons and take the sludge out and we would spread that sludge on the fields around the last time we did the first legume which is well over a million gallons of capacity it was over $200,000 to do that sludge removal so now we bought this barge that they can pull back and forth in the rooms and send it by a pump down to this drying station so even though 10 or 15 or 20 thousand miles sounds like a lot to get rid of the sludge compared to the ordeal that we had to go through to spend $200,000 and that's 10 years ago money to you know you got to dewater it you got a lime stabilize it you know you got to cook this lunch get the pH way up to kill pathogens and then put it on the fields and then you have to water the fields there's running water wells soil monitoring it's a big process so we're hoping this will save lots of money in the sludge costs that's actually a sludge sled on a crammer right there is there any agricultural application so no there's nothing now the organic sludge yours we're still allowed to put it on fields and you know Scribner he used to grow corn on our fields when the old man died that was kind of the end of it we grew some hay and white crops there that we would just turn in but when the commissioner and the secretary were just here you know there's places in the country that are phosphorus deficient so I told her I said we it would be great if the state could find a market for this phosphorus because you know we're just we're taking that out of the system and then we're paying to send it to some place where they buried a hole in the ground wouldn't it be better if we could send it to Ohio or whatever they might be phosphorus but so far then we get to our MPDS permit is this our first full permit yeah since since what was that many few orders said almost sent bill was came here probably that was issued on March 21st and expires June 25th and is I don't say it here but in another flight it's 27 pages long these are some of the testing requirements that we have to go through these are for the conventional pollutants you know there's one for flow and the BOD which is the biological oxygen demand that takes the oxygen out of the water so the fish can't survive and stuff the E coli and the pH and suspended solids and things that are typical and sewage stuff we need to measure then here's the nutrient testing the nitrogen and phosphorus you know the phosphorus is what the Colnag addresses we don't really true the monitor know what it's there the treatment plants on the east side of the state that send their effort to the Connecticut water ship they've got a tree for nitrogen there because the Long Island sound has nitrogen issues so all of Massachusetts Connecticut that whole watershed and then the busotonic in all those places in New York that go down to Long Island sound have to deal with language and where the state should be playing phosphorus is the issue and then this year last couple years we had to do this wet testing this whole effluent toxicity which is measures the biota and things out in the stream both upstream and downstream of our discharge point so that's an added test that you've had to do and that was like $503,000 or something he was concerned about how much it was going to cost to be in his budget and we have two facilities that discharge into our system that have pre-treatment permits with the environmental conservation as well one is Ben and Jerry's ice cream plant which they the one that started the UDAG money but they also discharge the ice cream and really overloaded the plant down here to the point that we had to upgrade and then they had to put their plan in so they still discharge into our system but they have their own treatment plan the things and then the Alcrest Brewery up and cross on the cross over there they threw beer and discharge into our system too so what he just told me that they make as much beer up here in Waterbury as the fancy and how much of a load does that create the addition of the alchemist waste well I mean they need a pre-treatment permit because they present a problem with at least a greater than 5% of our hydraulic capacity or 5% of our B.O.D. capacity so you know any brewery B.O.D. coming out of Brewery is, yeah, pretty nice. It's really nice, yeah, yeah, can we eat your four breweries and have them do that? At least three that we don't want. Okay, and while there's a fourth one in the work, right? Yeah, okay. They don't, the swallow breweries, you know, the three folk, you know, it's the one open on fire? Not yet, not yet. And then the, from Propegas, right? Yeah, they all brew, they don't have pre-treatment permits right now but we do monitor them and they have to do what's called side-stream their waste. They've got to take things out, put them in barrels and some of the farmers or what have you they can't just flush it, but they don't produce enough product right now for pre-treatment to have to make the pre-treatment but that would be the next step if they increase the volume. Skip? What does it cost these days to train a water treatment operator? I know that's probably a $50,000 question. I think Woody and Bill could probably. You're halfway there, Mike. I wouldn't be surprised. So Matt, I mean, Matt's been with us since the spring of 21. Right, since March of 2021. So Matt had no experience in our wastewater treatment. So we earned it in 2021. And when did you get your, you took your test line? This past spring? Yeah, this past spring. So after about a year, so we can send them to school relatively inexpensively. And then how long is the class? It's a 40-hour class that helps you, that preps you to take the state test. It doesn't guarantee anything passing, but it definitely helps you with