HomeMy Public PortalAboutTri-Town Groundwater Protection District -- 2014-01-08 Minutes i
;ORLEANS, BREWSTER, EASTHAM GROUNDWATER PROTECTION DISTRICT
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" BOARD OF MANAGERS MEETING
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JANUARY 8, 2014
Board Present: John Kelly, Chairman, Orleans; Charles Sumner, Brewster;
Martin McDonald, Eastham.
Others Present: Jay Burgess, Chief Operator; Cyndi Bachman, District Secretary;
Beverly Carney, Orleans resident; Mary Ann Bragg, Reporter, Cape Cod Times
Newspaper.
1. Meeting called to order at 9:05 a.m..
2. A motion was made by Martin McDonald to approve the Board of Managers
Minutes dated December 11, 2013. This motion was seconded by Charlie
Sumner and unanimously approved and passed. Vote: 3-0
3. Citizens Forum:
• Beverly Carney, Orleans resident, stated at the last Board of Managers
Meeting there was discussion about the District's Annual Report for the
three Annual Town Reports. The only recent ones she found were 2009 for
Orleans, and 1999 for Brewster, which she handed out copies for the Board
to review.
• Charlie Sumner stated that it would be a good idea to compose an Annual
Report for the District to be put in all three Town Reports.
• John Kelly stated we could take the annual report that Jay prepares and
include it in our Annual Town Reports. He also stated he would put
something together and circulate it to both Charlie and Martin so we can
finalize it at the end of the month.
• Charlie Sumner stated he thinks people don't know what is really going on
here at the plant, and putting an Annual Report in our town books would be
nice.
4. Chief Operator Updates—Jay Burgess:
• Process—Nitrogen was 21 mg/1, which is good for this time of year. All
other nutrient readings are in the single digits. We are trying to convert
the sand filters to denitrification filters and we have been running them now
for almost two months. One of the first things we need to do is to get the
dissolved oxygen within range in which denitrifying bacteria grows. The
current process that we have has an extremely high dissolved oxygen,
• John Kelly stated that is why it is important to have that information for the
three Boards of Selectmens meeting in February so the towns can make a
commitment for what needs to be funded, even if it only gets the plant
through the next three years. Attorney Mike Ford is drafting an Article of
the IMA extension and I will forward a copy to both Charlie and Martin for
their review. I am assuming we will talk about a second Article which will
be to fund engineering as well as a list of items that need to have funding
appropriated.
• Charlie Sumner stated most likely we will have an Article to extend the life
of the discharge permit and then if we decided that there was life after that,
we would have to appropriate some kind of engineering money.
• John Kelly stated there are several options. It seems we have a stand alone
vote to extend the IMA agreement without money attached to it. We have a
decommissioning plan which would mean that after December 2016 we are
talking about demolition and removal of this plant unless there is a vote to
extend it beyond 2016. There is also the costs associated with the permit
renewal. We are going to need money beyond what is in the operating
budget before December 2016. It almost becomes a series of options. In
May we are going to need some engineering money to do something, either
to start the preliminary design of the decommissioning plan, or the
preliminary design of what needs to be done to get the plant to run through
December 2016.
• Charlie Sumner asked how do we frame these costs.
• John Kelly stated the report we are going to get from Stantec will be phased
showing May 2014 through December 2016 and what we need for permit
renewal. We already know what the demolition costs are so that is option
one. Option two is what we need to get to 2016. From that point on we
commit to some extension. At the next Board of Managers Special Meeting
on January 29th we will review the Stantec report and what we will give to
the three Boards of Selectmen on February 12th. The Stantec Proposal
focuses on reviewing the Wright-Pierce Evaluation Report from 2005.
There's an opinion of probable cause to upgrade or replace the equipment
which will allow the plant operations to continue to the end of 2016 when
the existing discharge permit expires, and an updated cost estimate from the
evaluation document to upgrade this facility to meet the anticipated nitrogen
limits expected to be included in the pending groundwater discharge permit.
We are basically asking them to help the Boards make a decision and at
least frame it in such a way that they can go back to their respective towns
and ask the voters to vote on it.
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• Martin McDonald asked if there is something in their report that takes care
of upgrading the plant beyond 2016?
• John Kelly stated the original report has both a twenty year extension and
getting through 2016.
• Jay stated he spoke to Brian Dudley and asked him theoretically if we get
this denitifrication system working, would this satisfy the needs of the State
for a permit beyond 2016. He said absolutely, but that is not their only
concern. Their concern now is for the facility and the equipment not being
replaced and that there has to be some type of report put together that
addresses the aging equipment as well.
• John Kelly stated the 2005 report had a long term and a short term plan. The
baseline information is there and Stantec's job is to update it.
• Jay stated we started our annual Winter Sale but the weather is not
cooperating. The haulers are already starting to ask about next month's
possible sale. Generally we run the Sale for both January and
February. The Yarmouth Plant will be shutting down in
February to work on upgrades to their plant and will only accept
septage from Dennis and Yarmouth.
