October 23, 2025 – Community Meeting – MWRA Connection – Video & Transcript
October 23, 2025 - Community Meeting - MWRA Connection
Sure. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Whelan Water Supply Improvements and MWRA Interconnection
Project. We want to let you know that interpretation is available for this meeting, so
Kate, we'll introduce our interpreters. Thanks, Kirsten. Before we go any further,
we do want to make you aware interpretation is available for this meeting in Portuguese and
in Spanish. I will introduce our Portuguese interpreter, Alexandra. Can you please read
the instructions for joining the interpretation channel for Portuguese?
Good evening. To hear the interpretation for Portuguese, you need to go to the lower bar
of the screen and find an icon with a global global with the word interpretation. Click
no globo terrestre. Escolha o idioma de sua preferência, que neste caso será o português. Se quiserem
só ouvir o português, podem, vocês podem silenciar o áudio original. Ah, e se tiverem usando um celular,
é preciso apertar nos três pontinho na parte superior da tela do celular. Se vocês precisarem o áudio da
reunião por meio do computador, vocês não ouvirão a interpretação do idioma se usarem os recursos de áudio de
português. E se vocês precisarem fazer perguntas em português, poderão também fazê-la. E eu poderei traduzir para o inglês,
conforme necessário. Muito obrigada.
Thank you. Emily, can you please read the instructions for joining the Spanish Interpretation Channel?
Bienvenidos a todos. Agora les voy a explicar como unirse a la función de interpretación. En un momentico, cuando lo encendemos, verá al fondo de su ventana de zoom un ícono de un globo en los controles de abajo. Hagan clic en Interpretación. Haga clic en el idioma que desea escuchar, y si quiere, para escuchar sólo el idioma interpretado y no escuchar el inglés por atrás, haga clic en Silenciar audio original. Nota, por favor, que debe unirse al audio de la reunión a través del audio de OIP del equipo. No puede escuchar la interpretación de idioma si utiliza las funciones de audio de teléfono. Marca o recibir llamadas. Como participantes que se une a un canal de idioma puede transmitir de nuevo en el canal de audio principal si reactiva el audio y habla. Gracias. Thank you, Alexandra and Emily. And now we'll just wait one moment while the interpretation channels are set up. I haven't seen them disappear yet. Alexandra, are you still in here? Oh, you're still here. Is our Zoom support able to put them in the channels? So I believe they are. Okay, great. Emily or Alexandra, can you confirm? Are you all set? Okay, great. Okay, great. I will hand it back to Kirsten or Tom. I'm actually not sure who's from here. Start with Tom. Yes. Well, good evening, everybody. Thanks very much for joining us tonight. We're pleased to spend an hour or so speaking about a very important project in Weyland and Framingham. I am Tom Holder. I am the director of the Department of Public Works in Weyland. With me tonight is Kirsten Ryan with Kleinfelder, as well as Kate Riley, who is also with Kleinfelder. They have been supporting us over the last four years as we've performed an evaluation, made some decisions, and we are presently working on a solution to be able to provide potable drinking water for the foreseeable future. I also want to also recognize that the Board of Public Works, a five-member elected board, over the course of these four years, has been part of the collaborative and have been a large part of the decision-making process and providing support at many committee board meetings, as well as town meetings, getting the appropriate funding. So what we're going to do tonight, you'll be able to see an agenda just to the right of the introduction slide, and we'll go through that. And at the conclusion of number six, we'll then open it up to questions where we'll be able to recognize those that are watching here tonight and do the best we can to provide answers to questions. As always, if you have a question about this after this, you're welcome to call our office, email us at Weyland Public Works Department, and we're more than happy to answer questions. We have an extensive webpage that has much of the information that I've been describing earlier, and that is also on the Weyland DPW webpage. So feel free to access that at any point in time in the future. And with that, Kirsten, I will turn it over to you. Thank you, Tom. Thanks everybody for joining us this evening. As Tom mentioned, we have about a 30-minute presentation with the agenda here on this slide. I'm going to first kind of take you through to get you familiar with Weyland's water system and its challenges, and then talk about the MWRE system, which is part of the solution that we're looking at, take you through kind of the steps over time that Weyland's been working on to figure out what to do about the problem, and then we're going to dig into, you know, what that project actually would look like. So let me get just started with the overall meeting objectives here. You know, this is a major drinking water improvements project, major infrastructure project, requires state permits and approvals. So due to the size and characteristics of the project, it is required to file for approval under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA. The MEPA process provides an opportunity for public comment on the project. And so this meeting is intended to provide an overview for community members and provide an opportunity, you know, for public education and engagement and inform the public where they can obtain additional information. As Tom mentioned, the project is partially located within Framingham, as well as the most of it is located in Weyland. So we have been inviting the Framingham and Weyland community to listen in on this meeting. And it is being recorded. So I believe the recording will be available on the town's website afterwards, and we'll provide you with the link at the end. So first I just want to kind of walk people through an overview of Weyland's water system. If you're not familiar, it has a total of four groundwater supply well sources, about 106 miles of water main pipe that you can see on the map here. And those four well sources going sort of from north to south are the Campbell well, the Chamberlain well, the Baldwin pond wells, there's actually several wells that at the Baldwin pond location, and then the happy hollow well site, where there is also several wells. And each of those wells is of a different size or yield. And you can see those quantities here listed next to each well, the Campbell well being the smallest one at point six million gallons per day, followed by the Chamberlain and then the Baldwin pond well site. And happy hollow well sites are a little bigger, 1.5 and 1.3 million gallons per day of available supply when they're when they're functioning optimally, I should say. And there's one existing storage tank here, and one under construction. So that's kind of Weyland's water system overview. And I'll get into a little more details in a moment. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority or MWRA system is, you know, a major, major water supplier to a lot of the metro Boston area. And this, you know, sort of sketch cartoon shows a portion of their system. They have massive reservoirs, the Quabbin Reservoir and Central Mass and Western Mass. And they have two redundant pipelines. This is kind of the key point that come together right in near the Framingham and Weyland border, the Holtman Aqueduct and the Metro West Tunnel. So you can see here in yellow, this is basically where Framing, Weyland is and Framingham right here to the west. So these two pipelines come together at what's called Shaft L near that border. And all of Framingham's water is actually supplied by the MWRA currently. So next kind of getting into Weyland's water challenges, which were first identified several years ago and primarily focused on a contamination issue with a chemical called PFAS, P-F-A-S or PFAS. This stands for part in polyfluoroalkyl substances. I'm not going to be able to get into all the details of what PFAS are. It's a manmade substance with a variety of sources. We do not know the exact sources of this contamination in Weyland, but I will say that it is quite widespread throughout Massachusetts and particularly in eastern Massachusetts. The good news is we know how to treat for PFAS to remove them from the water and Weyland is treating to remove them from the most impacted wells. So you can see a graph on the right hand side here of the levels of PFOA is one particular PFAS compound that's been detected in Weyland's wells over the past few years. The red line here is the regulation that at the federal level is going to become effective in 2029. So it sounds far away, but it's really not. It's right around the corner when you think about the time it takes to design and construct a treatment facility. Currently, the happy hollow well field in the yellow dot up here is actually exceeding the existing Massachusetts regulation of 20. So this graph doesn't really show you the worst case of the current situation. It's kind of showing you in the future both happy hollow and the Chamberlain well will exceed that regulation that will be affected shortly. And the Baldwin pond is also going up over that level. So really most of the sources would likely need to have treatment. In addition, Weyland has a lot of very old water mains, close to 100 years old, that could use replacement as well. So this problem was kind of first discovered in 2021. The Massachusetts regulation for PFAS was new and Weyland was testing and discovered the levels at happy hollow well field exceeding the Massachusetts limits. So Weyland moved quickly to install a least temporary treatment system. You can see in a photo there. So this system is taking all the PFAS out of the water. So that is non-detectable, but it is not designed for long-term use. It's in a temporary pad with a temporary enclosure. And so Weyland was really looking to study the long-term options that were