the material that's on the state test. Right. Just another hundred question, multiple choice. And then, are you, once you pass that test and go on the water side, you need experience. To get fully certified, you have to have a certain amount of experience as well. I believe for grade two, which is what we need for that, so it's two years experience. But you can get some of it through, like, technical, either through college or other work-related training. The water and sewer field is like the old police departments of 20 years ago, when you'd hire somebody, set up the school, they'd work for a couple years and go to a bigger department. I think you can train people here, they get their license and they look for other places that, you know, you can get more money. We've been walking here, you know, Woody was hired in 1990 or so to be assistant water treatment plant operator. Mike Grace must have retired in the late 90s. No, until 2000. Was it Woody? Yeah, he had to wait for the Red Sox. So anyway, and then from 2004 until about 2015 or so, Bill was the water treatment plant operator. We've had Pete Gulchick for over 20 years, Pete's just retiring now. And then, you know, Scott Galliat was hired after when he retired and Woody was the water treatment plant operator. And he's been with us for quite a number of years, about 20 years. Almost, almost 20. And he just left to go work for Oregon High School as their facilities manager. So we've had a considerable amount of turnover in the past two or three months. But, you know, before that, we did pretty well. But yeah, it's a challenging field right now. There's a lot of operator jobs that are out there right now. Thanks. And like I said, we had 800 customers and the system has five pump stations on it. You know, the ice center, the states on it, but we don't maintain that one. Our own pump station, there's one up at the park and ride there by foot of Perry Hill. Oh, there's one on Whismount. The state, they still have a pump station. Yes. They moved it though. It's not quite next to the river. It's been moved and it's in a much better location, even though they have almost no effort. It doesn't even look like a pump station either. So here's some of our quick criteria of permitting and how we're doing at the plant today. Our permit limit is 510,000 gallons a day and we're currently averaging around 193. So there's room there. And like before Irene, we had concern about hitting our pounds of BOD per day to treat because the flows were up and the strength of the waste was really up so that the combination was, we were hitting close to our limit. But now we're not close. We've added the Comag, which is a really super treatment and our flows have gone down. So our BOD limit is 30 and the effluent on our report for October was 7.7. The suspended solids is a limit of 45 and it was 10.5. And the phosphorus limit 0.2 and the Comag takes it down to 0.06. That permit said 0.8, but I know you told me there's a difference between the 0.8 and the 0.2 in terms of how we get there. So anyway, so we're really doing well. The little label down below is on a daily sheet, I think probably Pete put together, which he said, permit limits with triple escalation marks. And he put the limits right down there. And if you go over any of those, you're supposed to call the Department of Environmental Conservation within 24 hours. So we're doing pretty well down there now. And here's what he put together from the flows. You can see on the left the flows before Irene. They were averaging 303,000. And after Irene, nine years since, they're only 193,000 gallons. So flows have gone down. Some of it is, you know, the state hospital doesn't have anywhere near the employees that it had before and took down something like 18 buildings or something there. But high flows have gone down and everything there. You can see that average high flow before Irene. That's when the state's pump station was right next to the river. And every time it rained or it rained a lot, the water was just pouring there. So it's a lot better than it was. So everything is going in the right direction. Some of the things that commissioners are working on and right up at the top, the quality staff that's cross-trained with the water treatment plan, I think that's a really important thing to kind of keep up with, with the loss of staff and being able to maintain. And also the work on weekends is a challenge for us. We want to reassess the charges for the water and wastewater. There's some inequities in the system from the old days and the state changing their design standards and how we administered them and having a category for a high-strength waste. The facts, whales in Greece, the terminology they call fog, grease traps in the restaurants. We still have some that really give us problems in that big pump station 30 feet in the ground there. We were looking at possibly to apply for increase in our permitted capacities before all of this happened at Irene. I don't foresee us doing that now that I think there's added with capacity for the foreseeable future here. Moretown has expressed an interest in possibly getting sewer service over across the river. They've inquired of us a couple of times. We said we're open to it. It would be quite a while before anything would happen. I don't know what Duxbury has as much interest. It also on the water side briefly, we are in the process of taking over the Duxbury water system and owning it. Operators, here's Pete who's almost retired now. They got an award in, you know, 2019 at the operator of the year and they published a big article about him in the magazine there. And on the right is a picture of Pete giving a reporter the tour. And the