5. A motion was made by John Kelly to extend the Winter Sale through
February 2014,with the rates being 7 cents per gallon for in-District towns
and 8 cents per gallon for out-of-District towns. This motion was seconded
by Martin McDonald and unanimously voted and approved. Vote: 3-0
• Charlie Sumner stated the three member towns should be looking at the
other towns who are using this plant. The liability is on the three member
towns, so it is really a question of what are we going to design. Are we
going to design for just the three member towns?
• John Kelly stated in the past we were never able to get the non-member
towns on the lower Cape involved. The fact is this plant was designed 50%
larger than the needs of the three member towns. Orleans has not decided
what they want to do beyond 2016 and we are working on alternatives. One
of Mike Domenica's thoughts is we don't want to lose this site assignment,
but everyone is hung up on the potential negative impacts on the marsh.
One of the options Jay has pointed out is that maybe you can pump the
treated effluent. My Board is going to meet with Mike Domenica tonight to
help us frame Articles for our Town Meeting in May to hopefully move the
process forward. I have a very divided Board on what the option is for the
potential reuse of this site and whether it will be for Orleans only. My
Board has not voted to do anything as of yet. If we can get through
December 2016, at least it will allow some of the additional work to be
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done. We need to have some discussion on what if one of the towns wants
to continue with the IMA but the voters don't vote the repairs. The IMA is
clear that if you don't fund your capital obligations, you are out. We have
never gone to the towns for money for the plant other than the original
construction money, which was ten cents on the dollar in the mid 80's. At
least if you present it in two Articles, it gives the voters the opportunity to
vote to extend the IMA agreement, and then vote on the second Article to
consider funding the plant. State Law changed the law that allows
Selectmen to sign the IMA extension without going to town meeting but
your town counsel should review that law. Orleans has a Charter which
limits their authority and we have to go to Town Meeting for a vote. The
IMA says it can only be amended by a vote of the three towns.
• Charlie Sumner stated his recommendation is to go to town meeting.
• John Kelly stated this is a very important vote for each of the towns.
• Martin McDonald stated Charlie brought up a good point about the
out-of-District towns. When we start looking at the cost of going
beyond 2016, there are two options, one is we could reduce the size and
capacity of the plant to save money, or come up with a way to have the other
towns help fund the plant to keep capacity for them. Whatever we
come up with from Stantec, there should be some variability in how it is
funded.
• Jay stated last year he sent a letter to each Town Administrator of Wellfleet,
Truro, and Provincetown and each of their Boards of Selectmen stating that
after their health departments entered the pump slips into their system, they
could run us a report with names and address of properties that have not
pumped in three years and we would send out reminder to pump notices at
our expense. I also let them know that the plant may not survive due to not
making enough money. I got no response from any of the towns.
• Jay handed out the District's draft budget for review for the next Board
meeting.
• The Board reviewed the Districts bank balances.
6. A motion was made by Martin McDonald to approve Treasury Warrant
No. 5 for payment. This motion was seconded by Charlie Sumner and
unanimously approved and passed. Vote: 3-0
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• Jay stated no, it won't function as well. Any nitrification system in the
northeast or any other cold climate will not function as well in the winter as
it will in the summer. They require tight temperature ranges for optimum
growth.
• Martin McDonald stated we wouldn't necessarily need it year round.
• Jay stated no we wouldn't but there are some plants that have seasonal
discharge permits because of that. On Cape Cod we discharge in the ground
because we are not allowed to dump into receiving waters. Every place else
in the country dumps into receiving waters so the nitrate permits are higher
in the Summer due to the recreational activity taking place in the waters. For
now, the denitrification is moving along and looks promising but is not
100% yet.
• Maintenance—The storm clean up was no real problem other than the flow
stopped for a couple of days and the ground is frozen. Unless it is a real
failed system, the heat of the tank keeps the ground around the system soft
so the haulers are able to dig. We did have a frozen louver on the emergency
generator and we are going to try to open it. Since this happened during the
storm, I will file an insurance claim to pay for it.
• Bar Screen—As I have mentioned in the past, the headworks in the
receiving area is one of the areas that is a red flag as far as things we have to
do to continue to operate the plant over the short term. The original bar
screen has been out of service for at least ten years and we have been using
the bypass bar screen, both of which had two inch spacing. The industry
standard now is half inch spacing. There is a big problem in the industry as a
whole with these new personal wipes that everybody uses that do not
dissolve like toilet paper and they stay as a rag until they get pumped. We
get thousands and thousands of them that get built up on the bar screen due
to the two inch space. Once a week we have to take out a solid mass of them
by taking pumps apart. I contacted Brewster Welding and they are going to
come to the plant to give me a price to build us a bar screen to put in place
with half inch spacing so we can at least capture some of this stuff. I have
talked to other operators and they are having serious problems with these
products as well. We are finding the intervals of having to hire a vactor
truck has become almost yearly now and as soon as the sale is over, one
tank has to be cleaned and probably the second tank as well. Last year when
we cleaned out the tank we received bids from $6,000 to $20,000 and
awarded the bid for $6,000, but there is no way they would bid that price
again due to the problems they had whole time they were here. We will have
the tanks cleaned again this Spring before the Summer flows begin.
