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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12172012 Sewer Planning Work Group Minutes Sewer Planning Work Group With Board of Selectmen Quarterly Update Monday, December 17, 2012 at 1:00 PM DPW Conference Room, 188 Madaket Road NOTES Attending: Nancy Wheatley’, Mike Glowacki, Charlie Stott, Steve Anderson, Tim Soverino, Dual McIntyre, Rich Turer, Andrew Vorce, Cormac Collier, Mohamed Nabulsi, Kara Buzanoski. BOS: Rick Atherton, Patty Roggeveen, Bruce Miller (arv. 2:13), Bob DeCosta W&C: Helen Gordon, John Daniels, Rosemary Blacquier Joint Meeting with Board of Selectmen and Woodard & Curran to Discuss: -Capacity Analysis Work to Date for Surfside Wastewater Treatment Facility; -Status of Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plan -Update;Sewer Planning Work Group Mission Status. Helen Gordon (HG) – Regarding capacity at Surfside, it looks as if the currently permitted 3.5 mgd. is ok. The CWMP study areas are delineated. The calculations for the flows added together from all needs areas are larger than 3.5mgd (needs areas plus Madaket & Hummock Pond). Nancy Wheatley’ (NW) –Do you have the WWTP flows now? Kara Buzanoski (KHB) – Yes, we are doing it digitally, we will get this. Rosemary Blacquier (RB) – The needs areas are the same as before with the addition of the Hummock Pond area. We met with BOH, Hummock Pond Homeowners Association, Sarah Oktay, and Cormac Collier to develop the numbers. The design flow of 3.5 mgd is the combination of the Town district, Somerset, Monomoy, and Shimmo. We need to ask: What areas should be kept on septic? Patty Roggeveen (PR) – Stated that we want to look at all options. NW –Noted that she would like to see what happened to the 3.5mgd? Were original estimates wrong? PR – Stated that personal care products are now a critical issue. Mike Glowacki (MG) – Asked “as we determine the needs areas, what are regulatory drivers?” Tim Soverino (TS) – Noted that to help SPWG, don’t blend all this info into one discussion. What was original, what is new? There are a select group of people paying to this. PR – Stated that the Financing needs to be looked at, it is not working. Bob DeCosta (BD) – Noted that present system is broken, both harbors are at critical mass for eel grass. The 1/3- 1/3- 1/3 financing breakdown is not working. We need a long term plan. It is an on-going problem. Bruce Miller (BM) – Asked if there are plans for raising the jetty? RB explained that Woodard & Curran, Kara and Dave Fronzuto met with the Army Corps of Engineers at Senator Kerry’s office to discuss this. PR – Stated that ,historically this has been driven by environmental and financing concerns. We need guidance NW – Added that one reason we are where we are, is that we didn’t extend sewer into needs areas. We have to put together a capital plan that works and we don’t have a lot of time. MG – Noted that we should go from the general into the specifics. RB – Described the SMAST model runs. DEP has set the TMDL set for harbor. Richard Ray and Dave had SMAST run raising Jetties. With the addition of the Fertilizer regs, and stormwater work the town is being proactive about meeting the TMDLs. BD –Noted that he brought this issue to Dave. Jetties currents go west/east and east/west from Great Point and Madaket. The jetties have settled 10’ since 1938. This will help. PR – Said that the BOS should put the Jetties on agenda. RB – Stated Dave is working with the Corps. RB – Noted that they started with the map of the needs areas. They worked on redefining to get the map correct. They overlaid the new zoning. Now they are running the data to be sure they’re looking at everything. The number of potential 2nd dwellings may change from the previous CWMP. They are refining the flows. They will look at who really needs sewer service. The FAA land for the proposed Madaket WWTP is moving forward with GSA. The last item of work is to do the historical evaluation. NW – Asked “What are criteria for what properties need to be sewered?” RB – Stated that they are using the same criteria as the 2004 criteria: lot size, soils, BOH records, distance to water bodies, private water. Plus now they are adding nitrogen as required in the MEP study results. NW –Asked to have the detail of what has changed. RB – Stated that what has changed is the zoning, nitrogen, and the addition of the Hummock Pond needs area. NW – Asked to have this put on paper please. MG – Stated that this is what we have been asking for, it gets frustrating. PR – Noted that she expected that the Sewer planning Work group would be doing detail evaluations. Rick Atherton (AR) – Encouraged that this info should get out now. BD – Added that we don’t want tunnel vision. We might want to expand plant even if we don’t need it now. PR – Noted that we need more info. The Committee hasn’t seen the dirty work. Charlie Stott (CS) – Asked what the cost was to pipe to Surfside? HG – Noted that different routes would have different costs. W&C is looking at several different routes. Steve Anderson (SA) – Asked for Financing options from other places. HG – Noted that every community is different. It is also a very political decision. BD – Stated “I like to look at things outside the box. How about going into the ocean and back to Surfside.” PR – Stated “I’d like this to come to the Board. It has to be sold to the public. We have to deliberate