reporter through, you had given me the reporter's name to write an article about phosphorus. So I talked to her and I set it up with Pete this time and Woody and I went down and I think we met down there about one o'clock. About 2.30, Woody made up the excuse that he had a meeting to go to and left. I stuck around until about 3 o'clock and when I left, Pete was still talking to her. He got about halfway through the process. He really liked to talk about the system and he really took pride in his work and everything he was doing. You know, he was an exceptional operator and he's given Matt here his blessing too that he's going to be better than Pete was. Here's, we have a plaque for Pete too to rename or dedicate the wastewater treatment plan in his name. And there's our operators of the future we hope for a long time. Matt and his assistant operator Tony there who's been here about a year or so. And I think he gave me the tour here the other day and was really interested in stuff so I think he's going to be good. This is the four mass barotters there it seems like. And the interesting fact about this picture is only one of those people is still employed in the water and sewer department over the next month or two. So Pete's retired, Scottie took another job and Brad is going to take another job. That was just a couple of years ago. And I don't know if you noticed it in my opening slide with the outhouse that this Pisces award that EPA came up to present to us. I warned Cindy beforehand make sure it says EFUD on it. It doesn't say EFUD. So you folks are the proud owner of this. Which means you own the system. You know they don't pay any attention to who's who down there and things. So anyway they were supposed to send us a new certificate but I doubt that we'll ever do it. So if you want to see your certificate it's down on the wall of the wastewater plant. You know we've all gone through the Main Street reconstruction it seemed like a lot of construction. And I came across this photo as I was working for my photos for this and things. I'm probably the only one here that walked back and forth. This is the replacement of the underpass down here where the street scene is on. It's two girders 120 feet long that were brought here on Route 2. You can see it coming up over Bank Hill that barely made it. They put piling and rerouted the railroad toward the wreck field in order to build the bridge that's here now. So you wouldn't have been able to get into where the wastewater pump station is there now. And then you look at the little picture all these kids can sit there and watch construction while it's all going on. So all different times I remember walking back and forth to school by it. You could see all the activity there. And interesting I didn't know back in those days they had trains that looked like that. But I thought you only saw those out west. Anyway and that improved the clearance and that was a really bad underpass. There were a lot of accidents there. And that's 120 foot span with two girders which they said is the longest one in New England. So that's your bit of history about the scene out there. And this is the F1. Tony pulled out a jar that was already labeled. I was going to have one see if you could decide. I also think that jar with the effluent was dirty before he put the effluent into it because it does look a little cloudy. So that's the comparison of the effluent that's produced out of the plant. The one on the right is the water out of the faucet there so you can see it. The one on the left is the faucet. Yeah, left. But if we control that we can dirty that one up. I think you're right. I think the effluent jar is dirty because it's a better match than that most of the time. Well, when he pulled it there and he was pouring it in, I didn't ask him to do it over and stuff. Thank you for listening. We'll have the pre-operator tests next Wednesday at seven. So I'll work it up and we'll see who passes. Anyway, thank you. Thanks. I'm going to be glad it's over so I don't email him every day and say, have you got this? Thanks for coming out. Thank you. And if you haven't had a tour of the plant to see the co-magnet process, you really should see it. It's quite impressive. If you want to take a tour, let me know and I can arrange it with Matt. It's definitely worth doing. Yeah. Let's see if there are ducks still there. Pull those two plugs there, Mike. Yep. I don't know if I want to be cute when eating those ducks. Thank you, Scott. Okay, we're moving on to manager's items. The first thing on the agenda is the Sullivan Powers Services and Objectives contract. Bill? Yeah, so month and a half or two ago, you approved the proposal that Sullivan Powers made to audit the 2022 books, the price for auditing this year, which they will do next spring sometime is $25,000. But because they're auditors, after you approve that, now they have sent us an audit scope of services and objectives. I've got two copies here if anybody really wants to read it. If I were you, I would accept my recommendation and authorize its approval, and then there's lines for you to sign on the back page. Any quite further questions on that? Scope of service and objectives contract. Thanks for our second. We have a motion in the second. Any further discussion on the services and objectives contract? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes. Next item is consider a grant application for 2023 for one fruit and nut tree programs. There you go. So I've got a couple handouts here just to help you get it oriented. Okay, so here's the two of you. Yeah, one for each of you. Okay, you got the next one here. Oh, next one. Okay, thanks. Yep, looks like it. Great. It does. I wonder if we get a glim here. Okay, self-guardance. Self-guardance. Thank you. Thanks. Yep. Thank you. So this is a new program. Usually in our tree planting we're talking about something called caring for canopy, which is part of the state's urban forestry program that deals more with trees for our streets and parks and cemeteries and so on. This is a new program. It's a collaboration between the Vermont Garden Network and our urban community forestry program. And this is a program that is designed to increase access to fruit and nut trees and plantings and related educational programs at community gardens across the state. So I've been talking to Tom and Bill and to Wyatt about this program. We just heard about it about a week ago at our tree committee meeting. And so the application is due by December 16th. So this is really just an introduction and then we'll come back with some more detail. The idea would be to do a pilot. It would be in conjunction with our recreation program. And it would be to plant about four to six fruit trees. I think we'd focus on fruit rather than nut trees because they're so slow growing. So Tom wants us to get it to growing chestnuts. So probably in a year or two or maybe a little more we'll be experimenting with that, which American chestnuts, which I think would be great. So the area that we'd like to focus on is shown on these two maps. It's part of the community gardens that are directly behind our municipal center. When we developed the community gardens on at the end of Winooski Street, the community gardens back behind our office were reconfigured. As I think you are aware we had to take up part of that with the parking lot and the library gardens do a conversion through the state and through the National Park Service for the park land and consolidated some of the gardens in the area that shows on this aerial map of Daskomer fields. So on this map there's an area beyond that that is actually in just over the last year or two has been used as a pollinator area and through an organization that's called BEE The Change. And so the fruit trees would be very compatible with their program if they continue and as in terms of providing flowers for pollinators when the trees bloom in the spring. So the idea here would be to work with our recreation program, make an educational program where the kids could help plant, they could keep the trees watered, they could ultimately pick fruits and learn to prune trees, this type of thing. So they already do some gardening according to Wyatt so it would be an added program or in addition to that program. So the grant is, there's no match requirement. It can be up to $500 to $1,000. We're probably looking more in the $500 range for four to six fruit trees. We probably have to remember green gardens get potted trees that are well off to a good start and are pretty easy to care for once they're planted. And so there's no match requirement and it's really a win-win the way I see it. We wanted to bring it to you, see if it's something you would support, if it is, then we'll come back with some more detail and more precise budget and that type of thing at your first meeting in December. I have. I'm very supportive of the idea as much as I like ever green gardens. Cost-wise I'm not very competitive. I don't know how competitive they would be in terms of trees and stuff like that but I know we like to probably support local businesses but it all depends. Being a fiscal conservative I also say I would like to see at least some competitive bids go out. Sure. Yeah, we can check prices. And that's usually pretty easy for outfits like that. They could do that in 15 minutes. And we could get Beirut trees in the park environment. We've planted Beirut trees before. They take usually about three years to really get them off to a good start. A lot of watering. So part of the idea would be to get potted fruit trees and I'm sure there's some other good sources we can check around with Gardner Supply and Burlington. There's a couple different good sources. Emlers have a nursery right over in Wartown so we can definitely check around and get checked on different sources. I just called them to get prices. The idea of what the cost is. It's better. I don't like the idea of some of the big bucks because I have kind of a background in fruit trees and vines and stuff like that and the problem is if you go to the big box a lot of those stock is from out of state in places that the trees might not survive. So I think it's a good idea that you do get a local thing that is getting local trees and even some of the local providers don't do that too. That's a good point. You don't want to spend a lot of money and just have the trees die off. So I may have missed one of the points but this is a grant that you're applying for or are you looking for money from us? Right, no. It would be all grant funds with no local match. That's my understanding. It's a hundred percent grant funded and then obviously we have our staff time involved and that sort of thing. Yeah, but it would be part of the evening. Sounds like a great program. Any questions? I would move to approve his... Let's bring back some detail if that would be okay. I don't know what you think, Bill. Right. Passed-alike boards have been not happy with staff when they come to a meeting and say, here's a grant and approve it now. So Steve talked to us last week and we thought we could get it on. It was a fairly light agenda tonight. So he just wanted to talk about the concepts and if it sounds like you're in favor of moving forward. So sometime it has to be in... December 16th. So the December 5th meeting, you can come back with information. They don't give up four to six trees. Four to six