available. So we looked, starting back in 2021, and for about a two-year period, we were working with Weyland on Kleinfeld engineers to study long-term options. These basically included first looking at whether it was a good idea to treat at all four well, local wells. You saw those on the map. They're all spread throughout the town from north to south. So the question was, should we install a new treatment facility at each of those locations? Or should the town connect to the MWA and abandon all of the local sources because the MWA pipeline was so close by? Or should there be, you know, kind of a combination or a dual source where MWA is part of the part of the solution and part of the solution is to treat a local supply well? And back in 2023, our evaluation recommended the dual source option. There was a town meeting boat to pursue, start the process to pursue membership with the MWA system. In the meantime, the town constructed an emergency pump station that could help kind of bridge that gap until the long-term supply could be brought online. So let's take a look at what we kind of went through in order to arrive at that determination as what is a good long-term solution. So during 2024, we were engaged with conceptual design evaluations, looking at each of the sources, the pros and cons, and the feasibility of installing a treatment facility, which, you know, generally has got to be a pretty large footprint. And what you can see from these little maps is a lot of colors, but the blue color, the light blue color, is a flood zone. The blue and the orange, I should say, represent flood-prone areas. And then there's some sort of hashing out here, which represents wetlands, obviously, near the flood zones. So that is one serious consideration. The other consideration are the property boundaries around each of these wells. And state regulations require a minimum 400-foot radius around the drinking water supply well. That wasn't a requirement years and years ago. So some sources do have a radius that is smaller. For example, Baldwin Pond here, you can see these green dots are the existing wells. This distance to the nearest properties is not 400-foot. So in order to build a new treatment facility here at the Baldwin Pond site, you can see the existing facility here. There's very little space. You're kind of hemmed in between these properties and structures and residences and the pond here and the wetlands. And there's also no space to, in the future, move the wells over and restore them, which sometimes needs to be done every 15 or so years. Similarly, with Campbell and Chamberlain, these are the smallest sources. So this is really not a good economic decision to try to either fill in land or purchase adjacent land to provide enough space. Excuse me. So luckily, the Happy Hollow facility, which is shown here in this drawing, does have enough space for not only a new future facility, but also for future, you know, these wells are actually quite newer. They are from 2015. But in the future, if they needed to be re-drilled, you know, a short distance away, there is plenty of space. This location is up and behind the high school. So the town owns all of this space. You can actually see this white box here is the temporary treatment facility, which is in the flood-prone area currently. And I would also just mention that part of the process Whelan would need to go through to connect to the MWA is a permit from the state called Interbasin Transfer. And that requires you to look at all of your local sources and say, you know, ideally, you are treating them and using them. But if they are not feasible, you can connect to, you know, an MWA or a source from another basin. So in 2024, our conceptual design conclusion, you know, was the Happy Hollow is a feasible place to put the new facility, as well as a new connection to MWA is feasible. And I'm going to get into the details of what that would look like next. So last spring in 2025, the Whelan town meeting is being voted to proceed with funding design of this dual source solution. We are currently completed the 30% design in August and we are beginning the 60% milestone design now. So next, as I said, I'm going to kind of take you through what these the elements of this project would look like. This is, you know, we've done the best to design a most cost effective feasible solution with the lowest environmental impact. And that's really always our goal. But there are two major things, as I said, the new treatment facility at the Happy Hollow Wellfield, I'm abbreviating that HHWTF in some slides. This would be out of the floodplain area and with improved treatment processes with a permanent structure to provide a reliable long term supply. And then a new connection to the MWA with a connection at MWBRI's shaft L near the Holtman Aqueduct. I'm going to show you in a map in a second. And then a pipeline extending to a new pump station. And then this would also require the replacement of some of that 90 plus year old water mains in old Connecticut path. So let's let's take a look at our map and what this looks like. So kind of orienting everybody, you know, kind of zooming out, you can see Sudbury, Whelan and Framingham, you know, the northeastern corner of Framingham and the southwestern corner of Whelan. And this dark blue line represents the project extents starting in Framingham and going up into the island. And then on the right here, we are kind of zooming in a bit to give you a little bit more detail. And that connection to the MWBRI's shaft L structure would be over here. This is Oxbow Road in Framingham and Riverpath Drive here. And it's going to go right along parallel to the existing Holtman Aqueduct, cross into Wayland. There will be a pump station at the intersection of Castle Road and Old Connecticut Path. And that will be have the ability to move the water from the connection into the into the Whelan water distribution system along Old Connecticut Path, such that it can reach all the way up to the tank for storage. That's really like the pipeline portion. And then, of course, the Happy Hollow Well site is here in this big blue dot behind the high school. So let's again zoom in a little bit further into we'll start on the western border of the project starting at the Shaft L connection. And here in this photograph, this is what that facility looks like right now that the MWRA's facility where these big water tunnels come together. The MWRA is hiring a design engineer to craft a new sort of stub that Wayland can connect to. And then our engineers will be designing a pipeline that connects to that point. And it's got to loop around that building and then come out and cross the help and aqueduct and parallel it just in a second. So this blue shading and represents the aqueduct itself, which carries the MWRA's water supply. And then the pink line here would be the Wayland connection. And this would all be underground, I should say, you know, this this tunnel is deep underground. These pipelines would all be buried, you know, well below the surface, would not see them. We've also, I just want to mention, had quite a number of meetings with the MWRA's engineering staff. We are coordinating closely with them all to make sure that our design, you know, fits with their requirements for protecting their water supply as well. And that coordination will continue. So moving towards the east, this is a view along that Holtman Aqueduct corridor right now. And the pipeline would be again buried underneath along the southern side of it. So you're in this picture, you're standing on the aqueduct essentially looking to the west and the pipeline, it would be down near near the toe of this slope where my cursor is going right now. And that is about a distance of 5,300 feet. There's two culvert crossings. One of them is very straightforward and the other one I'll show you a photograph of our concept in a second. But really the overarching goals of our design here are to really maximize the separation between the Wayland pipeline and the Holtman Aqueduct. Obviously that's something that the MWRA wants to see as much as feasible. So we are able to achieve that. We also want to really minimize impacts to adjacent wetlands. There are wetlands located on in some locations on either side and we want to not impact those. We also want to minimize the tree removal necessary. But, you know, due to the slope, the slope of this land and the narrowness of the corridor, there will be some tree clearing necessary in certain sections along that, the south slope only. So continuing to move to the east, I mentioned a culvert crossing. And if you're not familiar with the term, that really just means there's a there's a stream running underneath the aqueduct. You know, this is the blue line, the aqueduct that runs from west to east. We're just standing somewhere along here looking back towards the west. And the stream goes, you know, from north to south, I'm sorry, south to north and in through a culvert. So our pipeline for Wayland needs to cross under that. So one way to do it would be to dig right through the stream, provide obviously some protection, but that's very disruptive. So our plan is to use a trenchless method that will prevent wetland impacts. Basically, it's going to go way deep underneath the stream by opening up a pit out away from the wetlands on one side and then coming up to the other. I think that the technique we're using is called an auger bore or the machine is called an auger bore that will avoid disturbing the wetlands. And here's an example of what one of those looks like. So yeah, you do have to dig a hole, but you do it away from the wetland, you tunnel under the wetland and you come up on the other side. Okay, so the pipeline will continue along until it reaches the intersection of Old Connecticut Path and Castle Road. And so at this location, we are designing a pump station. I have a couple of images here which are created by by our architects. It's an artist's depiction of what the structure, you know, roughly will look like to give people an idea. And this pump station is necessary to, you