Members Present: Chairman Stephen C. Lobik, Vice Chairman Douglas R. North, Clerk Joseph M. Prior
Superintendent: Craig W. Jalbert
Secretary: Dale Barnes-Johnson
Open the Meeting: The meeting was called to order at 6:30p.m.
Accept the Minutes: A motion was made by Doug and seconded by Joe to postpone the acceptance of the August 5th meeting minutes. Motion passed unanimously.
NEW BUSINESS:
Main Street Water Break~ Craig documented the sequence of events for the Commission to review. Approximately 750,000 gallons of water in 2.5 hours (5000gpm) was lost. It is unknown at this time what the repair costs will end up totaling. A meeting will take place between the Selectmen, Commission, John Morrell and Craig to discuss the bills once they are all in. A brief recess took place as the Commission went outside to view the damaged section of water main that was removed. When the meeting resumed, Craig explained the new Mass DEP 24-hour reporting requirement due to the loss of service to customers for more than 4 hours, and how Bacteria sampling is required within 2 hours of service being restored. The W& S Department must also classify the main break as a Level I or
Level II Emergency, and within 10 days an Emergency Response Report must also be completed. In addition an ER Report to Mass DEP must be submitted within 30 days (the aforementioned form/checklist shall be included in that submittal along with a timeline of the incident). Discussion took place regarding the assistance received searching for the leak from the Fire Chief, ambulance crew , former Commissioner Marty Harris, as well as Doug North who stopped to offer assistance, followed by the coordination between departments and contractors that took place for the repairs. The problem was the existing culvert which rested on top of the water main, which had to be removed to make repairs, the problem was how to reestablish some sort of drainage culvert after repairs were completed on the main. In the end repairs were completed on the main by Friday afternoon and the culvert was replaced with three 18” corrugated metal pipes on Monday.
Further complicating things was the Saturday the 22nd power outages which caused havoc with the pump station alarms and were finally straightened out by 6 p.m.
Craig said this event really exemplifies how short staffed the department is and further reinforces the fact that the department needs to expand. He was thankful Marty came back into town to help. Joe questioned what would have happened if Craig was out of town; Craig explained he would have been called but Tom would have had to handle it alone until he got back. This was the first time we did not have the pipe fixed the same night. Craig expressed the anxiety he felt when they couldn’t locate the source of the leak. The Commission commended him on the great work.
OLD BUSINESS:
Sewer Inflow & Infiltration (I&I) Remediation ~ We have not received the Notice of Intent from Don Frydryk.
Memorial Hall Project ~ Tap for multi family at 194 Main is in, service line has not been installed yet. It took WAS Brothers over two hours to bullet through the rock and hard gravel. Craig outlined plan to use a sleeve for the service line. Doug gave Craig some suggestions.
Dam Safety Inspection ~ The Fuss & O’Neill report is complete. Overall the dam is in SATISFACTORY condition (State Term) with several recommendations written up. The main recommendation is to remove a few trees in the arch and brush in the spillway. The trees would eventually threaten the integrity of the dam. They recommend establishing a maintenance plan as well (more paperwork).
Department Activity ~ We repaired our 8th and 9th service leaks of the year. Leak #8, Service #0026 16 Main Street 8/7/09, we cut and capped the original corp on 8” main and installed a new tap on the 12” main. Leak #9, Service #0730, 1 Robbins Road was called in at 5 o’clock on the 7th. Bruce from the Highway came in and they were able to shut off within 20 minutes. On Tuesday the 11th a new 1” copper service line was pulled under the road.
NEXT MEETING: As a result of schedule conflicts, the next meeting will be set at a later date.
ADJOURN: Meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m.
___________________________________
Joseph M. Prior, Clerk
cc: Selectmen
| 