authoritatively. I want to be able to internalize this.” BD – Noted that this is not just about the TMDL anymore. “This is why it need to be done” Dual McIntyre (DM) – Asked if there is any way to look at best financial practices across the county? John Daniels (JD) – Stated that we can do that, in a sub group if you’d like. There are lots of possibilities. MG – Stated that the wrong way for SPWG to go about it would to be in a subgroup. PR – Noted that fertilizer sub groups did the work. Consultants should be passing info to the group. CS – Added that we should look at alternatives to centralized sewer. HG –Stated that she agrees that the group should get the matrixes. RB – Added that from the bubble chart all these things are being evaluated. PR – Stated that Public participation is critical. We have to involve the civic associations. Monomoy had wrong information and that was not a good situation. We want to avoid this. JD – Added that W&C did meet with all the civic groups before the CWMP started. The program was supposed to be 2 informal meetings and 1 formal meeting. Before they were finished , it was clear that the CWMP needed to be updated. So the Town contracted with W&C to do the CWMP update. PR – Added that we need more conversation and to bring people in at critical decision points. BD: Noted that we want to be sure that the people have input, having a meeting earlier rather than later. PR – Said we should let the people hear the deliberations. NW – Noted that in the past there was not a lot of public meetings. BD –Stated that the DEP said that we had to sewer Madaket and mine landfill. We need to have meetings and inform the public. NW – Noted that the Town has been working on this a long time. BM – Asked if we have to sewer Madaket now? HG- stated that DEP will be looking to have Madaket sewered first before any other area. BD –Asked if we, as voters, do we want to maintain the harbors? We don’t have 25 years to protect eel grass. MG – Concurred, “Right, we know what we need to do.” NW – Noted that “we’ve lost 6 years since last sewer workgroup. We care about our harbors, we won’t have scallops.” BD – Stated that we need to go faster. PR – Agreed that we need to move faster. KB – Described the required Town Actions. JD – Added that there is now an ACO in the BOH regs for “needs areas”. PR – Added that Hummock Pond needs to be set as needs area. BD – Asked “what is whole project going to cost?” JD – Said that we can’t quantify that without knowing a lot more about the work. BD – Stated that for a funding source, I would highly support tapping rental homes to support sewer and water quality. PR – Stated that she wants to have a chair from the group to integrate better. NW – Asked about Stormwater? She stated that we have to do stormwater as well as septic. HG – Noted that we do have a stormwater component. CS – Asked will we have a stormwater By-law? JD – Noted that a stormwater bylaw is already voted, BOH hasn’t done prep work yet. DM – Asked for a larger map of needs areas please. SA – Asked about the MEP studies. RB – Explained the CLF suit on the Cape, and as a result EPA is not finalizing any reports until it is settled. CC: - Noted that we had the same conversation in 2004. Clean water is the most important aspect. Financing needs to get done. Public education needs to be done. The TMDL was done to verify why to do it. NW – Stated that we have to get information to the individual homeowners to save our environmental treasures. When people jump in at the end the money doesn’t work. BD – Stated that the financing is broken. Discussions on Funding JD – Stated that the capital program was $200M in 2004. Right now there is $65M in the Madaket treatment plant alone. BD – Said that whether it’s Stormwater or landfill, we need to choose the funding now. NW –Suggested that we target $100M to start. TS – Noted that we should talk about goals of the estuaries project. MG – Moved to Nominate Nancy Wheatley for chairman, TS seconded, vote unanimous RA –Stated that we need to look at the criteria and information behind this. MG – Agreed, we need clear policy and resolution of duties. NW – Asked: regarding the Regulatory drivers and financing: How are we going to approach these? JD – Stated that W&C will do a memo re: drivers and meet with the committee to go over DEP regs. TS – Stated: Let’s do that next. NW – Noted that DEP has “ordered” us to do this. JD – Noted that those are 2 different issues. HG – Agreed that there are different topics based on Nantucket issues. DM – Asked: what else is in pipeline? NW – Noted from her perspective: EPA set out an integrated planning process which allows towns to set priorities. There will be more flexibility. We had ACO before, we don’t now. We have the opportunity to be creative NW – Noted that we need to look at the Sewer connection Policy too and add it to agenda. BD – Added a request for projected build outs now and then. JD – Agreed. Mohamed Nabulsi (MN) – Stated there is a capacity utilization fee. Lots of areas have been added since then. Look at the numbers reduced from new zoning. Andrew Vorce (AV) – Added that there has been money collected from hook-ups, where has that gone TS –Asked is hydraulic loading of discharge beds is a controlling factor? HG – Noted that in Acton they were able to show that the beds could take more and get the permit changed. Adjourned @ 3:05 pm Respectfully submitted, Kara Buzanoski