know, transport the water from that connection up to the tank. It's designed to be three and a half million gallon pump station. So it has the ability to pump all the water that Wayland would need at any given moment. So it's kind of, you know, if all those sources were unavailable, Wayland could rely on this connection alone. But the goal is really for the MWA supply to supplement the local supply because that is the more cost effective long-term operational solution. So there'll be two active pumps and one pump and standby for in case of emergency. We have a pretty simple prefabricated building design with a generator that's going to be noise dampened. It will sound no louder than ambient traffic. This picture at the top is if you're on Old Connecticut Path, this is what you would see. And this is a view from Castle Road itself. Now moving further to the east, we have our distribution main. And this picture depicts some of the preliminary work that we've been doing or the town has been helping with, I should say, to just make sure we understand where the buried infrastructure is along Old Connecticut Path and in relation to the MWA's other infrastructure along the way. But this water main is going to be about 7,700 feet of new water main. And, you know, it's a dual benefit really. It's it's needed to accept that new flow. It's also needed at any rate, even if this project wasn't happening, the town would want to replace that water main in the near future. The existing main is really too small and it is very old. So traffic management will be a key portion of this part of the project, obviously to, you know, put a new water main in the road. There will need to be some temporary limited closures that we will plan for. And then lastly, the Happy Hollow facility, it kind of oriented you to that a little bit already, but replacing the existing temporary system with a new facility in the upland area away from wetlands. That'll help protect the wetlands. It'll help protect the building. And also it'll resolve some ongoing problems with operational pressure. There will be new pumps in the wells and the facility will have what's called a clear well that will be able to accept that water. So show you a little bit of a preliminary design sketch here. With the building here will be about 4,000 square feet. Again, a pretty simple pre-engineered metal building for cost savings. We'll need to construct some stormwater management basins because of the access road that will need to go in there. And then there are some basins that accept water from the treatment filters. It's a pretty standard design. A lot of communities in Massachusetts are experiencing PFAS treatment and needing to install facilities just like this. And as an example, I have a picture here from the town of Millis where Kleinfelder designed a similar type of a facility to remove PFAS. Whelan's facility will have new systems to adjust the pH, new water pumps, and well pumps. And we also have a depiction of what that, you know, preliminary drawing of what that might look like. This is from the 30% design and the Whelan facility here. Another example of a similar facility in Millis there. Pretty utilitarian building. So some additional things to consider on the project after the completion and startup. Whelan will then be able to decommission the other wells, the Chamberlain, Campbell, and Baldwin Pond facilities. So that will reduce the complexity of operating their system with just the one facility to operate. Another thing that could be seen as a side benefit is that the Campbell and the Chamberlain Wells in particular are quite close to the Sudbury River. So the Concord Basin is what's known as a stressed basin and decommissioning those wells in the future from routine use will help reduce the pressure on stream flow in the Sudbury River, excuse me. So Leslie, I just want to show you kind of the schedule where we are in the process and the next steps. And then after that, we'll show you where to get more information and answer questions. So here we are in the fall, like as I said, we are in the progress of designing towards 60% complete. Milestone for folks that are interested in following along on the project is shortly in early November, we will be filing what's called an expanded environmental notification form with NEPA. So that's one of the requirements for a project like this. And so that will start a public comment period between November 7th and November 28th. Once that is published in the environmental monitor. And on the last slide, I have a link for how you can sign up to their emails, you get noticed when it comes out. And we will certainly, I believe Tom will be providing that on the town's website as well, which is on the next slide. And following that, there will be, so the expanded environmental notification form describes the project in much more detail than I have here tonight. Um, you know, potential environmental impacts and mitigation for those impacts. And all the, it'll list all the permits that we'll need to obtain for the project. And then there will need to be a second filing for a more, um, after the state agencies review the environmental notification form and sort of comment on, you know, have we addressed the potential impacts adequately, um, that will guide the filing of an environmental impact report in January. And then we're scheduled to complete that 60% design milestone, um, no later than April. In May, the town would be planning to vote for the construction funding for the project. Um, we will then need to start, um, seeking over the spring and summer approvals from the water resources commission for accepting water from outside of the Concord basin from the MWRA and as well as legislative approval. And then, um, once that is in hand, we would do the formal application for admission to the MWRA. So MWRA already knows this is and Wayland and Wayland's intent because of the vote, I believe in 2023. Um, and then we will complete our 100% design documents. Um, so they are ready for public bidding by September, um, and have local permits in hand that we will need to go through the local conservation commissions in both Wayland and Framingham. So that will also happen during, um, um, um, you know, summer, summer of 2026. Um, and then October is the funding deadline for a construction state loan application that Wayland is seeking. They offer a 0% loan or PFAS projects, which is very favorable financing. And then, um, you know, once that loan approval is, um, all set with the state, we will, the town will bid the project publicly and award the contract, um, sometime by May, 2027. Construction will then start probably summer, fall 2027 with approximately two year duration. A lot of steps. Okay. So lastly, um, where can you find more information? Uh, the town of Wayland on the DPW website, there is a whole page dedicated to this project. Um, you can look for that under Department of Public Works, MW connection, and the link is here. Um, these slides will be saved and uploaded, uh, to that link. Um, and as I mentioned, you can sign up with the MEPA office if you'd like, um, by emailing them at subscribe dash MEPA at environmental monitor. I won't try to read that. You see the link there. Um, yeah, this will be on the website, but you can sign up, um, to receive notices about this project.
And I think with that, you'll open up to questions. Great. Well, thank you very much, Kirsten. That was terrific. Um, I guess I will ask if the zoom monitor is still with us as I see you are the, you're, you're remaining the host. And I do appreciate you, uh, supporting us here tonight, Seth. So I, I see, I'm not sure how some of the questions are actually, you know, recognized. I do see that there is, um, a hand under attendees. There's an Alyssa that raised her hand earlier in the program. Uh, it is still raised. Um, so I'm not sure. Kirsten, Jane, Jane Albert. That question. I see that in the chat. Oh, do you see it in the chat? Okay. I see one in the chat and I see a hand raise. Got it. I think I unmuted. Okay. There we are. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Yeah. I'm Elisa Carter. I'm on, uh, Sherman's Bridge Road. And this is, has been a really fascinating presentation and it's quite a, uh, quite a big project. Um, and that, that thing with the big, the giant drill going under the stream and preserving the wetlands is mind blowing. Um, I did have some questions. I thought the happy, happy hollow. Well. Was the worst site with the, the leak that people have been trying to figure out where it's coming up from and still haven't. Am I incorrect in that? I am not familiar with, with a leak that we currently have, or even had in recent times, uh, happy hollow. Well field has gotten a lot of attention because it is the location where we've actually installed PFAS treatment, the temporary system that Kirsten was describing. Um, so that is the location where we have that, uh, it is the location where we're going to build a new treatment facility, but I don't, I'm not familiar like the, where the contamination is coming from. I assume that's what you're referring to. Yeah. I mean, there was a place that used to be a dump and it used to be, um, a place where the trucks were repaired by the town and everything. And there was, um, a lot of toxicity there. Um, but they hadn't figured out exactly where. I think that's the main street location that you're referring to. Yeah. So that's one 95 main street is what you're referring to this. That's adjacent to the middle school. Right. So you're correct. That's where the old DPW site used to be. That's where there was a landfill, a burn facility. Yeah. So there has been a lot of talk, uh, about PFAS, not so much PFAS and drinking water, but PFAS in soil. And yeah. And, and there's a simultaneous interest to this drinking water project is a proposal to do something with that property related to an athletic field or athletic complex. And so some of the challenges are to remediate the PFAS that's in the soil there. That's, uh, that's why I'm getting pretty much disconnected with this. They're not that far geographically