Town of Old Lyme Minutes of the WPCA Meeting October 30, 2018
Held at the Memorial Town Hall
In attendance: Chairman Rich Prendergast, Vice-Chair Donna Bednar, Joe Carpentino, Dimitri Tolchinski, Frank Chan, Rob McCarthy, Sal Cancelliere, Andrea Lombard. Absent: Steve Cinami and Doug Wilkinson. Also in attendance Selectwoman Nosal, Jay Sheehan from Woodard & Curran and 5 townspeople.
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 7:33 p.m.
Approval of September Meeting Minutes
Motion by D. Bednar to accept the minutes of the September meeting. Second by J. Carpentino. Discussion: None. Motion carries unanimously.
Chairman’s Report
EIE: From the DEEP, the record of decision has been drafted and is in circulation for review, which is the response to EIE public comment session. It tries to answer questions and indicate to the Town what the State will tell us to do.
Cooperation with the private beach associations: No issues/discussion since last meeting. It was noted that a permit request was made for a pump house in a second location. Supposedly a backup plan for the private beach associations. Two locations are geographically close – one town property, one not. We will work on IMAs (intermunicipal agreements) with New London and East Lyme, but don’t need beach associations for that.
Budget Update and Expenses
D. Wilkinson was not in attendance. Chairman Prendergast indicated there are two major expenditures. The first is for the installation of the wells in Hawk’s Nest Beach. Invoice is approximately $14,000 and was previously approved. Not over budget. Another round of groundwater monitoring testing came in at approximately $4,000.
Correspondence:
Sent via email prior to the meeting. An email was received from Carlos Esguerra at DEEP expressing disappointment that the OL WPCA questioned the need to spend money on well water depth monitoring and included his reasons for why he thinks it should be done. We will re-look at the scope of work in Old Business. Other correspondence from Mr. Yankee that we get funding for Sound View project and Chairman Prendergast’s reply that we are getting funding for it. After the heavy rains on October 27, correspondence was received from Rocco Todaro with pictures of flooding near pump house and his concerns. Chairman Prendergast pointed out that the design for pump house has considerations for flooding. It is factored into the plan and has been addressed in both EIEs as a concern (town and private beach
associations.) S. Cancelliere asked if there was a correspondence from Sandy Cameron asking if the test results have been posted on the Town’s website. Chairman Prendergast replied that he doesn’t believe the results have been posted. Don’t know how urgent it is to post results – won’t change results if there is a slight delay. F. Chan stated it is important to post raw data.
Old Business
Depth to Water Scope Review. Phase 2A. Chairman Prendergast would like to have a discussion to revisit our decision from last month and consider making a new motion. S. Cancelliere expressed concern regarding Robert’s Rules of Order relating to the original motion. Discussion followed regarding the original request from the DEEP, the scope of work, and how to deal with the original motion. Chairman Prendergast suggested we delay having a motion tonight as we will be having another meeting in less than a month, which will give us time to do some research.
Jay Sheehan from Woodard & Curran. Mr. Sheehan joined WPCA members at the table to review the components and parameters of the Hawk’s Nest Beach well monitoring. He discussed the reason for the testing, which is nitrogen getting into Long Island Sound, which reduces oxygen, causing hypoxia and fish dying. DEEP says this needs to stop and they are looking at density of housing a contributing factor all along the CT shoreline. Mr. Sheehan mentioned that any presence of ammonia and fecal bacteria indicates wastewater contamination. It was noted that groundwater temperature is average annual temperature, which is 55 degrees in this area. Other factors including coliform, nitrate/nitrites, conductivity and turbidity were discussed. High tide at 8:21 a.m. on the day of testing. State asked to
vary times – not do same time each test. Tide is more important than time of day. The results of each well were reviewed one by one, and comments/questions/concerns that would merit discussion were raised. The older wells we have more data for – can go back to older results to chart further. We only have 2 months of sampling, wouldn’t draw conclusions from it.
S. Cancelliere stated that it was his understanding that Woodard & Curran would have nothing to do with test results. Chairman Prendergast noted that both LedgeLight (the Town’s health district) and the DEEP (DEEP offered to have a conference call to discuss) were asked to come to meeting to talk about results, to say that the results are not unreasonable. They both turned us down, and DEEP recommended Woodard & Curran come to the meeting. We don’t want to go though all this to have someone later say the whole thing is invalid. Woodard & Curran are not involved in testing. Hoping to have letter saying that testing is reasonable to put in file. We want to make sure that protocol is valid. We have an EIE that has limits and components. Report from the lab doesn’t say what pass/fail is.