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almost complete saturation. We started at 8mg/1 when we first started
running the sand filters in an attempt to use them as denitrifiers and brought
it down to 5 mg/1. The standard for denitrification is 2 mg/1 or less. We
have the perfect storm of things that can go wrong to starting up a system
this time of year. For one thing, they are temperature sensitive and the
water out there now is around 14c. Cold adds oxygen to water which is
another source of oxygen that we have to try to get rid of Oxygen has
always been a good thing for our process but now that we are trying to do
another process, oxygen has become an enemy, so to speak. We have
always used one RBC as a recirc which only receives final effluent.
We shut that off because just the spinning caused it to create dissolved
oxygen. That is what got us down from 8 mg/1 to 5mg/1. There are things
that we can do to get it even lower but this time of year the temperatures
are cold and bio masses are not growing. We would have to start step
feeding it in order to make the bugs work a little less all across the shaft,
which in turn would lower the dissolved oxygen at the end of the shaft and
create the conditions for denitrification. This time of year is a bad time to
start doing that.
• I spoke to some of the experts in the field, as well as to Mike Giggey and
Brian Dudley, and they are in agreement that the next big move shouldn't
happen until the temperatures warm up and we have more robust growth on
the RBC's. Without adding anything, we are not out of compliance running
the way we are. I have already mentioned we are going to have to add a
carbon source, which will be either methanol, or a product called microseed
that is made in Falmouth to create the bacteria. The microseed needs no
special treatment. The methanol does need special treatment and
we have been in touch with the fire department. I had a meeting with
Captain Bob Phelp and he is studying information on it and will get back to
us regarding storage, because it is basically as flammable as gasoline. We
are generally pushing our permit on nitrogen and got it down to 21 mg/1
without doing anything other than running those sand filters. We are
starting to get some type of bacteria growth that is benefiting the effluent.
• John Kelly asked if the product from Falmouth is a bio alternative.
• Jay stated yes it is but it is more expensive. We had a pod on site that I
since sent back. It was here when Captain Phelp came down and he thought
that the pod would probably be good enough as long as we had grounding
rings on the barrels so that there is no static discharge away from the
barrels. I am waiting for his report and I think it looks favorable.
• Martin McDonald stated assuming the sand filters work to get the nitrogen
down, does that mean next winter it is not going to function as well?
• Receiving Scale -The receiving scale may have to be pulled out and
concrete poured into that space like we did to the other scale. I have been
holding off doing this project due to the town's decision of possibly
continuing the plant for another twenty years, and if so, I would not want to
fill in that area with concrete that would later have to be chipped out.
• Security Cameras - We have three failed security cameras. As you know,
we have six cameras stationed around the plant to watch various areas. We
have had graffiti problems, trespassing at night, etc. We haven't had any
problems since we put the video cameras in, but three of them are failed and
I have a meeting later today with the alarm people to decide what we want
to do. During the same time we install cameras, we could install a new
receiver that anybody could dial into, i.e., police department, or anyone who
had the code to view the plant. I am going to talk to him today about getting
a price and getting an ID address that could be shared amongst the
employees and authorities, that way they could notify the fire department,
for whatever reason for alarm calls in the middle of the night. I will have
more information on that for the next meeting.
• Odor Control Exhaust Pipe - A twenty-four inch exhaust pipe in the odor
control system started leaking and it had no water going into it. We were
trying to figure out what was causing it because it goes up through the roof.
It's not leaking at the outer roof, but in the inner roof there is some water
trickling down. I determined it only happens on really cold days. I think
what is happening is the warm air from the plant is pulling all the exhaust air
out and puts it through a wet scrubber of bleach and then through a carbon
filter so that no bad air is being spread to the neighborhoods. I believe it is
condensation from when the cold air hits the warm air which causes it to
liquefy and run down the inside of the pipe. We shut the system down
yesterday and took apart the entire odor control system to make sure
everything is working. It is in pretty good shape except for that small leak,
which is not hurting anything as far as the odor control is concerned but it is
starting to damage a small portion of the roof and will spread if we don't
take care of it. It is plastic pipe that has dried glue around a coupling, which
we will sand down and seal as soon as the weather gets warmer.
• Stantec - I will be meeting with someone from Stantec today who is here
for the three year study to see what we need to continue operating through
December 2016. My personal feelings are that we can continue to patch the
plant along until the town decides what they want to do. My biggest fear is
our checking accounts dwindling. Right now we have about $180,000, and
have one customer on credit hold and another one in collections. The bottom
line is we have about one Warrant of bills and two payrolls in the bank. If
we had a catastrophic winter and haven't bolstered our bank account and
couldn't pay our bills and payroll, then there is no money to purchase the
things that need replacement here.
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7. Items for future Agendas:
• Review Stantec Report
• Review District employee costs related to decommissioning the plant.
• Review District's draft budget
• Review draft Agenda for February 12th Joint Three Boards of
Selectmens Meeting.
8. A motion was made by Martin McDonald to adjourn the meeting at
9:55 a.m.. This motion was seconded by Charlie Sumner and unanimously
voted and approved. Vote: 3-0.
Respectfully submitted,
Cyndi Bachman
District Secretary