from one another, but, uh, different sources of PFAS. This is PFAS in drinking water. The 195 main street is PFAS in the soil. Okay. So the PFAS in the soil there is not getting into the drinking water, but they are still trying to find the source of it. I mean, I've been understood they're still drilling and had to do another site. Yeah. So they, they do have a, um, uh, a hydrogeologist, um, uh, on, on retainer that's exploring and, uh, you know, investigating that property. I would say that 195 main street is, uh, certainly upstream of the happy hollow well field. Um, but it has not yet been determined that the activity at 195 main street is what has caused the PFAS detection and the drinking water at happy hollow. Okay. So it's not the worst well in the town, because it seemed like that was one of the few you're keeping. And so, yeah, so I was confused there. Yeah. And there, but, you know, good question because that has been considered, you know, I've been to a number of meetings, uh, with the, uh, licensed, uh, site professional, uh, you know, to, to certainly be aware of what's going on at 195 main and the impact that it would have at happy hollow. Okay. Yeah. That was one. And can I ask another question? Sure. Um, how, um, well, this is, I'm sure it's naive, but you know, when you, you look up at the pipeline that we need to start in order to hook up to the MWRA aqueduct, it's going all the way around these buildings and, and, you know, on three sides and why couldn't it go on the, on the one side that it's not going around instead of going around the whole buildings? I see there's tower there, but trust me, we much would have preferred that. Um, it just can't. So, yeah, we, we, we tried to, um, yeah, the MWRA needs it to go the way that it's shown and there's, you know, I, I'm not the design engineer, so I can't get into the exact reasons of why, but it's certainly. That's the only way that would have been our preference to have a more direct, um, but that is the way it needs to go. It's, it has to do with the depth of the tunnels and the connection that they're planning. So. Got it. And, and so how much PFAS can actually be removed by these plants and. Oh, all of it. I mean, it can be removed to non-detectable levels. That would be so awesome. And right now we already is, I mean, and the water that's coming out of Happy Hollow right now with the temporary system is, it's non-detect. So, you know, everyone can feel comfortable with that. Um, and it's, it's, it's easy to, you know, it's not, that's complicated to remove it. We, we know how, and it's being done all over the place. So. Awesome. So, so the water we're getting now is actually coming from there and not from the MWRA because the water now is seems a lot more chlorinated or something than I recall. And I was just wondering if that's going to continue when we get the MWRA water. Yeah. Good question. I know that there, there, there is an emergency pump station that Whelan has been able to use and I don't know if it's on now, but you know, it's, it's, it's not currently. Yeah. Um, connected to the MWRA at a different location, but yeah, when, that is a good question about, um, the, uh, Whelan's disinfection process right now uses a different method than the MWRA water. So part of this project will be changing over the way Whelan's Happy Hollow well is disinfected, um, to match the MWRA water. And generally speaking, most people, you know, feel that it's, they, they, they are less able to, to detect, you know, any chlorine. It's from the MWRA. Uh, the chloramine is, is the other, the, um, the MWRA uses a method called chloramines instead of free chlorine. Okay. Um, okay. I think that was it. Um, so we'll be getting it. We'll be, we'll just be tapping into the MWRA as needed, but generally it'll be coming all from Weyland. And if it comes from the MWRA, where does that come from? Is that coming from Quabbin or is it coming from multiple sources or? Yeah, it, uh, it, it, it does in essence, come from the Quabbin. That's where all of the MWRA water comes from. They do have a number of intermediate, um, reservoirs, uh, that are, uh, open to the environment and then they treat it at, uh, you can see the, the actual graphic that, uh, Kirsten has on the screen right now, the, uh, John J. Carroll water treatment plant, uh, treats the water. And at that point, it, uh, it never sees the light of day. So that's, that's where the water, that's where, when we do activate that, uh, that supply, that's where the water will be coming from. Oh, that's wonderful. Cause we had that in, um, we had Quabbin water in Weyland and it was the best water I'd had living in Massachusetts. Yeah. They, uh, they have award-winning, literally award-winning, uh, water, uh, quality taste, uh, test. Thank you so much. Yeah. It was our pleasure. Thanks for the questions. My dog decided to join me in my office here. So nice lie down. Yeah. Uh, let's see. I know someone had Q&A, uh, chat, a question in the chat. Is there other folks? Should we answer that one next? Sure. Actually, I think that was similar. Jane Albert, she had asked if the water will be taken where exactly it's coming from the newer deep tunnel or the older surface tunnel. Yeah. It's actually where they, they joined together at Shaftale. So it's, it's really kind of both, which is important. And that's what the EM debris preferred is that, you know, it has redundancy, um, so that, you know, if one is taken down, the other is available.
Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Cause it, it would have been a little less infrastructure to be able to connect directly to the Holtman or something, but this is, this is a safer option. Do we see any other questions and the chatter? I'm not seeing any other amongst the attendees. Oh, I see. I think Alyssa has raised her hand again. Sorry. Um, no, sir. No, sorry. You're fine. Isn't, um, having the mixed system more expensive than just going over to MWRA water. That's for some reason, that's what I thought it was cheaper if we just completely turned over to MWRA.
Yeah. So, so that, uh, we actually have a graph that explains that not in this presentation tonight, but, uh, it's on the webpage and in essence, the capital costs initially, uh, would be less to just simply make the connection to the MWRA. We wouldn't have to build the treatment plant, but over the course of 25 years, um, the actual costs, um, they become the same. They, they balance out and then they actually go in a different direction. The reason for that is that we're able to produce water at the happy hollow location at a less expense than we would if we have to purchase it from the MWRA. The MWRA water, uh, is, is more expensive. Uh, and that's because, you know, the resources, uh, the support that they bring, not only do they provide the water, but then they also provide, you know, uh, technical support and laboratory water quality support. There's a lot that, uh, a lot of support that they provide, but in essence, the answer is it would be cheaper initially, but over the longterm, it is less expensive to eat, to, uh, keep our local source operating. So is the bonds that were just, um, so, you know, put on the market, are those covering this and no? Well, they are covering the design much of the design, uh, actually about two thirds of the design. It was covered, uh, using ARPA funds. The town received, I think, upwards of four million dollars in ARPA funds, uh, a number of years ago. So about two thirds of the design is covered with that. We did have an appropriation this past May, uh, whereby we had design funds allocated. And, and that that is through a borrowing, uh, with that's associated with the water enterprise fund. The actual, um, loan that we're going to seek and obtain for the construction will actually be coming from the state. The clean water trust has something called a state revolving fund. And because we're doing this, um, as a result of, uh, PFAS contamination and to mitigate that PFAS, we're able to, uh, benefit from a 0% interest loan. So it's a 20 year term, um, at zero interest. There are some, you know, uh, a small administrative, uh, uh, you know, costs to become part of that program, but in essence, there is no interest associated with it. So that's a tremendous benefit for us. 20 year loan. 20 year loan. Oh, that's awesome. So we'll spread that out on our taxes over 20 years. So that's a, another good question. Um, although it was a statement, but I can elaborate a little bit about that is there is, um, focus right now between the finance committee, the select board and the board of public works on, um, how, what mechanism the town will actually use to pay that loan down. There are three options. One would have it in the water rates two, it would be, uh, with tax revenue and three, it would be a combination of the two. So, uh, those three bodies are actively engaged. You'll see, uh, that is an agenda item at many of the meetings, uh, of all three of the boards and committees, uh, to make a determination on what is the most effective, practical, uh, efficient mechanism to, uh, to pay that loan. Thank you so much for explaining that. Sure. You guys are great. You're doing a great job tonight, all of you. Thank you. Well, thank you. Do you see any, uh, any more on the chat? I mean, like I had said at the beginning of the presentation, uh, we have a lot of information on that webpage that was referenced in the last slide. Uh, and as always emailing myself, giving our office a call, we're more than happy to, uh, to provide information should others have questions after the fact. I do know that we will be having, um, additional presentations. I know I've been invited to attend a December meeting of the League of Women Voters, whereby we'll be offering a presentation, keeping people apprised of, of how this project is progressing. Uh, we anticipate also as we prepare for town meeting on May 4th, um, in addition to the, the, the, uh, number of board and committee meetings that we'll be having, we will likely be having another informational forum in, in, uh, in preparation for, for town meeting.
