Town of Old Lyme Water Pollution Control Authority
Old Lyme Town Hall Mezzanine Meeting Room
Minutes Tuesday February 13th, 2018
In attendance: Chairman Prendergast, Vice-Chair Donna Bednar, Doug Wilkinson, Frank Chan, Dimitri Tolchinski, Sal Cancelliere, Rob McCarthy, Joe Carpentino, Steve Cinami
Absent: Andrea Lombard
Also in attendance were 5 townspeople and Selectwoman Nosal
Alternate S. Cinami will be full voting member tonight in the absence of A. Lombard.
Chairman Prendergast called the meeting to order at 7:31 p.m.
Approval of the January minutes
Motion by J. Carpentino to approve the minutes. Second by D. Wilkinson. Discussion: Some questions about the discussion of wells 5D and 5S at Hawk’s Nest Beach. No motion to amend. No other discussion. Motion to approve carries unanimously.
Chairman’s Report
Waste water study grant application extension
Submitted extension. Large document, over 200 pages. Requirements from the Town for a clerk to certify it, has to go through Board of Selectman meeting minutes and voted on, recognize town’s process will take some time. Some work still to be done.
DEEP feedback on Draft Waste Water Plan review and Environmental Impact Evaluation
Haven’t heard much. Only heard that Carlos Esquera, primary author of editing EIE, agreed with comments that Hawk’s Nest area references should be removed or toned down because it’s not part of this evaluation. Still acknowledge that Hawk’s Nest is in the scope in the initial study, but we are now going back and doing more testing. Still need to talk about how we are going to resolve that document and get feedback to the state. There is a bit of a time crunch.
Cooperation with Private Beach Association's WPCAs
Chairman Prendergast had a discussion with First Selectwoman Reemsnyder regarding the land lease (private beach associations leasing land at end of Sound View to use as a pump station.) The Town has option to buy into resources, which will save us millions of dollars. Chairman Prendergast had a conference call with the beach association WPCAs and summarized some of the issues that existed and how they have been resolved. One more issue needs to be resolved, then he will get the edits to the Town lawyer and Board of Selectmen. Additionally, Chairman Prendergast had sent out letters to other municipalities that we will have to deal with, asking status of IMAs, and summarized the response back from Town of Waterford. Purpose of introduction is to open communications.
Budget Update and Expenses
Budget update and planning
Treasurer D. Wilkinson submitted the initial budget proposal to Town. Passed out a chart comparing the current budget, year-to-date actual, and proposal for next year. Legal counsel reduced $10,000. Consultant line reduced, left $15,000 expecting some consulting other than Woodard & Curran. Water testing down $10,000. We have carryover from last year, plus anticipated carryover from this year, with next year’s budget should cover future testing. Going to ask for $30,000 less next year than last year. Carryover is separate budget document – don’t see it in regular budget reports. Budget for testing includes testing and well installation over multiple years.
Review of any new invoices acceptance. No new invoices.
Correspondence
Two letters have been received. The first is a letter of support from CT Water Company. S. Cinami pointed out that the letter states they will supply the materials. Will they pay for the labor itself? It says “WPCA would be responsible…” need to clarify that they will pay for the installation. Chairman Prendergast will take this action item and ask the letter writer to amend it.
Second letter is from City of New London. They replied “NL WPCA do not feel that this is an appropriate time for discussion….”
Also in the area of correspondence, Chair of Old Lyme WPCA contacted the Chair of Old Lyme Zoning Commission after reading minutes of their meetings. Concern is that aquifer protection zone rules have said different things: no sewers, then limits on gallons. Set a water zone that goes from Griswold point diagonally through all the beach zones. Concern that we might have to have zoning permit to put in sewer treatment plant or sewer lines, or permit to export. Selectwoman Nosal mentioned that she attended the Zoning meeting last night – they did not act on that issue at all. In discussion with First Selectwoman Reemsnyder, who expressed some concerns that it might not be legal. Need to research to get more information. Chairman Prendergast will follow up with another memo to the Chair of Zoning.
