DRAFT
LAKE LILLINONAH AUTHORITY REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2009
PRELIMINARY MINUTES
CALL TO ORDER: S. Young, First Vice Chairman, determined a quorum and called the meeting to order at 7:35pm.
Members Present: S. Young, B. Boodry, B. Woerner, R. Faanes, S. Ward, L. Leaden, S. Howard, B. Piepho, and J. Briody.
Also Present: J. Tinley, Friends of the Lake
Absent Members: W. Davidson, A. Niedzielski, and A. Hawley
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: A motion was made by B. Piepho, seconded by B. Woerner to approve the minutes of the Regular Meeting of September 1, 2009 with the following amendments; page three, Other Business, third paragraph, line 24, (best man practices) should read (best management practices); line 25, delete the word stray and replace with straight. On page four, third line, delete, and thereby reduce phosphorus damage.
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT: S. Young stated that Chairman Davidson reported he still has no answer regarding PFD’s.
FIRST VICE CHAIRMAN’S REPORT: S. Young reported that in the month of October the permanent buoys will be pulled and be replaced with ice bars. During this time all buoys will be thoroughly cleaned and some relabeled. Buoys will be inspected for cracks. The 4 ft. cables on the top of the buoys, suggested by DEP will be changed to chain; which LLA has already acquired. Proposals have been sent out to four companies for purchasing new buoys. Two companies have already returned their proposals. Our existing vendor’s charge is $98.00 per buoy and for a similar buoy one company bid $585.00 per buoy. A decision will be made in the next two weeks. Also, new materials will be ordered. S Young stated that CCA will complete its filing of DEP buoy
permits. This will be discussed at the next regularly scheduled Lake Lillinonah Association meeting. S. Young reported that formal comments on the TMDL proposal were sent out to DEP.
SECOND VICE CHAIRMAN’S REPORT: B. Boodry stated that the patrol season is almost over. There is one more boat left in the water and will stay until the lake is brought down.
G. Knoecklein needs to perform one more round of sampling. He also stated that he received two quotes for the winterization and storage of the three boats. Quotes were very comparative, but Westcove Marina was awarded for its best price quote. He also stated that this should be bid out on a yearly basis. B. Boodry stated that he is working with Westcove Marina to firm up a few requirements.
B. Boodry reported that J. Simmons is posting K. Seeley’s reports on the website. He also stated that a phone update will be completed when the lake is lowered. B. Boodry stated the Regatta, went well.
L. Leaden stated that the Regatto went smoothly and there were no issues and that the patrol went well.
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B. Boodry informed all that K. Seely has a Facebook page; first name-Lake, second name-Lillinonah where he posts lake associated photos.
TREASURER’S REPORT: J. Briody stated that he started working on the 2010/2011 budget. He will be formatting the present budget into an excel format and email out. He stated that he received a copy of the proposed budget from B. Davidson which was a take-off of 09/10 budget which had minor increases in proposed revenue from the various towns. For the present year budget, it was approved for a full town share $23,672, and Roxbury with a half share of $11,840, with a total revenue of $130,200. B. Davidson is proposing a minor increase of approximately 1 percent; with the half share of $11,927, and full share of $23,854. J. Briody reported that there is no 319 Grant for 2010/2011.
S. Young stated that the matching fund will be approximately $8,000; 60/40 over two years.
B. Boodry questioned the $1,500 per year phone service expenditure. J. Simmons will research this and look into Google voice. The land line would remain in place. Many people are looking on the website for information. Switchboard.com lists the phone number for K. Seely. The message states that if this is an emergency, call 911. J. Briody will email the budget to the members later this month and before the next meeting, for members to vote on. He also stated that he has to print the September online statement and balance. The online statement was not available at the last meeting for the month of August, but stated he has now obtained a copy of the August statement and it was put into balance.
NEW BUSINESS: B. Piepho reported on the September 22, 2009 visit to the Danbury Sewage Water Treatment Center with S. Howard, S. Young and G. Bollard (Friends of the Lake). They met with David Day, City of Danbury representative for the Danbury Sewage Treatment Plant. Staff members, who run the plant, were present. B. Piepho reported the following significant notes: the volume of effluent increases three times a normal day after a storm event; which indicates that the City of Danbury does have significant runoff from other areas that leach into the sewage system. There is a massive storage tank that can hold up to 45 million gallons in the overflow tank, and in the standard tank, daily tank, holds 28 million gallons. They have never been forced to discharge
raw sewage after a storm event which assures us that we are not getting untreated sewage to the lake. Their permit is for 15 million gallons per day and they average about 9 million gallons per day. The gentrification process is ready to go and should go online this month. The nitrogen plant can handle 11 million gallons per day and meets DEP requirement so they do not have to pay a penalty. They hired a consultant firm, Black & Veech, to do a $500,000 study, an engineering proposal, on how to get phosphorus discharge down to .20 milligrams per liter which is what the new permit is supposed to do. DEP has not yet signed off on the study, but is expected to do so any day. They have 14 - 15 months from October 1st to complete the study. The study will tell what engineering design needs to be done to meet the .20 milligrams per liter requirement of the permit. It is guesstimated that it will take approximately
$100,000,000 to get to that point of requirements set by the DEP. The DEP guidelines states for the entire state, all the plants, which included Danbury, from June 22nd they were giving plants four years from the date of renewal of their permit to complete the phosphorus upgrades. It was three years if you were .7 and above the requirement and four years if you were above .2 above. B. Piepho was not sure if the four years started after the 15 month study or if it starts now. He will speak
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with DEP for clarification. He also stated that the Pittsfield Plant (B. Piepho has a copy of their permit from US EPA) has a permit of .1; which is half as much discharge as Danbury, and that clearly states four years of the date of the letter written on August 22, 2008.