All right. I guess if, if we don't see additional questions, I would, uh, like to take an opportunity from myself and my staff to say thank you for all those that attend and for all those that are watching us in the future. Um, we appreciate the support and we look forward to advancing and completing what I'm calling a legacy project for the town of Weyland. Yeah. And thank you to our Spanish and Portuguese interpreters joining us. Appreciate that. Thank you to Seth for helping with the technical aspects of everything. Yes, very much so. Okay. Okay. All right. Very good. Thanks all. And, um, talk soon. All right. Have a good evening. Good night. Good night. Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone.
Bienvenidos a todos. Agora les voy a explicar como unirse a la función de interpretación. En un momentico, cuando lo encendemos, verá al fondo de su ventana de zoom un ícono de un globo en los controles de abajo. Hagan clic en Interpretación. Haga clic en el idioma que desea escuchar, y si quiere, para escuchar sólo el idioma interpretado y no escuchar el inglés por atrás, haga clic en Silenciar audio original. Nota, por favor, que debe unirse al audio de la reunión a través del audio de OIP del equipo. No puede escuchar la interpretación de idioma si utiliza las funciones de audio de teléfono. Marca o recibir llamadas. Como participantes que se une a un canal de idioma puede transmitir de nuevo en el canal de audio principal si reactiva el audio y habla. Gracias. Thank you, Alexandra and Emily. And now we'll just wait one moment while the interpretation channels are set up. I haven't seen them disappear yet. Alexandra, are you still in here? Oh, you're still here. Is our Zoom support able to put them in the channels? So I believe they are. Okay, great. Emily or Alexandra, can you confirm? Are you all set? Okay, great. Okay, great. I will hand it back to Kirsten or Tom. I'm actually not sure who's from here. Start with Tom. Yes. Well, good evening, everybody. Thanks very much for joining us tonight. We're pleased to spend an hour or so speaking about a very important project in Weyland and Framingham. I am Tom Holder. I am the director of the Department of Public Works in Weyland. With me tonight is Kirsten Ryan with Kleinfelder, as well as Kate Riley, who is also with Kleinfelder. They have been supporting us over the last four years as we've performed an evaluation, made some decisions, and we are presently working on a solution to be able to provide potable drinking water for the foreseeable future. I also want to also recognize that the Board of Public Works, a five-member elected board, over the course of these four years, has been part of the collaborative and have been a large part of the decision-making process and providing support at many committee board meetings, as well as town meetings, getting the appropriate funding. So what we're going to do tonight, you'll be able to see an agenda just to the right of the introduction slide, and we'll go through that. And at the conclusion of number six, we'll then open it up to questions where we'll be able to recognize those that are watching here tonight and do the best we can to provide answers to questions. As always, if you have a question about this after this, you're welcome to call our office, email us at Weyland Public Works Department, and we're more than happy to answer questions. We have an extensive webpage that has much of the information that I've been describing earlier, and that is also on the Weyland DPW webpage. So feel free to access that at any point in time in the future. And with that, Kirsten, I will turn it over to you. Thank you, Tom. Thanks everybody for joining us this evening. As Tom mentioned, we have about a 30-minute presentation with the agenda here on this slide. I'm going to first kind of take you through to get you familiar with Weyland's water system and its challenges, and then talk about the MWRE system, which is part of the solution that we're looking at, take you through kind of the steps over time that Weyland's been working on to figure out what to do about the problem, and then we're going to dig into, you know, what that project actually would look like. So let me get just started with the overall meeting objectives here. You know, this is a major drinking water improvements project, major infrastructure project, requires state permits and approvals. So due to the size and characteristics of the project, it is required to file for approval under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA. The MEPA process provides an opportunity for public comment on the project. And so this meeting is intended to provide an overview for community members and provide an opportunity, you know, for public education and engagement and inform the public where they can obtain additional information. As Tom mentioned, the project is partially located within Framingham, as well as the most of it is located in Weyland. So we have been inviting the Framingham and Weyland community to listen in on this meeting. And it is being recorded. So I believe the recording will be available on the town's website afterwards, and we'll provide you with the link at the end. So first I just want to kind of walk people through an overview of Weyland's water system. If you're not familiar, it has a total of four groundwater supply well sources, about 106 miles of water main pipe that you can see on the map here. And those four well sources going sort of from north to south are the Campbell well, the Chamberlain well, the Baldwin pond wells, there's actually several wells that at the Baldwin pond location, and then the happy hollow well site, where there is also several wells. And each of those wells is of a different size or yield. And you can see those quantities here listed next to each well, the Campbell well being the smallest one at point six million gallons per day, followed by the Chamberlain and then the Baldwin pond well site. And happy hollow well sites are a little bigger, 1.5 and 1.3 million gallons per day of available supply when they're when they're functioning optimally, I should say. And there's one existing storage tank here, and one under construction. So that's kind of Weyland's water system overview. And I'll get into a little more details in a moment. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority or MWRA system is, you know, a major, major water supplier to a lot of the metro Boston area. And this, you know, sort of sketch cartoon shows a portion of their system. They have massive reservoirs, the Quabbin Reservoir and Central Mass and Western Mass. And they have two redundant pipelines. This is kind of the key point that come together right in near the Framingham and Weyland border, the Holtman Aqueduct and the Metro West Tunnel. So you can see here in yellow, this is basically where Framing, Weyland is and Framingham right here to the west. So these two pipelines come together at what's called Shaft L near that border. And all of Framingham's water is actually supplied by the MWRA currently. So next kind of getting into Weyland's water challenges, which were first identified several years ago and primarily focused on a contamination issue with a chemical called PFAS, P-F-A-S or PFAS. This stands for part in polyfluoroalkyl substances. I'm not going to be able to get into all the details of what PFAS are. It's a manmade substance with a variety of sources. We do not know the exact sources of this contamination in Weyland, but I will say that it is quite widespread throughout Massachusetts and particularly in eastern Massachusetts. The good news is we know how to treat for PFAS to remove them from the water and Weyland is treating to remove them from the most impacted wells. So you can see a graph on the right hand side here of the levels of PFOA is one particular PFAS compound that's been detected in Weyland's wells over the past few years. The red line here is the regulation that at the federal level is going to become effective in 2029. So it sounds far away, but it's really not. It's right around the corner when you think about the time it takes to design and construct a treatment facility. Currently, the happy hollow well field in the yellow dot up here is actually exceeding the existing Massachusetts regulation of 20. So this graph doesn't really show you the worst case of the current situation. It's kind of showing you in the future both happy hollow and the Chamberlain well will exceed that regulation that will be affected shortly. And the Baldwin pond is also going up over that level. So really most of the sources would likely need to have treatment. In addition, Weyland has a lot of very old water mains, close to 100 years old, that could use replacement as well. So this problem was kind of first discovered in 2021. The Massachusetts regulation for PFAS was new and Weyland was testing and discovered the levels at happy hollow well field exceeding the Massachusetts limits. So Weyland moved quickly to install a least temporary treatment system. You can see in a photo there. So this system is taking all the PFAS out of the water. So that is non-detectable, but it is not designed for long-term use. It's in a temporary pad with a temporary enclosure. And so Weyland was really looking to study the long-term options that were available. So we looked, starting back in 2021, and for about a two-year period, we were working with Weyland on Kleinfeld engineers to study long-term options. These basically included first looking at whether it was a good idea to treat at all four well, local wells. You saw those on the map. They're all spread throughout the town from north to south. So the question was, should we install a new treatment facility at each of those locations? Or should the town connect to the MWA and abandon all of the local sources because the MWA pipeline was so close by? Or should there be, you know, kind of a combination or a dual source where MWA is part of the part of the solution and part of the solution is to treat a local supply well? And back in 2023, our evaluation recommended the