Motion by D. Tolchinski for a lawyer to look at draft. For our commission to send letter to Zoning commission. He then amended the motion to have attorney address legality of proposed amendments to aquifer zone. Second by J. Carpentino. Discussion: Do we really need to have a lawyer at this point? Or do we send letter to Zoning Commission asking for clarification. R. McCarthy says we need to make a statement and a lawyer has more weight. S. Cinami will attend the March 12th Zoning Commission meeting, and stated he believes it is better to have legal advice to back up WPCA opinion. S. Cinami then proposed to amend the amendment, that the WPCA get the lawyer’s advice to then draft a letter that comes from the WPCA chair. D. Tolchinski agreed with both amendments. Motion carries unanimously.
More correspondence: Summary of emails from resident Mr. Folland was sent out via email in advance of the meeting. Chairman Prendergast responds to the emails that are addressed to the WPCA (as they are copied to many other boards and people.)
Old Business
Hawks Nest Draft water testing plan update
Chairman Prendergast asked the WPCA Clerk to use the updated map from Woodard & Curran with detailed locations of the wells and investigate the surrounding properties for septic tanks, leaching fields and the like. The Clerk shared an enlarged map of the Hawk’s Nest area with color-coded locations of existing and proposed wells. There was not enough time to complete the investigation of surrounding properties before tonight’s meeting, so the Clerk will continue that work. Discussion: When would they start testing? Deadline of July 1st when summer season starts. Would be preferable to start in spring. Monitoring g of wells has to be correlated to rainfall. Actual sampling dates are dependent on weather. Number of samples we want has to be voted on. S. Cinami thinks we should test one of the “5” wells and
that will give us a before and after snapshot. R. McCarthy stated don’t test there, as it will skew our data, and suggests we drop both of the “5” wells. It was suggested that the proposed wells 9, 10 and 11 will test what is coming from the marsh, not what coming from those houses on West End Drive.
Motion by S. Cinami to remove wells 5D and 5S from plan, and propose new well at lot 61. (Street address 62 Washington Ave.) Second by J. Carpentino. Discussion. J. Carpentino asks what does new well location accomplish? Still have water that runs north to south. Will pick up same readings. D. Bednar says assumption that water runs directly from north to south is a generality. Chairman Prendergast clarifies that by moving well location south of existing 5S/D, will remove the problem of being associated so closely with property line with Miami Beach. D. Tolchinski thinks we can keep 5S/5D. Cost is not in drilling wells but in monitoring. Not going to abandon wells, but remove from plan. Motion carries unanimously.
Subcommittee EDU research update
Meeting of the subcommittee was scheduled recently, but majority of members were not able to attend, so meeting was cancelled, and will be rescheduled. S. Cinami met with Frank Noe and Scott Ballancher shortly after New Year’s. They discussed EDUS, and agreed there should be a standard system of determining what an EDU is. Discussion followed, including total number of EDUs, cost, timeline, usage, lots that are exceptions, range of house size/square footage, benefit assessment, and connection fee, Chairman Prendergast suggests at the next meeting the sub-committee presents 2-3 options for whole committee to discuss. S. Cancelliere asks on the last page of cost sharing agreement – do we have addresses for vacant lots? Not that Chairman Prendergast knows of. D. Tolchinski stated he thinks we shouldn’t necessarily give
small houses a break, because large houses might be totally compliant with a septic system, and are only going to be hooked up to the sewer system because of the small houses.
Environmental impact Evaluation discussion
The document is currently in edit mode. Committee needs to have one harmonious document to send back to DEEP. A few members had troubles making changes to the shared Google document. Now that Hawk’s Nest has been taken out, are most folks satisfied with it? Chairman Prendergast can send the document with edits to everyone in a Word document, have one week to look over and make comments to him, and he will then send to the edits to Carlos at the DEEP to look it over. S. Cancelliere stated he doesn’t want to rush through it, and wants to see a final document. J. McCarthy will re-read. He’s worried it’s changed so much since he last read it.
New business
No new business
Public Comment
Rocco Cannero Center Beach Ave: Mr. Cannero noted that J. Carpentino stated he wants to do proper testing at Hawks Nest. Have you done that testing at Sound View?