S. Young stated that during their visit to the Plant they went over a lot of questions asked by G. Bollard (Friends of the Lake) i.e. the upgrading, the process, and where we are now, what happens next, and when is the money going to be available. Questions regarding testing procedures were asked, who does the testing, how often these tests are performed, where are the tests reported to, what happens if limits are exceeded. He stated that they went on a tour of the physical plant from the top of the line to the end. They do a lot work on dewatering – physical particulates in the water. They looked at the chlorination of the water. They used to use chlorine gas to clean the water from coli form bacteria year round. Now they use sodium hydrochloride. It is mandated to only do
coli form reduction during the summer when they are doing phosphorus and nitrogen removal. It was stated that the Plant is using the Still River as an extension of the Plant.
L. Leaden collected a water sample from the lake (green in color) that will be sent to
Hyrotechnologies to run basic lab tests of the cultures that are in the water and if other pollutants can be attributed to the color and offensive odor of the water. L. Leaden stated that there was a lot of garbage in the water when she collected the sample.
OLD BUSINESS: R.Fannes stated that USGS is currently testing phosphorus at three sites.
R. Faanes’s contact at USGS is J. Morrison. The information is not on the website since they were not sure if this testing would continue to be funded into the next year. They have received funding to continue, but due to budget cutbacks they will be between four and six tests instead of eight. They sample from the upper point of the Housatonic to the Still River and under Wellers Bridge. Now that funding has been approved, the data will be published on the website for the months of July, August and September within the next few weeks. They do total nutrients on all three sites. The testing costs $16,000 per year, at the present rate. Each test costs $2,000. They are looking for additional funding. They were doing testing once a month, but then cut back to eight
times a year. Depending on the budget, testing will be done quarterly or possibly every six months. R. Faanes stated that J. Morrison has a power point presentation and would be happy to present it at a LLA meeting. S. Young stated J. Morrison should be invited to a LLA meeting in January or February.
OTHER BUSINESS: J. Tinley, Friends of the Lake, stated that there is an ongoing project to create a digital library. He also stated that Friends of the Lake has an internship at Fairfield University, and they are trying to collect all data about the lake quality and debris. This data base will be posted on the Friends of the Lake website and LLA’s website, and also copied onto CD’s. There will be a Google search engine where you can choose any reports you would like to view. Data was collected from DEP files and Friends of the Lake files, and from the FERC website. J. Tinley stated that he would like to get LLA’s information and he will have it scanned and digitized.
S. Young stated that B. Davidson will contact C. Giordano to obtain all LLA archives and files.
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S. Young also stated that J. Tinley is going to set up a format with an I-Phone which would allow you to take photos of debris. Superimposed in the corner of the picture would be a date and time stamp as well as GPS coordinates. This would be automatically posted to the website and then posted to First Light. Two I-Phones will be purchased by Friends of the Lake to give to the patrol to use for this purpose.
S. Ward stated that she will purchase a gift certificate and plaque for C. Giordano. This motion was voted on and approved.
S. Young asked S. Ward if she had any information regarding the GE money for the Bass Association that was going to be building cages. S. Ward stated that she had no information. S. Young stated that B. Davidson sent out formal letters to the Bass Association.
S. Young stated that there was an individual reported missing from their family on Monday, October 5th. This person overdosed on medication and went missing. The car was located on the Brookfield side of the bridge. The Brookfield Canine Division was called in, but they could not locate the missing person. The State Police was then called in and found the missing person with the help of bloodhounds. The person was found unconscious and barely alive in the woods, downstream of the scout campgrounds. K. Seeley was on duty and responded using the last boat that was in the water and assisted in medical transport to the launch. Bridgewater was then able to transport the person. S. Young stated that K. Seeley should be commended for his assistance.
ADJOURN: A motion was made by J. Briody, seconded by L. Leaden to adjourn the meeting. The motion was passed unanimously. Meeting was adjourned at 8:50pm.
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