Can we request on subsequent reports? No, but we will add to Excel summary report.
Carmody Update: The WPCA Clerk reported that the contract with Carmody has been signed, and payment has been arranged. The Clerk, Town Assessor and Scott Carmody had a conference call to begin the discussion and work of exporting the information to the Carmody system. Before the export takes place, a decision needs to be made on what fields will be in the new database. In addition to the fields that are on the current pumpout slip, we also have an option to add any other fields from the assessor records that might assist in producing reports. We should also take a look at the letter that is sent out to property owners if they are past due on their pumpout. Now is the time to revise the wording and consider changing the format. Chairman Prendergast will work with the Clerk on moving this along.
New Business
Approval of meetings dates for 2019: Meetings will continue to be held on the second Tuesday of the month. A list of suggested dates was sent via email prior to the meeting. Motion by D. Bednar to accept the dates as presented. Second by F. Chan. Discussion: Concern was expressed over the November and February dates. Dates can be changed when we get closer if needed, and other rooms might be available if we are bumped by another board/commission. S. Cancelliere expressed a concern regarding the optional August meeting. If there is no August meeting, might leave a bad taste in summer resident’s mouths. Chairman Prendergast noted the optional August meeting has been a historical carryover since before his time. Motion carries unanimously.
Public Comment:
Dave Mitchell, 64 Columbus Ave: Well advised to follow DEEP recommendations. Some questions about quality of data. Lab is state certified can do internal Q.A. Groundwater data is messy compared to surface water. Individual results will show trends. Knowing in advance how you’re going to look at data, think about that now. Mentioned wells in West End maritime influence. Says to him enough tidal flushing that not enough time to treat waste. Almost like a discharge rather than a treatment.
Sandy Garvin, Garvin Family, Hawk’s Nest Beach: She agrees with Dave on getting clear analysis of data. Did provide water treatment facility data log 3-4 years ago NL putting treated water in at 10.7 (?) into sound. How can we have different standard? Too many unknowns. Shocked that LedgeLight doesn’t want to give opinion. Who is their oversight? Would like to see results posted earlier. How do we know that swamp muck isn’t causing natural number, putting sewers in won’t change that. Can draw conclusion from data whatever way you are thinking. Does State Dept of Health need to have opinion on analysis? Unnerving to not know what we are looking at. Format that Jacobson used for their data 10-12 years on one page. Pretty efficient to look at – expected to look at similar type of
summary. 50-page analysis each time is tedious. Can get idea with similar format. Last question: how many samplings are you planning on doing in a year?
Donna Peters, 14 Center Beach Ave: Do you think beginning of meeting, you could introduce yourselves? Also, please use microphones.
Chairman Prendergast responds: A lot of good suggestions on how to conduct study/tests/quality control. Apparent that groundwater testing is messy. Don’t mean to suggest any interpretation of results so far. Don’t want to go for long period of time that testing is not being done right. J. Carpentino added that he asked a lot of questions, which is his way to help him understand how data can be evaluated fairly and objectively. Didn’t want to give impression he was making evaluations. Chairman Prendergast continued: Water treatment from NL what are the limits. State of CT DEEP legally tell us what we have to do. Coordinate with state Dept of Health. There are listed limits in our EIE. Will add to summary spreadsheet. Not sure if lab can export to spreadsheet. Will have actual results and
Excel summary sheet that is inputted and checked as quality control. Will be same format as years past. Regarding LedgeLight, Chairman Prendergast was surprised too. Maybe we can look at further. Have letter from director that they declined. DEEP is telling us to do this. There will be 16 samples over a two-year period (8 per year). 16 times from every well. Skip December and February and do all other months. This schedule can be changed. Chairman Prendergast apologizes for not using the microphones – there is a locked cabinet in the meeting room where they are stored, and he does not yet have a key. Can consider making introductions in future meetings. The Clerk mentioned that the Town is also getting assistive listening devices that are compatible with the microphones and sound system.
Motion to adjourn by J. Carpentino. Second by A. Lombard. No discussion. Motion carries unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 9:01 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Datum, WPCA Clerk
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