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WPCA Minutes 04/09/2019
Town of Old Lyme WPCA minutes of the April 9, 2019 meeting
Held in the meeting room of the Memorial Town Hall

In attendance: Chairman Rich Prendergast, Vice-Chair Frank Chan, Rob McCarthy, Dimitri Tolchinski, Doug Wilkinson, Andrea Lombard, Joe Carpentino. Excused Absent: Donna Bednar and Steve Cinami.
Also in attendance, First Selectwoman Reemsnyder, Selectwoman Mary Jo Nosal, and 3 townspeople.

Call to Order
Chairman Prendergast called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.

Approval of the Minutes
Motion by D. Wilkinson to approve the March 2019 minutes. Second by A. Lombard. No discussion. Motion passes unanimously.

Chairman’s Report
DEEP record of decision is complete, but we have not received the administration order yet. Keeping in touch with contacts in DEEP to get them to follow through in a timely manner. (J. Carpentino arrived at 7:31 p.m.)
In communication with Peter Green of Waterford to try and arrange discussion of intermunicipal agreement (IMA) between OL and Waterford, which is one of the IMAs we may need to do. Heard from other WPCAs that we are not required to do IMA with Waterford. Right thing to do is talk with them and investigate. Also working on IMA with East Lyme. Try to set up meeting to see where they’re at. Working to validate costs we have in our plan right now. This is all leading up to our presentation to public.

Budget Update and Expenses
Treasurer D. Wilkinson reported that we have paid the clerk and received an invoice for the latest round of HNB testing. Approximately $16,000 left in carryover, which will cover 4 tests before we tap into this year’s budget. Will request $30,000 carryover to next year for water testing in addition to what we budgeted for next year. Received feedback from state that we need to fill out some forms to collect certain funds. Woodard and Curran are going to look at applications and send proposal for what it would take to complete. See what they come back with and bring to committee. Still have $15,000 for consulting that can be used.

Correspondence
Received a background check request for former clerk (Jacob Olsen) for a federal job. Chairman Prendergast will respond, and says he did a great job, especially doing the work as a high school student. Also was given a postcard from Wind River Environmental reminding a resident to clean out septic tank. This is an ad, people have complained in the past, not official from the Town. Difficult to say Wind River can’t do it.

Old Business
Ground water study for area known as Hawk’s Nest Beach (HNB) update
Sent latest test results and invoice to committee members via email prior to meeting. Request to be posted to website. Nothing unusual. Clerk is in process of updating summary Excel spreadsheet.
IMA issues with neighboring towns
Chairman Prendergast gave an overview of a meeting with representatives from City of New London, which was also attended by First Selectwoman Reemsnyder and F. Chan. Follow up on status for creating IMA with Old Lyme. New London is going to work up a number to present to their WPCA committee to approve, then send to us to approve. Ultimately get to a place where we have number and major components before referendum. Prepare for presenting to Board of Finance, bonding commission, town of Old Lyme.
Zoning change request
Zoning Board approved replacing the language that prohibited sewer plant in flood zone. Tried to make language updated. Specifics can be viewed in the Zoning Board minutes.
EDU determination discussion
Chairman Prendergast again distributed the summary page of options. Could just stay with option we choose, option 4 (assessment on top of building assessment) to figure out what that is, houses that are lower value pay a lower amount, higher value pay higher amount. Chairman Prendergast was suggesting Option 2 might be better, based on size of building. Question is, are we OK with option 4 or switch to something else? Primary assessed value not directly connected to volume. Building size more connected to volume. Pros and cons to all options. Discussion followed including: flow, volume, usage, installation expense, operational expense, fixed and variable costs, water usage, not having too great a span between lowest and highest costs, variations of zoning in the area, business vs. residential, multi-use buildings and other outliers, septic systems designed based on number of bedrooms, and more. Chairman Prendergast and F. Chan will work on a formula that has a fixed/base cost plus a variable cost and send it out to all members for review. R. McCarthy will review the spreadsheet. No motion at this time.

New Business
Planning for the referendum – might be best to start with proposed referendum date, and work planning backwards from that. Proposed dates:
  • Wednesday, August 14, 2019 – proposed date for referendum
  • June 22 and July 16 – proposed public education sessions – presentation with Q&A
  • June 18 - possible presentation to Board of Finance
  • End of May – EDU determination
  • May 10 – IMA understanding
Other considerations include: agreements with private beach associations, OPM approval, mailer and other methods to communicate public education sessions, investigate bonding requirements, updated cost estimate from Woodard & Curran. Chairman Prendergast will update the timeline and distribute it to members.

Public Comment
Rob Breen, Swan Ave: Speaking on behalf only of himself. Last two meetings seem to be separating EDU into construction and usage. Step in right direction. Lot of variance and outliers. As far as usage, strike some sort of partnership with CT Water to know how much water people are using, with minimums. Another concern, since pump station was approved, seems to be collecting dust while other proposal is underway on private property. Will there be a cost differential as property owner if it is built on public or private property?

Dave Mitchell: Clarification groundwater testing: believe December well results posted, not there as recently as yesterday. Total of 5 test results? How quickly are the posted on the Town website? With regards to EDU discussion, favoring something volume based instead of assessment based. Not going to produce more with fancy bathroom. Looking at data set, concerned that this is only the Sound View data set. May be data set in HNB, which has been deferred, but consider if data sets are different, might need to apply to both areas at some point. Prudent planning to pool together.

Chairman Prendergast responds: Striking deal with CT Water is a complicated issue. He has data but had to sign NDA and can’t show to anyone. As for the pump station, other parties did not sign agreement, did not respond to him, but to say option to develop alternate site as plan B. Don’t think it affects Sound View residents as far as cost. Worked very hard to create agreement. Groundwater testing – Chairman Prendergast will look at Town website and see what is there, and what needs to be posted. Requested one link that would go to all the testing by date. Eventually we will be able to make postings ourselves, but not sure of when that will happen. Idea of Hawk’s Nest Beach – don’t have that data in the same detail. Initial view is that is more homogeneous, with less extremes.

Adjournment
Motion to adjourn by A.Lombard. Second by R. McCarthy. No discussion. Motion passed unanimously. Meeting was adjourned at 8:47 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Datum, WPCA Clerk