dual source option. There was a town meeting boat to pursue, start the process to pursue membership with the MWA system. In the meantime, the town constructed an emergency pump station that could help kind of bridge that gap until the long-term supply could be brought online. So let's take a look at what we kind of went through in order to arrive at that determination as what is a good long-term solution. So during 2024, we were engaged with conceptual design evaluations, looking at each of the sources, the pros and cons, and the feasibility of installing a treatment facility, which, you know, generally has got to be a pretty large footprint. And what you can see from these little maps is a lot of colors, but the blue color, the light blue color, is a flood zone. The blue and the orange, I should say, represent flood-prone areas. And then there's some sort of hashing out here, which represents wetlands, obviously, near the flood zones. So that is one serious consideration. The other consideration are the property boundaries around each of these wells. And state regulations require a minimum 400-foot radius around the drinking water supply well. That wasn't a requirement years and years ago. So some sources do have a radius that is smaller. For example, Baldwin Pond here, you can see these green dots are the existing wells. This distance to the nearest properties is not 400-foot. So in order to build a new treatment facility here at the Baldwin Pond site, you can see the existing facility here. There's very little space. You're kind of hemmed in between these properties and structures and residences and the pond here and the wetlands. And there's also no space to, in the future, move the wells over and restore them, which sometimes needs to be done every 15 or so years. Similarly, with Campbell and Chamberlain, these are the smallest sources. So this is really not a good economic decision to try to either fill in land or purchase adjacent land to provide enough space. Excuse me. So luckily, the Happy Hollow facility, which is shown here in this drawing, does have enough space for not only a new future facility, but also for future, you know, these wells are actually quite newer. They are from 2015. But in the future, if they needed to be re-drilled, you know, a short distance away, there is plenty of space. This location is up and behind the high school. So the town owns all of this space. You can actually see this white box here is the temporary treatment facility, which is in the flood-prone area currently. And I would also just mention that part of the process Whelan would need to go through to connect to the MWA is a permit from the state called Interbasin Transfer. And that requires you to look at all of your local sources and say, you know, ideally, you are treating them and using them. But if they are not feasible, you can connect to, you know, an MWA or a source from another basin. So in 2024, our conceptual design conclusion, you know, was the Happy Hollow is a feasible place to put the new facility, as well as a new connection to MWA is feasible. And I'm going to get into the details of what that would look like next. So last spring in 2025, the Whelan town meeting is being voted to proceed with funding design of this dual source solution. We are currently completed the 30% design in August and we are beginning the 60% milestone design now. So next, as I said, I'm going to kind of take you through what these the elements of this project would look like. This is, you know, we've done the best to design a most cost effective feasible solution with the lowest environmental impact. And that's really always our goal. But there are two major things, as I said, the new treatment facility at the Happy Hollow Wellfield, I'm abbreviating that HHWTF in some slides. This would be out of the floodplain area and with improved treatment processes with a permanent structure to provide a reliable long term supply. And then a new connection to the MWA with a connection at MWBRI's shaft L near the Holtman Aqueduct. I'm going to show you in a map in a second. And then a pipeline extending to a new pump station. And then this would also require the replacement of some of that 90 plus year old water mains in old Connecticut path. So let's let's take a look at our map and what this looks like. So kind of orienting everybody, you know, kind of zooming out, you can see Sudbury, Whelan and Framingham, you know, the northeastern corner of Framingham and the southwestern corner of Whelan. And this dark blue line represents the project extents starting in Framingham and going up into the island. And then on the right here, we are kind of zooming in a bit to give you a little bit more detail. And that connection to the MWBRI's shaft L structure would be over here. This is Oxbow Road in Framingham and Riverpath Drive here. And it's going to go right along parallel to the existing Holtman Aqueduct, cross into Wayland. There will be a pump station at the intersection of Castle Road and Old Connecticut Path. And that will be have the ability to move the water from the connection into the into the Whelan water distribution system along Old Connecticut Path, such that it can reach all the way up to the tank for storage. That's really like the pipeline portion. And then, of course, the Happy Hollow Well site is here in this big blue dot behind the high school. So let's again zoom in a little bit further into we'll start on the western border of the project starting at the Shaft L connection. And here in this photograph, this is what that facility looks like right now that the MWRA's facility where these big water tunnels come together. The MWRA is hiring a design engineer to craft a new sort of stub that Wayland can connect to. And then our engineers will be designing a pipeline that connects to that point. And it's got to loop around that building and then come out and cross the help and aqueduct and parallel it just in a second. So this blue shading and represents the aqueduct itself, which carries the MWRA's water supply. And then the pink line here would be the Wayland connection. And this would all be underground, I should say, you know, this this tunnel is deep underground. These pipelines would all be buried, you know, well below the surface, would not see them. We've also, I just want to mention, had quite a number of meetings with the MWRA's engineering staff. We are coordinating closely with them all to make sure that our design, you know, fits with their requirements for protecting their water supply as well. And that coordination will continue. So moving towards the east, this is a view along that Holtman Aqueduct corridor right now. And the pipeline would be again buried underneath along the southern side of it. So you're in this picture, you're standing on the aqueduct essentially looking to the west and the pipeline, it would be down near near the toe of this slope where my cursor is going right now. And that is about a distance of 5,300 feet. There's two culvert crossings. One of them is very straightforward and the other one I'll show you a photograph of our concept in a second. But really the overarching goals of our design here are to really maximize the separation between the Wayland pipeline and the Holtman Aqueduct. Obviously that's something that the MWRA wants to see as much as feasible. So we are able to achieve that. We also want to really minimize impacts to adjacent wetlands. There are wetlands located on in some locations on either side and we want to not impact those. We also want to minimize the tree removal necessary. But, you know, due to the slope, the slope of this land and the narrowness of the corridor, there will be some tree clearing necessary in certain sections along that, the south slope only. So continuing to move to the east, I mentioned a culvert crossing. And if you're not familiar with the term, that really just means there's a there's a stream running underneath the aqueduct. You know, this is the blue line, the aqueduct that runs from west to east. We're just standing somewhere along here looking back towards the west. And the stream goes, you know, from north to south, I'm sorry, south to north and in through a culvert. So our pipeline for Wayland needs to cross under that. So one way to do it would be to dig right through the stream, provide obviously some protection, but that's very disruptive. So our plan is to use a trenchless method that will prevent wetland impacts. Basically, it's going to go way deep underneath the stream by opening up a pit out away from the wetlands on one side and then coming up to the other. I think that the technique we're using is called an auger bore or the machine is called an auger bore that will avoid disturbing the wetlands. And here's an example of what one of those looks like. So yeah, you do have to dig a hole, but you do it away from the wetland, you tunnel under the wetland and you come up on the other side. Okay, so the pipeline will continue along until it reaches the intersection of Old Connecticut Path and Castle Road. And so at this location, we are designing a pump station. I have a couple of images here which are created by by our architects. It's an artist's depiction of what the structure, you know, roughly will look like to give people an idea. And this pump station is necessary to, you know, transport the water from that connection up to the tank. It's designed to be three and a half million gallon pump station. So it has the ability to pump all the water that Wayland would need at any given moment. So it's kind of, you know, if all those sources were unavailable, Wayland could rely on this connection alone. But the goal is really for the MWA supply to supplement the local supply because that is the more cost effective long-term operational solution. So there'll be two active pumps and one pump and standby for in case of emergency. We have a pretty simple prefabricated building design with a generator that's going to be noise dampened. It will sound no louder than ambient traffic. This picture at the top is if you're on Old Connecticut