The monthly meeting of the Board of Water Commissioners was held at Freedom Hall at 6:00 p.m. Chairman Barnicle, Commissioner Campbell and Commissioner Mastro were present, as was Superintendent Chris Wiseman.
Russ Kleekamp from the engineering firm of GHD was in attendance as was a team from Open Cape which included Steve Johnson, Executive Director and Gary Farrenkopf, Outside Plant Manager. Bryan Hopkins, President of Comm-Tract Corp participated by phone.
The meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m.
The 12/17/2015 minutes were approved and warrants were signed.
Mr. Wiseman reviewed the water quality testing results for the month of December. He reported that there was a Total Coliform hit in December. It was present in a raw water sample from station #3 and was reported to the MassDEP. It was NOT present in the treated water sample and all subsequent sample results were absent of total coliform.
MassDEP has approved annual testing for chlorine by-products (THM’s and HAA5’s. MTBE testing will take place in February and the results will be available for the March meeting.
PUMPAGE:
December 2014 Pumpage: 7,958,000
December 2015 Pumpage: 8,301,000
There was 1 new service installation and 1 replacement service completed in December which includes a home that had been granted a leak adjustment in the two previous years.
The new superintendent vehicle is now in service. It needs to be sent out for the lettering and seal. Will likely be looking for a new vendor to do this as we have not received a response from the previous vendor.
Mr. Wiseman reminded the board that the clerk will need the FY15 B.O.W.C. report for the Annual District Report and we will have a draft of the FY17 budget available for the February meeting.
Mr. Wiseman also updated the board on the findings of the Sanitary Survey and the Station Maintenance evaluation that was completed in December and provided a cost estimate for the maintenance needed.
Steve Johnson, Executive Director of Open Cape provided an update on the fiber optic project and a new cost estimate based on the review done after the previous meeting. The new cost estimate is $141,600 and the duration of the project will be about two weeks to complete. We will need to obtain a new contract and submit it to legal for review.
Russ Kleekamp updated the board on the progress at the West Street Tank. Demolition will begin soon and it is on-schedule for an April 1st construction date.
The USDA 350+ page application has been submitted with a few minor follow up items to be addressed.
The Solar RFP is complete and we should be able to get it out to bid in February. Mr. Wiseman will follow up with Andrew Casey for an update on this project.
Russ also briefly reviewed the cell phone tower initiative and a contingency request from Sprint.
The next meeting will be held on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. at Freedom Hall.
The meeting adjourned at 7:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Theodore Barnicle, Chairman
Cc: Prudential Committee