Sandy Garvin, Hawks Nest Beach: Regarding the proposed site of 3 wells on West End Drive. What are criteria for placement? Important to let landowners know where they will be before drilling. Question about oversight. Woodard & Curran are doing a lot of work. We don’t have sanitarian or health director. Who is looking at this? Request oversight. Would be good to know another point of view besides Woodard & Curran. They seem to push us in directions that we question. Look to have authority as far as decisions made on property, want a good result.
Bill Folland, 6 Dunns Lane: He is the author of 30+ emails (probably a lot more) to Chairman Prendergast, and to other chairs of land use boards, that are critical of wastewater plan. Primary concern is issue of water transfer. What is good for chartered beach communities is not always good for the Town. Goes for the sewer system. Concern that this commission is being “nose-led” by beach communities and their WPCAs, and not being objective in looking for alternatives. Sound View and Hawk’s Nest are your customer, and he has heard from many folks that they are not satisfied. He has asked chairman to look at what has gone on in Old Saybrook. They are considered to be fore-runners in developing wastewater plans and alternate solutions. Asking commission to be open minded and objective and listen to neighbors. He was
one of very few residents who attended August presentation at beach. Several major points were missing, including benefit assessment. Several residents were concerned with cost of project. More of a blue-collar neighborhood. Answers that were given to those people were not the right answers. Sewers are not the only option. Invite people in that disagree with you.
Chairman Prendergast responded to public comment: As to the question about DNA testing in Sound View, no we have not. Regarding oversight for monitoring placement of wells – plan is to notify people. Doesn’t mean asking for permission. Using independent labs. Not planning to use Woodard & Curran to collect and process data. He believes we’ll be able to have completely independent lab. Need to determine location, and what we will need to test.
R. McCarthy takes offense to the comments by Mr. Folland that this commission hasn’t looked at alternatives. Many members started serving on a task force looking at alternatives that were then shot down by state. It is false to say that we didn’t look at alternatives. Don’t say you’re stating facts when it is conjecture.
Chairman Prendergast tried to provide reasonable answers to questions sent to him. He has been WPCA Chair since Sept 2012. Requesting water study, have to justify to vote yes, then justify to committee and justify to Board of Finance. Early on, there were some alternatives, however we learned the hard way that spending tax dollars to investigate to get a plan that was not going to get approved. Lot of history that someone new to this situation might not recognize. As for Old Saybrook, they did some simple plans, and what they are doing now is building a sewage treatment plant on CT river. We had a plan to go behind Cherrystones, use irrigation. Problem is reliability. Sewage treatment plan has unlimited capacity. Looked at alternatives. Trying to do best for the Town. There is a cost impact we have to consider. Doing
our best to reach out to the public. There is a challenge to get the right level of detail when doing a presentation. Still struggling to get right details, encourage people to comment. OK to disagree.
D. Wilkinson commented that we are prepared to test the water in Hawk’s Nest to determine if sewers are needed are not, which shows that we are very sensitive to do the right thing.
D. Bednar suggested that Mr. Folland read the minutes going back through the years to see how the WPCA investigated alternatives to the sewers.
D. Tolchinski commented that Mr. Folland has been coming to meetings for many years, and brings the same issues. We have been ordered by DEEP to do this. No way back. We have to do this. Have spent almost $300,000, the State financed 55% of cost to investigate, and will help pay for construction also. Trying to satisfy everyone. Stop writing comments that don’t help us. It takes our time.
S. Cinami stated that he’s known Mr. Folland for a while, and appreciates the concern. Issues that he is raising have been discussed extensively at our meetings, and are well documented. S. Cinami believes that our customers are the people of Old Lyme, not just Hawk’s Nest or Sound View. He is not a zealot for installing sewers. Sound View needs our help with water issues. Mr. Folland’s comments are unfounded. Committee does quite a bit of work to find cost effective, viable solutions to problems faced by beach community. He suggests that Mr. Folland try to keep emails to minimum.
Motion to adjourn D. Wilkinson. Second by D. Bednar. The meeting was adjourned at 9:59 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Datum, WPCA Clerk
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