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HomeMy Public PortalAboutTri-Town Groundwater Protection District -- 2013-05-15 Minutes ti ORLEANS, BREWSTER, EASTHAM GROUNDWATER PROTECTION DISTRICT G. BOARD OF MANAGERS MEETING •-Y eZ c% MAY 15, 2013 w en a v-4 re co Board of Managers Present: John Kelly, Chairman, Orleans; Charles Sumner, Brewster; Martin McDonald, Eastham. Others Present: Jay Burgess, Chief Operator; Beverly Carney, Orleans resident. 1. Meeting called to order at 9:08 a.m. 2. A motion was made by Martin McDonald to approve the Board of Managers Minutes dated April 10, 2013. This motion was seconded by Charles Sumner. John Kelly abstained. 3. Citizen's Forum: • Charlie Sumner stated at the meeting that was held in Orleans for the three Boards of Selectmen, I realized that we did not talk about the District employees. I know that was not the intention of the meeting but we have great staff here at the plant and it is the staff that keeps this plant going and I wanted to apologize to all of the employees. There is a human toll to this transition and I do care about the staff and appreciate everything they do and I just wanted to comment on that. • John Kelly stated he would get Jay a copy of what was discussed at that meeting and maybe we could put this on the Agenda for our next meeting for discussion and get some feedback. We are going to have to rely on staff to help us understand the whole process of decommissioning the plant. It's going to take quite a bit of time with everything that needs to be done as well as the costs involved. The three Boards would like to meet in October in Brewster for a follow up to our discussion. I do echo Charlie's sentiment, that if it wasn't for you, Jay, we would have been closed years ago. Unfortunately, I think we are at the end of the road with what we could do with this plant, even though Orleans did not vote to do anything, it isn't going to go away, something will be done here. • Jay stated his main concern is that we get a concrete date when things are going to happen. Every time we look at the newspaper we see $200,000 for fire trucks, and other things for the towns. We could have been doing things here at the plant over the years, but we never had any financial input from the three towns. Now it is questionable if the plant makes it two more years. We would like a conclusive date. Is May 2015 the final date the plant will be closed? • John Kelly stated the drop dead date, is May 30, 2015. That is the day the Intermunicipal Agreement ends but it does not necessarily mean the plant will make it two more years. The other issue is we don't really know how long it is going to take to do all the things you have to do to physically decommission the plant and go through all the regulatory review. We will have to do inventories and get appraisals. We also have the issue of what would it cost to demolish the plant and would have to get town meeting appropriation. I think the Boards also want to look at drop dead date due to the uncertainty for the staff to know what is going to happen and when. Part of our recommendations that we are going to come up with here are going to be reported back to the three boards with your input and the staff's input. We want to make this as seamless of a transition as we can to give everyone as much notice as we can. We have talked about the post employment benefits. There is also the whole issue of unemployment, etc. There are a lot of issues that we are going to have to wrestle with. We have a number of people here at the plant relying on us to do the right thing. • Jay stated there are three employees who would be at 80%retirement benefits if they had four to five more years of service. As of today, they would be at 50% to 60%, and for them to find a job without selling their homes and moving to be able to make the income that that make here as well as continue with Barnstable County Retirement, they are very concerned. I get questions every day from the staff and they are working hard to try to keep this plant running. • John Kelly stated we can have staff come to the next Board meeting in June and talk out some of these issues and get their input. We have been asked to come up with a plan and I will send over to you the list of items that we need to identify. It's not simply pick a date. These dates can be driven by things that we cannot answer. • Martin McDonald stated it is hard to plan what you are going to do on the drop dead date. It seems to me the towns are constantly hiring people, so there should be some kind of priority established where the staff leaving the plant could get a town job because it seems to me there is plenty of opportunity. It is just a matter of timing. • Charlie Sumner stated we should talk about that. I understand where the staff is coming from thinking about their retirement after investing this much time in their career. There might be some way that we can do some transitions. • John Kelly stated what we are trying to do is work backwards from May 2015 in terms of identifying what is reasonable and if we have a date in mind then we can start to