trees. We've got a full layout of all these community gardens, but this would barely impact... Yeah, we have a vacant area. You can see on here at the North Gardens, which is the site right here. Are they being used? They are. We have gardens that stretch back for the first, not even a hundred yards, but probably a couple hundred feet. But then there's an area beyond that, which is not utilized for... Right. It just tends to overgrow. So we would probably use that to start back in that area. That's where the be the change has done some seeding of different things for the airport. So we're just looking at just a few trees, not all these spaces being filled. No, no. They wouldn't be in the area where the gardens exist. It would be beyond that. Yeah, so there wouldn't be a conflict with any of the community gardens. The program likes to have these little orchard areas in conjunction with community gardens. Just makes sense, right? So that's the idea. It would be complementary to the... They could cross-pollinators. Yeah. Any other questions? I think it's a great idea. Thank you. I do appreciate that. We got ahead of time. And I think purchasing them locally with grant funds from Abergreen Gardens is a totally fine proposal if we were to be awarded the funding. Yeah. There are some other local nurseries, too, but we can definitely check around. Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Steve. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. And I know even more about wastewater now, which is good. Yeah. You need any sludge for these trees? Whoa! We know it has a lot of sludge available. Yeah. I think we'll look for some great compost. Thanks. We're now at the end of the agenda. I think I put it out to a few people that the school board chair has asked if we could get the superintendent possibly on the agenda. I don't think it's something that's so real-time sensitive. But I know once we really start getting into budget season, that's probably going to be more difficult. Thanks. So is that something that the board wants to entertain as a speaker for 15 and 20 minutes? Sure, sir. I guess... I'm just wondering if there's any particular... It didn't seem to have a real agenda. I think it's more getting to know the community. He's new. He shake his hand yesterday. One of the things you can talk about is whether the school can be closed when there's elections like we had. So in Waterbury, we really don't have another venue that's big enough to handle a couple thousand people. If somebody at the school suggested that, well, you've got the steel room, you can have them vote in here. And Carla and Karen said when we've had voting in here once, and they said they can fit three of the stands up. And I don't know how many they had at the school, but it would be very difficult to have that election here. And, you know, a couple of years ago, we wrote to the school principal and the administration and suggested that they have election day off. 2021, the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, they had an in-service day, except there was no election in 2021. And this year, they had an in-service day on Friday when school was closed, but Tuesday school was open. So I think that, you know, district-wide, I know Duxbury moved there. They're still doing voting by drive-up at the town clerk's office, which I find hard to believe. Anyway, we really don't have another place other than the school, and if we receive some complaints here from parents that are not happy that there's a whole bunch of adult strangers in the building when their kids are in school. So I know Tom and I talked about it. A lot of communities have moved out of the school completely, but it would be hard for us to find a venue, I think. How about upstairs at the fire department? How much bigger than here? I don't know. There's no parking at the fire station. Yeah, that is a problem. That is access issues. There's no parking at the fire station. The only place would be like St. Leo's Hall or something like that, which is larger. There's a ramp up there. But again, I mean, to me, and I don't have kids in school anymore, but there's enough in-service days built into the calendar that I think that they could choose that day. They usually have in-service days at Harwood, and there's no voting that happens at Harwood. So I know Duxbury used to vote at the Crossett Brook School, and we voted at Brookside. So anyway, that's one issue that you can talk to the superintendent about. That's one that kind of stirred us up. I think everyone got, so as a community member, who raised that issue. And I understand her issue, but I do also think that the school is the most appropriate place for an election, but you just have to, as Bill said, move an in-service day to a different day and then you accomplish your goal. I should probably give them a little bit of warning that that's of interest before inviting them in. Well, if I get them. So should we invite them to the first meeting in December? We've already got the forum on the ARPA funding. Public input. Second meeting in December? Wouldn't be bad. Second meeting in December is when the state police are coming in, but there's no reason the superintendent shouldn't see the state police, if he wants to stick around and listen to their presentation. Yeah, let's do second meetings. To his police first. I think the police are scheduled to be right at the top. Right. Is there anything else that may legally come before us? If not, I have for a meeting, a motion to adjourn. Move that we adjourn. We have a second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Any extensions? No. Thank you all. Have a good one. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.