Path, this is what you would see. And this is a view from Castle Road itself. Now moving further to the east, we have our distribution main. And this picture depicts some of the preliminary work that we've been doing or the town has been helping with, I should say, to just make sure we understand where the buried infrastructure is along Old Connecticut Path and in relation to the MWA's other infrastructure along the way. But this water main is going to be about 7,700 feet of new water main. And, you know, it's a dual benefit really. It's it's needed to accept that new flow. It's also needed at any rate, even if this project wasn't happening, the town would want to replace that water main in the near future. The existing main is really too small and it is very old. So traffic management will be a key portion of this part of the project, obviously to, you know, put a new water main in the road. There will need to be some temporary limited closures that we will plan for. And then lastly, the Happy Hollow facility, it kind of oriented you to that a little bit already, but replacing the existing temporary system with a new facility in the upland area away from wetlands. That'll help protect the wetlands. It'll help protect the building. And also it'll resolve some ongoing problems with operational pressure. There will be new pumps in the wells and the facility will have what's called a clear well that will be able to accept that water. So show you a little bit of a preliminary design sketch here. With the building here will be about 4,000 square feet. Again, a pretty simple pre-engineered metal building for cost savings. We'll need to construct some stormwater management basins because of the access road that will need to go in there. And then there are some basins that accept water from the treatment filters. It's a pretty standard design. A lot of communities in Massachusetts are experiencing PFAS treatment and needing to install facilities just like this. And as an example, I have a picture here from the town of Millis where Kleinfelder designed a similar type of a facility to remove PFAS. Whelan's facility will have new systems to adjust the pH, new water pumps, and well pumps. And we also have a depiction of what that, you know, preliminary drawing of what that might look like. This is from the 30% design and the Whelan facility here. Another example of a similar facility in Millis there. Pretty utilitarian building. So some additional things to consider on the project after the completion and startup. Whelan will then be able to decommission the other wells, the Chamberlain, Campbell, and Baldwin Pond facilities. So that will reduce the complexity of operating their system with just the one facility to operate. Another thing that could be seen as a side benefit is that the Campbell and the Chamberlain Wells in particular are quite close to the Sudbury River. So the Concord Basin is what's known as a stressed basin and decommissioning those wells in the future from routine use will help reduce the pressure on stream flow in the Sudbury River, excuse me. So Leslie, I just want to show you kind of the schedule where we are in the process and the next steps. And then after that, we'll show you where to get more information and answer questions. So here we are in the fall, like as I said, we are in the progress of designing towards 60% complete. Milestone for folks that are interested in following along on the project is shortly in early November, we will be filing what's called an expanded environmental notification form with NEPA. So that's one of the requirements for a project like this. And so that will start a public comment period between November 7th and November 28th. Once that is published in the environmental monitor. And on the last slide, I have a link for how you can sign up to their emails, you get noticed when it comes out. And we will certainly, I believe Tom will be providing that on the town's website as well, which is on the next slide. And following that, there will be, so the expanded environmental notification form describes the project in much more detail than I have here tonight. Um, you know, potential environmental impacts and mitigation for those impacts. And all the, it'll list all the permits that we'll need to obtain for the project. And then there will need to be a second filing for a more, um, after the state agencies review the environmental notification form and sort of comment on, you know, have we addressed the potential impacts adequately, um, that will guide the filing of an environmental impact report in January. And then we're scheduled to complete that 60% design milestone, um, no later than April. In May, the town would be planning to vote for the construction funding for the project. Um, we will then need to start, um, seeking over the spring and summer approvals from the water resources commission for accepting water from outside of the Concord basin from the MWRA and as well as legislative approval. And then, um, once that is in hand, we would do the formal application for admission to the MWRA. So MWRA already knows this is and Wayland and Wayland's intent because of the vote, I believe in 2023. Um, and then we will complete our 100% design documents. Um, so they are ready for public bidding by September, um, and have local permits in hand that we will need to go through the local conservation commissions in both Wayland and Framingham. So that will also happen during, um, um, um, you know, summer, summer of 2026. Um, and then October is the funding deadline for a construction state loan application that Wayland is seeking. They offer a 0% loan or PFAS projects, which is very favorable financing. And then, um, you know, once that loan approval is, um, all set with the state, we will, the town will bid the project publicly and award the contract, um, sometime by May, 2027. Construction will then start probably summer, fall 2027 with approximately two year duration. A lot of steps. Okay. So lastly, um, where can you find more information? Uh, the town of Wayland on the DPW website, there is a whole page dedicated to this project. Um, you can look for that under Department of Public Works, MW connection, and the link is here. Um, these slides will be saved and uploaded, uh, to that link. Um, and as I mentioned, you can sign up with the MEPA office if you'd like, um, by emailing them at subscribe dash MEPA at environmental monitor. I won't try to read that. You see the link there. Um, yeah, this will be on the website, but you can sign up, um, to receive notices about this project.
And I think with that, you'll open up to questions. Great. Well, thank you very much, Kirsten. That was terrific. Um, I guess I will ask if the zoom monitor is still with us as I see you are the, you're, you're remaining the host. And I do appreciate you, uh, supporting us here tonight, Seth. So I, I see, I'm not sure how some of the questions are actually, you know, recognized. I do see that there is, um, a hand under attendees. There's an Alyssa that raised her hand earlier in the program. Uh, it is still raised. Um, so I'm not sure. Kirsten, Jane, Jane Albert. That question. I see that in the chat. Oh, do you see it in the chat? Okay. I see one in the chat and I see a hand raise. Got it. I think I unmuted. Okay. There we are. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Yeah. I'm Elisa Carter. I'm on, uh, Sherman's Bridge Road. And this is, has been a really fascinating presentation and it's quite a, uh, quite a big project. Um, and that, that thing with the big, the giant drill going under the stream and preserving the wetlands is mind blowing. Um, I did have some questions. I thought the happy, happy hollow. Well. Was the worst site with the, the leak that people have been trying to figure out where it's coming up from and still haven't. Am I incorrect in that? I am not familiar with, with a leak that we currently have, or even had in recent times, uh, happy hollow. Well field has gotten a lot of attention because it is the location where we've actually installed PFAS treatment, the temporary system that Kirsten was describing. Um, so that is the location where we have that, uh, it is the location where we're going to build a new treatment facility, but I don't, I'm not familiar like the, where the contamination is coming from. I assume that's what you're referring to. Yeah. I mean, there was a place that used to be a dump and it used to be, um, a place where the trucks were repaired by the town and everything. And there was, um, a lot of toxicity there. Um, but they hadn't figured out exactly where. I think that's the main street location that you're referring to. Yeah. So that's one 95 main street is what you're referring to this. That's adjacent to the middle school. Right. So you're correct. That's where the old DPW site used to be. That's where there was a landfill, a burn facility. Yeah. So there has been a lot of talk, uh, about PFAS, not so much PFAS and drinking water, but PFAS in soil. And yeah. And, and there's a simultaneous interest to this drinking water project is a proposal to do something with that property related to an athletic field or athletic complex. And so some of the challenges are to remediate the PFAS that's in the soil there. That's, uh, that's why I'm getting pretty much disconnected with this. They're not that far geographically from one another, but, uh, different sources of PFAS. This is PFAS in drinking water. The 195 main street is PFAS in the soil. Okay. So the PFAS in the soil there is not getting into the drinking water, but they are still trying to find the source of it. I mean, I've been understood they're still drilling and had to do another site. Yeah. So they, they do have a, um, uh, a hydrogeologist, um, uh, on, on retainer that's exploring and, uh, you know, investigating that property. I would say that 195 main street is, uh, certainly upstream of the happy hollow well field. Um, but it has not yet been determined that the activity at 195 main street is what has caused the PFAS detection and the drinking water at happy hollow. Okay. So