look at the transition. We could get copies of everyone's resumes and keep them on file and as jobs become available that would be an easy transition. The skills the people have here do have application in many of the positions we have in the towns. • Martin McDonald stated the staff needs to know that because the other side of the coin is if some of your staff finds a job elsewhere and they leave, now there is a different kind of problem, so they need to know what we can do for them. • Jay stated they are already looking for jobs. The other thing that is nerve racking for me is that I don't have to come into the plant and tell my staff what to do everyday. If I lost two guys right now and I have to get someone to replace them for two years, I am not going to get someone who wants to build a career off of this plant. • John Kelly stated we might have to hire a company to come in and help run it because you are running with minimum staff here and DEP is not going to let you operate. • Martin McDonald stated it would not be easy, but if we could think of some kind of a way of an award or bonus or something to give the staff an incentive to stay. • Jay stated along those lines, for instance, we talked to Barnstable County Retirement regarding our year end bonuses. I know we have brought this up in the past at Board of Managers Meetings, and for whatever reason, the Board did not want to call it longevity. The staff gets a bonus every year. The bonus is not included in our income as far as Barnstable County is concerned. If it is called longevity, it is included. They have stated it would be in our best interest to change the wording from bonus to longevity. • John Kelly stated the reason the Board did not call it Longevity was because it was based on the ability to pay each year. • Charlie Sumner stated we change it to whatever helps the employees out. I get Longevity and it goes into my base pay for pension. • Jay stated as long as the language is there it would be considered at the time of retirement. • Charlie Sumner stated we should have this on the next Agenda and do whatever we can to help the employees out. • John Kelly stated he doesn't have any issue at all with changing the wording from Bonus to Longevity. I know we voted in December, and it is a lump sum and we could call it Longevity/Bonus for that year. 4.Discussion: • Barnstable County Retirement Appropriation Payment: Jay stated at the last Board meeting Charlie Sumner asked if the District were to pay the full amount of the Barnstable County Retirement Appropriation in one lump sum versus two payments to save money. After reviewing the Appropriation amount due, it would bring our bank balance down quite a bit if we were to pay it all at once. • Drainage issue on plant property: • John Kelly stated there is an annual inspection for EPA storm water, and there has to be an inspection of all town facilities and properties to assess what the run offs are. • Jay stated Mark from Orleans DPW, came to the plant and we spent an hour or so talking about it. He said he was going to be back the next day with someone from , I think, the EPA. The same issues came up about the drains and where they are going. I told him the history and how we did the dye test on the bike path. I also told him how the leaching field was torn up when PA Landers did the work on the bike path. He didn't seem too concerned about it and said he would be back the next day. He wanted a list of anything that might be in containment areas. The next day I saw him drive into the parking lot and they sat there for quite awhile. I expected them to come into the plant but they drove away and I never heard from him. • John Kelly stated he talked to the new Orleans DPW Director about the failed curbing. One of the catch basin frames is broke and there is a drainage issue, and the culvert is rotted underneath that area. Whatever we need to do to contain the water, the Town of Orleans will take care of it. If we need to do anything,I will have to get permission from the Board. I don't think we will be looking for the District to do anything at this point. We have to make an assessment as part of that, and they are doing every property in town because of the proximity of the plant to the wetlands. I think the things that Jay has been mentioning are things that we have known about but the District has not had the money to fix, so the Town of Orleans will just place sandbags there to keep the water on Overland Way so that we don't have any run off that is untreated. • Jay stated AATTA-BOY Septic Service has been sold to Paul Lothrop's employee who has been with his business for many years. That company will now be based in Orleans. It was previously based in Eastham. AATTA-BOY Septic Service has been our best paying customer for many years. 5. Chief Operator Updates—Jay Burgess: • Process—The nitrates were 47 mg/l. We had Filtrate Storage Tank No. 3 cleaned out by a vactor truck. There was about two feet of sludge on the bottom of it. During that process, I was discussing with my lab guy that I was a little worried about the nitrate number now do to how denitrification works. It goes to anaerobic areas and this might be one of the areas that is providing us with some sort of denitrification because we recirculate back to that tank and I wouldn't be surprised to see our nitrate numbers rise considerably after this is done. And the numbers did. Our testing is today and we will have the numbers back next week. It is still within permit range. Everything affects the process. We had zero TKN, which is unusual. We usually have 3 or 4 mgs. of that to add to the nitrate numbers. All other parameters that we test for continue to be in the single digits. All of the 1500 gallon tanks that were put in { years ago are finally having to be pumped and we do see a lot more solids now, but nitrates are pretty consistent. • Maintenance—We pressured washed the No. 2 Filter Press and completely made all necessary adjustments to it and it is now like new. We started the complete rebuilding of the hydraulic pump that services that press. • Flow—We received the list of properties that have not pumped in three years from Brewster, and the number was 3,000. • Charlie Sumner stated that is about one-third of the community. • Jay passed out the Reminder to Pump Letter for the Brewster properties for the Boards review. He stated there is one pumper listed that does not come to Tri-Town, Wind River Environmental. • John Kelly stated the question came up at the meeting of the three Boards regarding the District's monthly net cash flow. I did not have that information with me but I told them we are heading into our peak season and it will increase, but will slow down when we reach the fall and winter months. • Jay we usually peak right about September and right around November the bank balances get low. • Charlie Sumner stated we are going to have to start figuring out what needs to be done regarding a consultant for demolition. I assume we are going to need a consultant for permitting things and writing specs, which is going to cost monies and I think the three towns should come up with that money rather than trying fund it in the Districts budget because it is just not viable. • John Kelly stated we actually need appropriations in the next two annual town meetings. If we fund this, we need an appropriation and the only way to do that is through town meeting vote. We can come up with a plan with what we have to do now. In many cases bringing in an engineering company to help us with the assessment of what the value is so that we can frame for what we need for an appraisal. At the same time they can help us with what DEP is going to require in decommissioning, as well as the costs involved and the steps. The group that has been doing our independent studies has been told they are ineligible. Wright-Pierce Engineers is the group that did The assessment of the plant and they are the ones that came up with the costs estimates for demolition. We need to ask who Brewster and Eastham think is acceptable to see if we can agree who is impartial. • Martin McDonald stated he is concerned about the money because if we wait until next May, I don't that is enough time. It seems to me we are talking about an engineer and there is some study and planning work that has to be done before that and we are going to have to pay for it. • John Kelly stated when we start to look at what the cash flow is, I don't know if we are looking at a large amount of money,but it might not be that bad. We need to have a ball park figure of what it will cost. We need to find out if there is any salvage value in some of the equipment and get a list from Brian Dudley, DEP, of the things that need to be decommissioned. We need to start a list of things we have to do so when we go back to the Boards in October we have a plan and time line. If we come up with some projected costs we can see what we don't have and how we are going to get it. • Martin McDonald stated we only have until October until the Boards meet again, and we have talked about a number of things. We should have a preliminary list of things that have to be done. • John Kelly stated when he goes back to his office today he will e-mail Jay what was discussed at the Orleans Selectmen's meeting of all the things that we will need to come up with in order to have a plan, and ask Brian Dudley if they have a check list for decommissioning the plant, and place on the June Agenda Board of Managers Meeting. • Charlie Sumner asked that he be copied on that e-mail as well. 6. The Board reviewed the District's bank balances. 7. A motion was made by Martin McDonald to approve Treasury Warrant No. 12 for payment. This motion was seconded by Charles Sumner and unanimously approved and passed. 8. Items for Future Agendas: • Review information that was discussed at the last meeting of the three Boards of Selectmen. • Change wording in District Personnel Bylaws from Bonus to Longevity • Review checklist for decommission of plant 9. A motion was made by Martin McDonald to adjourn the meeting at 9:55 a.m.. This motion was seconded by Charles Sumner and unanimously approved and passed. Respectfully submitted, 671/11( Cyndi Bachman District Secretary