Members Present: Chairman Douglas R. North, V. Chairman Marshall L. Harris
Superintendent: Craig W. Jalbert
Secretary: Dale Barnes-Johnson
Open the Meeting: The meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m.
Accept the Minutes: A motion was made by Marty and seconded by Doug to accept the December 17, 2008 meeting minutes. Motion passed unanimously.
OLD BUSINESS:
S.R.F. Project ~ Ely Road Tank/Bethany Road Pump Station Project Updates
Ely Tank~ things at the concrete tank are working well, landscaping will require touching up in the spring.
Bethany Road Pump Station ~ telemertering and PLC software is 98% finished, tank level and pump start/stop sequence is working well. Bunyan starts in first, Bethany five minutes later, followed by Palmer Rd. five minutes after that, the shut down sequence is in same order. Software was not complete until last week, which is when everything was able to run full time; during which time the chemical feed pump diaphragm went; Craig worked with Bob Parrott from New England Instrument to fix the pump today. As with all projects there is a punch list to go through which is a frustrating process in addition to the daily events.
Department Activity ~ During the afternoon check of the stations, Tom noticed the pH at Bunyan Road had shot up. Craig stopped at the station before the meeting and it seems there is a problem with the controls for the chemical feed pump there. Bob Parrott will be called out.
Beginning with the hydrant flushing and continuing with the High Street project and SRF projects it was a very busy summer and our unaccounted for water (loss due to leaks) was way up. October and November were spent getting things in order and we were able to get our usage back down below 400,000 gallons a day. However, December shot up to a daily average of 470,000 gallons a day. Craig has had Tom and Randy performing leak detection throughout the system. To this point only a few leaking fire hydrants have been found. Dick Kilhart from Rural Water Association is coming out Friday to listen for a potential leak at the brook crossing by Montec. A combination of cold weather, people turning their heat down has caused freeze ups, Vallhala’s sprinkler line froze and burst and APW’s sprinkler froze and burst over the weekend. King Avenue and Brimfield Road had frozen services. Sunday evening a break on the service line to the American Legion occurred. Tom and Randy had
been plowing for the town and were working on zero sleep, things did not go easily. Last night a pipe broke in the basement of 2 Green Street, Tom and Randy assisted Tom Gregoire in replacing the service line today.
Middle School Chemistry Lab Backflow Devices ~ Bob Flag from East National is coming out tomorrow to meet with Craig and the schools plumber to discuss the Chemistry lab’s devices which seem to always fail, the devices are not lasting. To eliminate the problem, Doug suggests the school purchase stainless steel check cages for the devices which hold up better.
Quarterly Billing /Notification ~ 3rd Quarter bills were mailed January 16th which included the DEP required Public Notice regarding the total coliform bacteria detections in December. Multi-family multi-use accounts were hand delivered the notice the same day as required. A few calls have been received at the office, one of which was challenging; overall the major concern was the mandatory health language which is admittedly quite confusing to us also.
NEXT MEETING: The next meeting has been set for Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.
ADJOURN: At 7:00 p.m., a motion was made by Marty and seconded by Doug to adjourn from open session to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing pending negotiations and not to return to open session. Motion passed unanimously.
___________________________________
Marshall L. Harris, Vice Chairman
cc: Selectmen
| 