it's not the worst well in the town, because it seemed like that was one of the few you're keeping. And so, yeah, so I was confused there. Yeah. And there, but, you know, good question because that has been considered, you know, I've been to a number of meetings, uh, with the, uh, licensed, uh, site professional, uh, you know, to, to certainly be aware of what's going on at 195 main and the impact that it would have at happy hollow. Okay. Yeah. That was one. And can I ask another question? Sure. Um, how, um, well, this is, I'm sure it's naive, but you know, when you, you look up at the pipeline that we need to start in order to hook up to the MWRA aqueduct, it's going all the way around these buildings and, and, you know, on three sides and why couldn't it go on the, on the one side that it's not going around instead of going around the whole buildings? I see there's tower there, but trust me, we much would have preferred that. Um, it just can't. So, yeah, we, we, we tried to, um, yeah, the MWRA needs it to go the way that it's shown and there's, you know, I, I'm not the design engineer, so I can't get into the exact reasons of why, but it's certainly. That's the only way that would have been our preference to have a more direct, um, but that is the way it needs to go. It's, it has to do with the depth of the tunnels and the connection that they're planning. So. Got it. And, and so how much PFAS can actually be removed by these plants and. Oh, all of it. I mean, it can be removed to non-detectable levels. That would be so awesome. And right now we already is, I mean, and the water that's coming out of Happy Hollow right now with the temporary system is, it's non-detect. So, you know, everyone can feel comfortable with that. Um, and it's, it's, it's easy to, you know, it's not, that's complicated to remove it. We, we know how, and it's being done all over the place. So. Awesome. So, so the water we're getting now is actually coming from there and not from the MWRA because the water now is seems a lot more chlorinated or something than I recall. And I was just wondering if that's going to continue when we get the MWRA water. Yeah. Good question. I know that there, there, there is an emergency pump station that Whelan has been able to use and I don't know if it's on now, but you know, it's, it's, it's not currently. Yeah. Um, connected to the MWRA at a different location, but yeah, when, that is a good question about, um, the, uh, Whelan's disinfection process right now uses a different method than the MWRA water. So part of this project will be changing over the way Whelan's Happy Hollow well is disinfected, um, to match the MWRA water. And generally speaking, most people, you know, feel that it's, they, they, they are less able to, to detect, you know, any chlorine. It's from the MWRA. Uh, the chloramine is, is the other, the, um, the MWRA uses a method called chloramines instead of free chlorine. Okay. Um, okay. I think that was it. Um, so we'll be getting it. We'll be, we'll just be tapping into the MWRA as needed, but generally it'll be coming all from Weyland. And if it comes from the MWRA, where does that come from? Is that coming from Quabbin or is it coming from multiple sources or? Yeah, it, uh, it, it, it does in essence, come from the Quabbin. That's where all of the MWRA water comes from. They do have a number of intermediate, um, reservoirs, uh, that are, uh, open to the environment and then they treat it at, uh, you can see the, the actual graphic that, uh, Kirsten has on the screen right now, the, uh, John J. Carroll water treatment plant, uh, treats the water. And at that point, it, uh, it never sees the light of day. So that's, that's where the water, that's where, when we do activate that, uh, that supply, that's where the water will be coming from. Oh, that's wonderful. Cause we had that in, um, we had Quabbin water in Weyland and it was the best water I'd had living in Massachusetts. Yeah. They, uh, they have award-winning, literally award-winning, uh, water, uh, quality taste, uh, test. Thank you so much. Yeah. It was our pleasure. Thanks for the questions. My dog decided to join me in my office here. So nice lie down. Yeah. Uh, let's see. I know someone had Q&A, uh, chat, a question in the chat. Is there other folks? Should we answer that one next? Sure. Actually, I think that was similar. Jane Albert, she had asked if the water will be taken where exactly it's coming from the newer deep tunnel or the older surface tunnel. Yeah. It's actually where they, they joined together at Shaftale. So it's, it's really kind of both, which is important. And that's what the EM debris preferred is that, you know, it has redundancy, um, so that, you know, if one is taken down, the other is available.
Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Cause it, it would have been a little less infrastructure to be able to connect directly to the Holtman or something, but this is, this is a safer option. Do we see any other questions and the chatter? I'm not seeing any other amongst the attendees. Oh, I see. I think Alyssa has raised her hand again. Sorry. Um, no, sir. No, sorry. You're fine. Isn't, um, having the mixed system more expensive than just going over to MWRA water. That's for some reason, that's what I thought it was cheaper if we just completely turned over to MWRA.
Yeah. So, so that, uh, we actually have a graph that explains that not in this presentation tonight, but, uh, it's on the webpage and in essence, the capital costs initially, uh, would be less to just simply make the connection to the MWRA. We wouldn't have to build the treatment plant, but over the course of 25 years, um, the actual costs, um, they become the same. They, they balance out and then they actually go in a different direction. The reason for that is that we're able to produce water at the happy hollow location at a less expense than we would if we have to purchase it from the MWRA. The MWRA water, uh, is, is more expensive. Uh, and that's because, you know, the resources, uh, the support that they bring, not only do they provide the water, but then they also provide, you know, uh, technical support and laboratory water quality support. There's a lot that, uh, a lot of support that they provide, but in essence, the answer is it would be cheaper initially, but over the longterm, it is less expensive to eat, to, uh, keep our local source operating. So is the bonds that were just, um, so, you know, put on the market, are those covering this and no? Well, they are covering the design much of the design, uh, actually about two thirds of the design. It was covered, uh, using ARPA funds. The town received, I think, upwards of four million dollars in ARPA funds, uh, a number of years ago. So about two thirds of the design is covered with that. We did have an appropriation this past May, uh, whereby we had design funds allocated. And, and that that is through a borrowing, uh, with that's associated with the water enterprise fund. The actual, um, loan that we're going to seek and obtain for the construction will actually be coming from the state. The clean water trust has something called a state revolving fund. And because we're doing this, um, as a result of, uh, PFAS contamination and to mitigate that PFAS, we're able to, uh, benefit from a 0% interest loan. So it's a 20 year term, um, at zero interest. There are some, you know, uh, a small administrative, uh, uh, you know, costs to become part of that program, but in essence, there is no interest associated with it. So that's a tremendous benefit for us. 20 year loan. 20 year loan. Oh, that's awesome. So we'll spread that out on our taxes over 20 years. So that's a, another good question. Um, although it was a statement, but I can elaborate a little bit about that is there is, um, focus right now between the finance committee, the select board and the board of public works on, um, how, what mechanism the town will actually use to pay that loan down. There are three options. One would have it in the water rates two, it would be, uh, with tax revenue and three, it would be a combination of the two. So, uh, those three bodies are actively engaged. You'll see, uh, that is an agenda item at many of the meetings, uh, of all three of the boards and committees, uh, to make a determination on what is the most effective, practical, uh, efficient mechanism to, uh, to pay that loan. Thank you so much for explaining that. Sure. You guys are great. You're doing a great job tonight, all of you. Thank you. Well, thank you. Do you see any, uh, any more on the chat? I mean, like I had said at the beginning of the presentation, uh, we have a lot of information on that webpage that was referenced in the last slide. Uh, and as always emailing myself, giving our office a call, we're more than happy to, uh, to provide information should others have questions after the fact. I do know that we will be having, um, additional presentations. I know I've been invited to attend a December meeting of the League of Women Voters, whereby we'll be offering a presentation, keeping people apprised of, of how this project is progressing. Uh, we anticipate also as we prepare for town meeting on May 4th, um, in addition to the, the, the, uh, number of board and committee meetings that we'll be having, we will likely be having another informational forum in, in, uh, in preparation for, for town meeting.
All right. I guess if, if we don't see additional questions, I would, uh, like to take an opportunity from myself and my staff to say thank you for all those that attend and for all those that are watching us in the future. Um, we appreciate the support and we look forward to advancing and completing what I'm calling a legacy project for the town of Weyland. Yeah. And thank you to our Spanish and Portuguese interpreters joining us. Appreciate that. Thank you to Seth for helping with the technical aspects of everything. Yes, very much so. Okay. Okay. All right. Very good. Thanks all. And, um, talk soon. All right. Have a good evening. Good night. Good night. Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone.