April 7, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript

April 7, 2026 - Board of Public Works

Autoscroll:

We're calling the meeting to order the location for an in-person meeting is wheelchair accessible. If you need other accommodations in order to participate in the meeting, please contact Wayland ADA coordinator at 508-358-6821 at least two business days in advance of the meeting. While the municipality will do its best to accommodate you, certain accommodations may require the hiring of outside contractors who may not be available if requested immediately before the meeting. The meeting may be recorded and if recorded, it will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Public will be excluded from executive sessions. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, this meeting will be considered in-person and or remote access in a course of the applicable law. If this meeting is remote access only, no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted. If this meeting has remote access, one may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at, and then it's the link that can be found on the Wayland website. When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location, in-person or remote, as applicable. Public comment should be limited to two minutes in-person. Please note that the items listed in the agenda are approximate. Items may be discussed in the order or time listed. All topics may be subject to deliberation and vote. I'm going to call the meeting to order with a roll call. Judy? Here. Ed? Yes. Mr. Spelman? Here. Mr. Lobo? Here. And Evidia's here. Okay. It's all yours, Tom. All right. Sounds good. Well, welcome, everyone. I just want to go over a couple of housekeeping items. We are glad that you're here tonight to hear this important presentation about the future of our drinking water supply. We did bring refreshments, some things to drink. There's a tray of desserts there, plates and napkins, so feel free to help yourself. Bathrooms are out in the hallway. I'm not sure if you've been to this facility before. This is my second time, but it is a gorgeous facility. So we're pleased to be able to present and convene here. With that, I think if we went around the tables and made introductions so that you'd know who we are, for those of you here in person and also those that are joining us on Zoom. So I want to start at that end of the table. Judy Ling, member of the Board of Public Works.
Ed Chow. I'm Sillan Jr. This is also one of the Board members. Mike Spelman. This is my second year on the Board. Happy to be here. George Vigis. I'm Chair of the Board of Public Works. Mike Wegerbauer, Vice Chair of the Board of Public Works. Tom Holder. I'm the Public Works Director. I'm Kirsten Ryan with Klein Holder. We're the engineering consultant for the project. Carol Martin. I'm a member of the Select Board. Dawn Millett, Water Superintendent. So we have a PowerPoint presentation to offer tonight. We're going to go through some background of the water project. It'll start off with identifying some of the challenges that we're currently faced with in operating our water system. The Board of Public Works and the Department of Public Works have been working over the better part of four or five years in evaluating alternatives. We have come up with the support of the Klinefelder team. We've narrowed down over a dozen alternatives down to a dual-source approach that we're advancing. We've had two town appropriations at prior town meetings for the design of the project. And on May 4th, this year, a town meeting will be seeking a favorable vote for the construction funds. So with that, I am going to advance the slides. Kirsten Ryan will actually speak to the slides. I guess we could decide whether it's more practical to take questions during the slides. And there's plenty of time afterwards. I'm not sure if I'd probably do it afterwards. Do it afterwards. Okay, that's fine. So that's what we'll do. So if you want to just hold your questions until afterwards, and then we'll certainly be happy to answer them. All right. Sounds good. Yeah, as Tom mentioned, I'm Kirsten Ryan. I'm the project manager for the Klinefelder engineering team. Just to give you a kind of overview of what this presentation will include, it'll be, I'll talk a little bit about what are the water supply issues really driving the need for this project and the urgency, kind of what the state of the water supply is in Whelan today. And what happens if nothing is done. And then I'll go through an overview of the solution that's being designed. The design is on track to be completed by the end of 2026. We're about 60% complete. And then we'll talk about the construction cost estimate funding and rate impact and then a timeline on, you know, sort of where we are in the schedule and what are the next steps. So here, I just wanted to present a little bit on, you know, what is, what is Whelan's issue right now in terms of water? You can see in this graphic here, it shows each of the four sources and the reduction in capacity and production from where they really should be. So it's pretty dramatic, basically, the three largest sources that Whelan has are anywhere between about half to a third reduced in capacity. This can be from a number of factors, it could be from water quality issues, but also the aging infrastructure. So, you know, just to kind of summarize big picture, even today, Whelan can't meet summer elevated demands if any single source goes offline, even the smallest source of Campbellwell. Today, Whelan can't meet average daily demands if either of the largest sources, either Baldwin or Happy Hollow goes offline. So that's, that's pretty dramatic. It's a standard benchmark of water system resiliency to be able to meet your maximum demand with your largest source offline. So what this means is Whelan has to pump all of its sources very hard without resting them. That's not good for the equipment or really the aquifer formation that provides groundwater to the extent that during 2025 Whelan actually had to pump Chamberlain over its DEP withdrawal limit. So next. So just a little bit about more of the serious infrastructure issues that are going on right now. The only way that you can meet demands if there is a planned maintenance or a component failure, unplanned emergency, is by activating the emergency of the primary pump station. And that was, that's a piece of infrastructure that, um, you know, we helped design and, and Whelan put online in 2024, uh, just in time. So I think it went online in June of 2024 and right away in July, it had to be used for 58, 52 days. And then twice other, uh, two other occasions, actually three now, I think it just got, had to be used like in the last couple of weeks. Right. It's operating right now. Right. So for a variety of reasons, um, which are listed here, I won't, I won't read them all through, but, um, and the thing about having an emergency pump station and an emergency connection to MWRA is, you know, it's really not designed for long-term permanent use. Um, and every time it has to be used, there needs to be an emergency declaration issued by the MassDEP, you know, um, certifying that it's a true emergency. And then MWRA has to convene the board of directors to vote, to approve that activation. Um, in addition, each time it's activated, the unit cost, um, increases so that, you know, there's kind of a system that MWRA doesn't want, want communities to use these emergency connections for permanent use. So, but they do have a church surcharge each time. Um, so that's today. And then I want to talk about water quality and PFAS, right? Cause this is primarily why Wayland is in this situation. And it's, it's not, it's not that unique. There's a lot of communities in Commonwealth and New England in general dealing with PFAS contamination. So, um, you have what I'm showing on this table here, um, each of the four water sources and the highest concentrations of PFAS that have been detected in relation to both the current state of Massachusetts standard in the second column. And then the next two columns are for the new federal regulation for PFOA and PFOS. So the current standard is, uh, 20 parts per trillion of six PFAS compounds added together. So that first column shows that, um, you know, for 20 parts per trillion already the happy house or succeed that the Campbell well source is very close to it such that I, you know, you would want treatment to, to address that. Same thing with the Chamberlain well. Um, and then if you go over to the federal regulations, which become effective in 20, 29, you can see that, um, Baldwin happy hollow and Chamberlain all will exceed at least one of those compounds, um, with champ with Campbell coming close. So long story short is PFAS treatment required at each of these sources. And the answer is yes, yes, yes. And likely yes. And likely yes. So that's an awful lot of treatment systems to install. And that's part of the reason why, um, an MWRA solution was, uh, was chosen during that extensive alternatives analysis is that it just didn't make economic. Or a sense to build treatment plants at all of these. Okay. You can see, um, in this photograph here, this is what the happy hollow temporary treatment system looks like. You know, it's, you know, it's an intemporary closure. We'll talk about that more in a minute, but this is just to say that, you know, without any action now, Wayland is going to be a violation of the 20, 29 standards when they, they become effective, like, um, April, 20, 29. Um, so let's talk about happy hollow a bit more, um, and what those specific issues are. Um, so PFAS is being removed at happy hollow. So you are getting non-detectable levels coming out of that system, which is great. But as you can see, it was a temporary system installed in 2022. It was really designed to operate for about a year. That's typically what they're used as long as they're used for. Um, it's not fully winterized. It doesn't have proper security has had multiple pipe failure events. Um, so the DPW has just undertaken a project to change out the PVC pipe or steel pipe, um, to help prevent that going forward. Cause it will need to operate for a few more years during the completion of design and construction. So, um, on top of all that, all the treatment infrastructure is in a flood zone. So that's also a concern. And here I can, you can see that on this, uh, picture here on aerial photograph overview of the area. So at the top of the screen and shown in blue shading is the extent of that flooding, um, flood prone area. And that white box is the temporary treatment system and closure just showed you pictures of. And then right up the hill from all of this is a nice, you know, open space cleared area that the town owns. And this is where some existing, um, infrastructure is that's providing disinfection right there. Um, so, uh, it's very critical to build a permanent solution. Um, as soon as soon as feasible outside of that flood zone. Um, so looking at your other largest, larger source, Baldwin pond in terms of what those issues are there. Um, cause that is really impacting the ability to meet, meet your daily demands. Those two sources being, um, kind of trouble. Um, it's a very complex facility. It's on a very small site. So you can see there the blue shading, the orange shading that represents flood zone areas. Um, the three wells, two of them are in the flood zone. The facility itself is right up next to the pond. Um, and then there's resident residences right behind it. So there's like no space to work with. There are multiple components at the end of their useful life. Um, multiple components components that are discontinued and hard to procure. And then the wells that need replacement, um, in the future too. So, and as I showed you, this also would need PFAS treatment for 2029 compliance. Okay. Um, so I didn't go into the other two sources, but you know, I'm showing you what's going on with the two major sources, right? Okay. So really what this boils down to is if progress isn't made to make a permanent treatment, uh, treatment solution and infrastructure solution, you're going to have further deterioration of those components that I showed you, um, potentially violation of public health regulations. Um, don't want to be handing out bottled water again in 2029. Um, I'm sure. Um, so fire protection is a concern. And the longer that a solution is delayed, the more the construction cost increases. There's also, um, there can be increased lead time on some major components. There's a lot of demand for PFAS treatment, right? So, um, there's competition for, um, funds and contractors and also MWA admission. So a lot of communities are looking if that's an option for them to join the MWA. Um, and there's only a limited number of, uh, gallons or a million gallons a day that MWA has available to provide. Um, lastly is the incentive that MWA is offering is the waiver on the entrance fee of $7 million, which expires at the end of December. Okay. So next I'm going to take you through what the actual solution looks like. Um, this is really a summary of what those major components are. And if you've been attending the board of public works meetings, you've probably have seen this slide before or something similar. Um, but just for anybody that's not familiar, the design solution is a dual source. So that is a new treatment facility at the happy hollow site, permanent one, and a new connection to the MWA water system. And then once those two major components are complete and online, the town would move to decommission the three other sources, um, you know, remove the infrastructure and, um, take them off offline and out of service. And that should reduce your operating costs. You're only operating one major facility instead of four. Um, so they, the first component is the new treatment, uh, water treatment facility, a happy hollow. Um, and I I'll just, let's go forward. I don't want to read these bullets. I have more slides and photos to show you. Sure. Sure. All right. So happy hollow facility. I showed you this before. Um, we'll get that up out of the floodplain. Basically, um, a permanent winterized building. We would, uh, use a metal building for cost savings. Um, relocate that critical infrastructure out of the flood zone. It would be out of the wetland buffer zone, out of the 200-foot riverfront zone. Um, also there, one of the reasons that the piping, I think, keeps failing is a pressure differential. So we would be replacing the well pumps and a clear well that will go into the facility. And basically that, in simple terms, it breaks head and you don't need to try to push that pressure all the way through from the wells through the filters. Um, and treatment through activated carbon is being proposed that will allow you to remove all the PFAS contamination that we're aware of now and that's regulated. It should also, um, take care of future regulations that we're aware of for PFAS, which may be coming. And also the, this design is flexibility. Uh, the vessels used can be used with other media as technology improves. Um, this gives you a little bit of a flavor of what the preliminary design would look like. Um, plan view. Um, basically everything's up out in that, that open area that's already mostly cleared. So no wetland disturbance, no major tree clearing or anything. It's already got an existing access road and we'll have, um, that pre-engineered metal building, stormwater management systems. And then, um, we'll improve the access road and add solar panels. Also, the facility will be designed to meet the waylands, uh, specialized stretch code, energy code. So it'll be very energy efficient. Next. Yep. I'm sorry. Yeah, we can. I think this. Hopefully it doesn't screw each other. I'm sorry if you didn't hear me. Yeah. Is that better? Oh gosh. I'm sorry. Thank you for speaking up. Um, okay. Um, okay. So, um, here we're showing, um, a picture of the architectural drawing, a preliminary drawing of what the building would look like. And then the photograph is just a similar type of facility that we designed for Millis. Um, this will provide treatment of 1.35 million gallons a day. Um, PFAS removal, new chemical systems, clear well, finished water pumps, um, well pumps, and a SCADA, uh, communication system. So the other major component now we're looking at is the MWRA interconnection and starting at the west end of the project. Um, this will start, uh, at the MWRA is what they call the shaft L connection. So that is near Oxbow road in Framingham. It's, um, located along the Holtman aqueduct corridor, which you may be familiar of, familiar with, excuse me. So this will consist of a below ground, uh, chamber, um, a vault with a metered interconnection. The MWRA is also designing at the same time, um, a new, uh, stub, if you will, for Wayland's infrastructure to connect to. So we're in very close coordination with MWRA engineers. And we have been from the beginning, um, to coordinate the interconnection of those two pieces. Um, and then, uh, a 20 inch new 20 inch transmission pipeline, um, iron pipeline will be going out from there and will parallel the Holtman aqueduct, um, uh, to go into Wayland. So next slide.
So the transmission main will extend, um, parallel to the, to the Holtman aqueduct within that, uh, section. Um, so this will help us, uh, avoid traffic impacts. This construction will be a parallel to this. We, um, will need to cross two culverts. So, uh, one of those culverts is associated with a wetland in the stream. So we've decided to, um, to minimize environmental impact. We are going to use a trenchless method for a short distance to go underneath the culvert. And basically what you see in the photograph on the lower left is a, um, it's called an auger bore. It's a machine that you set up in the, the upland area. And then it, it bores underneath the wetland area, preventing any disturbance to the wetland. So, you know, our design goals for this stretch have been to try to optimize, um, between separating distance from the Holtman aqueduct, because that's, that's critical infrastructure for the MWRA. So we need to maintain about a 20 foot separation. And then we also want to try to stay out of the wetlands and minimize tree clearing, but there will be tree clearing along this, this section, as you can see here. Um, we'll, we'll be minimizing that. So this pipeline will extend along that Holtman corridor until it reaches, uh, Castle road and Weyland. And at this location, um, near the intersection of old Connecticut path and Castle road, we will need to have a pump station there. That pump station will essentially force that water into, uh, Weyland's distribution system for use. So we have a, um, an artist rendering depicting what that, um, will look like. And it's a three and a half million gallon per day pump station design. That's at the upper end of what Weyland would really ever need. But that is a conservative, uh, conservatively sized. So that if, you know, if happy hollow has to go offline, if a tank is one of the tanks is offline, you can get the water that you need. Um, with two active pumps and one in standby. And so this will also be a prefabricated building design, but we'll, we're using some nicer finishes on the outside so that it has more of a residential look and not as much of an industrial look. Um, okay. And then lastly, um, distribution main improvements. So in order for, uh, Weyland's water distribution system to accept the new water from MDR, MWRA, uh, the, some of the piping is undersized. So we need to replace the eight inch pipe with 12 inch pipe. Um, it's also about 90 plus years old. So, you know, it really needs to be replaced anyway. So this is a, a good opportunity to make that infrastructure improvement that you're going to need very soon anyway. Um, it's about 1.8 miles of new water main along old Connecticut path up to the intersection with route 27. So near the sort of, uh, yeah, from castle road, essentially up to route 27. Um, we will have to work on traffic management and probably have some single lane closures, um, during that time. Um, but, uh, yeah, we'll be working within the existing rights away. And we've been again, coordinating closely with the MWRA because they're Westin aqueduct crosses in, in some parts of this, this route. So we'll be working carefully to make sure that we, um, avoid that infrastructure. Okay. Um, now to the project costs and funding. Um, these, this bottom line costs is something that was presented in, I think last fall, um, and 30% design milestone. Um, and you could see the various components. The four different components are broken out here to show that detail. Um, this cost is, we develop these costs to be conservative by design. Um, that's important so that. You know, towns and communities don't, uh, appropriate funding that then becomes, becomes later on in the process or during construction, find out that more is needed. So this cost is developed using standard engineering practices to, you know, include a design contingency. We're at 60%. I said right now, the design contingency helps you, um, make sure that if there's some new information that comes along the way or something changes in the regulations, that something in the design has to change. We are, we're covered there. Um, and then because we developed the cost estimate, you know, with 20, $25, if you will, we have provided an inflation to the midpoint of construction. That's also standard practice to make sure that, you know, we're accounting for inflation. And then there's also a construction contingency included, and that's to cover if during the course of construction, there are changes in conditions that are encountered and the contractor needs to do something different. You know, you have enough in your appropriations. Um, of course, if something is encountered where the contractor has to do less than we seek, you know, we work with the contractor, get a credit for the town. Um, so that's that. Um, so the town, um, has been pursuing various funding options. The, um, uh, state revolving fund, uh, Massachusetts state revolving fund was applied for in 2020, in July, 2025. And that is, it's actually federal dollars that come down through the states and are administered through the states. And the SRF draft decision came out and Wayland's project was not ranked. We think incorrectly, not ranked highly enough to receive funding. Um, so we worked, you know, with Tom, um, to prepare an appeal. We submitted written testimony to appeal that decision. And, um, Tom appeared and gave verbal testimony. And I know Mike, I think Mike Wiggebauer is there as well. Um, and unfortunately, uh, they did not change. The, the, the final funding list came out on 401. And we were all quite surprised to see that they had not changed their decision. And they also had not changed it for any, any of the other projects, which was quite surprising. So, um, that's not going to be an option. I guess I will say that the other thing that changed this cycle with the SRF was that they were providing 0% financing for PFAS projects. And now they are not. So even if you were on the list for funding, you would not get the 0% financing. Um, so on the plus side, the SRF program is, has a big administrative costs. It also tends to drive up contractor bids, um, because you need to comply with by America, build America requirements, um, contractors. They have a lot of hoops. They have to jump through. They have increased costs in their supplies. So, um, not being funded through SRF might mean more competitive bid prices. Um, and then we found out sort of at the 11th hour that there was time still available to file a congressionally directed spending request, um, through Senator Markey or Senator Warren's office. And that deadline was the third. So we kind of pulled together a crack team of Tom and Michael McCall and, and Abby Cherist from the DPW. And she did a lot of the heavy lifting on, on Friday to pull together an application and get that submitted. Um, so, uh, with a $4 million, you know, some supplemental request submitted. Now, will that come through? We have no idea, but we tried fingers crossed. Okay. Um, on this side, um, is a financing analysis that, um, Matt Abraham's put together. So I, if any questions come up with this, I'll have to defer to him, but I will read through it for you. Um, so the estimated debt impact in year one is estimated to be, you know, 2.32. And so million dollars in the town of interest rates, the debt service starting in FY 2029 for a 30 year level level debt conventional loan. Um, with the debt obligation being the same each year. So Matt did a calculation for the impact on our average residential users bill. Um, which is estimated to, uh, the average residential user uses about 1800 cubic feet per quarter or 7200 cubic feet per year. And so the difference from the prior year is estimated to be about 35%, um, greater as seen here. Um, lastly, I just want to kind of give an overall timeline of where we have been and where we are now in terms of the town's investment of time and money in the project. It kind of all began in 2021, right? It kind of all began in 2021, right? With the notice of noncompliance or the happy hollow. Well, it had to be taken offline and bottled water distributed. And, you know, the town got going right away on getting that temporary solution put together. And that's when, um, client folder was brought into the picture to evaluate the long-term water supply solutions. So we began, uh, and I think summer of 2021 and delivered our report around the same time that the PFAS treatment system was installed. Um, we, um, worked with the board of public works, uh, to do some supplemental evaluations. It was very thorough and comprehensive review of, uh, different alternatives, different cost implications of those alternatives. Um, finally, in spring of 2023, there was a public forum. And then a spring con meeting vote to proceed with the MW connection. Um, we did, uh, field investigations and conceptual design. Um, completing that in October, 2024. And then proceeding along with the design to the point where now we're, we're at 60% complete and working through, uh, permitting approvals and 60%, moving on to the 90 and a hundred percent. And, um, we will complete that design in late 2026. So it's about five years, as Tom mentioned. And I think about a little over $2 million of work so far. Um, so just wrapping up here with the schedule going forward and next steps. Um, we have recently filed our draft environmental impact report. With the state, uh, the MEPA office, mass environmental policy act office. It's a big permitting approval. That's required for large projects like this. Yeah. Actually, there's a copy up on the table up there. Oh yeah. People wanted to get a sense of the, uh, the effort and the level. Yeah. There's a hard copy there. Um, if you're interested. Um, it's also on the town, uh, project website, which we have a link on the last slide too. Um, that process we expect to be. Well, mostly complete in May. Um, yeah. Yeah. Then through the spring and summer, we'll be working through additional, uh, approvals through the water resources commission. They have to approve the transfer of, of water, um, by, for joining MWRA. And then the formal app application for admission to MWRA. Completion of the design in the fall. Um, I forgot to remove that line about the state revolving fund loan application. That loan is no longer applicable, but essentially, um, in, you know, by January, the town would be in the position to, uh, put this out to bid for contractors, award the contract, and then have this construction start in the summer of 2027 with about two years expected duration. And that's all I have. Uh, there's a link here for the project website. The town has been putting up all the reports, all the slides, um, recorded meetings. I think, um, lots of materials. So. Yeah. It's out there. There were some introductions that I forgot to make. Uh, in addition to those of us sitting at the tables in front of you. Uh, we also have a couple of the members from the client filter team, uh, Tyler Bernier, and Jen, uh, Benjamin, as well as Matt Abraham's is also on screen. He's the, uh, uh, the water financial model that we use, uh, each year and participated in, in some of the financial forecasting for this project. So he's here as well to assist with, uh, some of the questions that we might have. So I can say just keeping things organized. What I thought we would do would be to, um, take questions from the folks here in person. And then, um, Robbie is, uh, moderating the meeting for us. And then he can then recognize people that are on screen that raise their hands. If you have questions, those of you that are on zoom, if you're. Uh, Robbie can then promote you, uh, so that we can hear you here in this room. Uh, does that sound like a good approach? Yeah. Okay. Um, so with that, do any of you, uh, have questions from us, what you've heard tonight? Things that have been on your mind. Certainly, sir. Um, should we use a microphone? So there's, there's a mic right there. So I think the green light that you see right there. And, and Robbie tells us, he, he can hear us loud and clear. Let me know if you need it. Yeah. And can you, please, uh, give your name and, and address for the, uh, so. Hi. So my name is Paul Klapper. I'm on Pelham Island drug. Um, so I'm, uh, I'm wondering if we move to, uh, just a single, uh, local source, minus MWRA, a happy hollow. Um, I assume that's gonna put additional stress on the, uh, aquifer supplying those happy hollow wells. Is that, is, is that because I didn't say anything about that. Is that taken into account? Yeah. So the MWRA water will be supplemental to the, to what the happy hollow wells provide. So you would be definitely taking water, some water from MWRA. I understand that. My, that's not my question. My question is the water being taken out of the happy hollow wells. Uh, so right now we're taking from four sources within Weyland. Now we're going to be only taking from one source in Weyland. So there's going to be, I assume more water coming out of happy hollow. Then now comes out of happy hollow. Right. And, um, is, is it, is it, can it meet that need? It wouldn't be more than, than what's coming out now. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. It would be right now. We're pumping less because our, our system can't pump properly. Yeah. So we would be drawing more from that aquifer, but it is rated to support what we plan. Um, so the, the aquifer itself, um, like DP, uh, provided the study. Um, and I don't know the numbers exactly, but, um, I think it's rated to, uh, draw something like 1.3, 1.35 million gallons per day. Um, you know, so we, it would. Right. Before we put the piece. Here's who you are. I'm Clifford Lewis. I think I used to be. Like the hill road. Uh, before we ran at the same level, planning to run it after the pieces and after the systems. So it's really no different. Was it just reduced in this interim period? Yeah. Well, it, it, it was running at, or at 900 million gallons per day. Um, because of the new system issues, it's down to, in the treatment and the filtering, it's down to about 500, 400. Yeah. So, and that's gallons per minute. Oh, gallons per minute. Right number. Okay. Um, but, um, yeah, so I think at, at its peak, we were, um, pumping about 900 million gallons per minute. Um, and we, we, we, we did, um, uh, you know, communicate with mass DEP as well as the engineers, and we are confident that we'll be able to get about 85% of the town's water from happy hollow. We're permitted to do that. The pumps will be able to handle that. That treatment plant that Kirsten proposed, we'll be able to handle that. We will use the MWRA water to supplement that during peak demand, summertime high demands, when we won't be able to fully get the pounds, uh, water demands, and then for planned and, you know, unanticipated needs to, uh, to shut that plant down, we will be permitted to provide, uh, all of Wayland with just the MWRA connection as well. So we'll have a lot of flexibility. Back up is the name of the game. Yes. You want to just state your name and address, please? Um, Elizabeth Carter, um, on Sherman Bridge Road. Um, I had other questions, but I'm a little confused. I'm think I missed that all the other wells are going to be taken offline and only the one with the worst PFAS is the one that's going to be kept online. That is correct. So the reason for that is that the other three locations, we don't have enough real estate to build PFAS treatment. So in 2029, when the federal governments, they promulgate the new regulations and it goes down to four parts per trillion, none of our sources will be able to meet that. And we don't have the ability to build PFAS treatment at those three locations. Happy Hollow Wellfield, um, has a large amount of real estate there. We've got plenty of room. And so therefore we're able to build PFAS treatment, uh, at that location. Okay. And now if, if we just, and we had, I remember we had two choices, um, and, um, most people wanted this combined system, but the one where we just went entirely with Massachusetts water was a lot cheaper, um, than this. And, um, the, so I think we wouldn't need to build a, um, PFAS. We, we, we could just leave that, or would we still have to clean it up? So the, the reason that we cannot just get water from the MWRA is because there's the Interbasin Transfer Act, and that act tells us that if we're transferring water from one basin to another, getting water from the MWRA, which is west of here, bringing it into Weyland, that interbasin, um, guidelines requires us that at all feasible, um, you know, uh, uh, uh, options that we have to provide local sources, uh, for our water. We have to do that. So happy hollow is feasible economically, environmentally to provide water. So because of that act, we are required to make use of what we have here locally at happy hollow, even though it's contaminated and we have to build an extra. So we can, from the DEP's point of view is that in the water resources commission, they're the ones that actually, um, have oversight over the Interbasin Transfer Act. Um, if we're able to treat it feasibly and economically treat it, then we're to do so. And, and that was one of my other questions is, um. Can I, can I just add to that? Sure. Your, um, statement was that the MWRA only option was a cheaper option. Um, our financial consultant actually did a study and the dual source option is a more economic solution over time. So the long term, uh, cost of the MWRA only, um, was projected to be a higher cost than the dual source. Even though there's more of an upfront cost for the construction over time because of the high cost of MWRA water. Um, that was what the finding was. Yeah. Yeah. Over what, what was the period of time in which it would be more. I think it was third. Uh, Matt, can, can you answer the, uh, the duration that the study was? How many years, uh, did we project out? We projected out. I mean, we looked at 25 year period. Um, I believe that it started to become cheaper within a lesser time than that though. Maybe 13 years. I'm research. That's where the lines crossed. Yeah. The reports on the website, um, the earlier reports show that. And, and the, um, cost that you showed on the 38, whatever million that includes the debt costs or it does not. No, it does not include the debt costs. That is the amount of the project that will be financed. Okay. So in addition, taxpayers need to pay the debt costs. And my understanding from. No, the debt, that service is principal and interest. The 38.5 million, 38 million is the principal amount that will be repaid over the time period. You're correct. In addition to that, there's obviously no free lunch. So just like your mortgage. So there's an interest charge that will be paid on top of that. Yeah. Service fees. And, and we're not going to have the best options since our, we already have so much, um, debt right now adding this debt. But when there was, um, somebody was talking, I think at the select board was presenting the, um, financial options. Um, maybe it was finance committee, but, um, the longer the bond, it is more expensive for the town. So I'm wondering why we're looking at a 30 year bond and not a 25 or a 20. Okay. I can answer the read. You can do either depends on when, just like you want to do a 15 or a 20 year mortgage. Okay. And what is the annual cost that you think the town is reasonable in terms of the water rates. So the shorter the period, the lower the overall debt service cost, but the higher annual payment. So it's a trade off. Got it. Also described as no free lunch. Tom. I'm going to say your name and address. Uh, yeah, I, I'm Tom Siakar rolling lane. And, uh, I've been involved with protecting what Williams water for over 50 years, um, in many different roles. Um, I, I was one of the people who was responsible for the establishment of the, uh, Intervation Transfer Act. Uh, that, that, that was back in the seventies or eighties. Um, when, when, when I'm the WRA was trying to train the Sudbury river for Boston water supply. And, um, one, one of the defenses against that was the establishment, the Intervation Transfer Act, which, uh, it, it wasn't only, only Wayland involved. It was Sudbury, Lincoln, Concord, and, and the Connecticut River Valley folks who were also at risk at the time. Um, and, and, and in the process, we got Tom his first job, by the way, um, and finding leaks in the MWRA system. Um, I, uh, well, one, one comment I want to point out. Uh, I've done a study of flooding in, in Wayland historically. Uh, we've, we've had seven major floods in the last hundred years. So your comments about the, the facilities in the floodplain are well taken. Uh, last one was into 2010, but we will absolutely have, have more. Um, I think most people don't realize that, um, utilities, utilities all have a common characteristic, which is whether it's electric or gas or water, wastewater or whatever it is. They have a much higher peak load than average load. And in this case in our, our water supply, for example, it's by about a factor of three. And typically the way that's dealt with. Uh, is to build the system with the capacity to handle the peak load, which means most of the time it has enormous over capacity, which means it's much more expensive than it has to be. But, uh, here we have an approach, which I, I think is brilliant. There's a cheaper operating facility to handle our average load. And then for these small amount of time, we need the bigger capacity. We have the much more expensive source of M to WRA. You haven't mentioned the relative operating cost of the facility. I, I, I know you've got that. So it, it optimizes for wall conditions, lower operating costs for 85% of the time. And the 15% of the time where that's not adequate, we, we have the other facility. Uh, I do have one, one question. You mentioned, um, connectivity of the facility. Um, I worry about, uh, about cybersecurity, uh, especially now, uh, where a direct threat has been made. I don't know if you've heard that against us water supply systems. So could you speak to that? Well, I'm actually going to defer to Don because Don is actively working. Yeah. Yeah. So we just wrapped up our cybersecurity assessment with EPA. Um, we are working with it to correct the, um, deficiencies that were noted. Uh, and obviously not going to go into detail on, you know, on everything there. But, um, we have a meeting scheduled with mass DEP in, uh, two weeks to go over those, those changes that we need to make. And yeah. Yeah. So it's certainly something we're paying attention to. Yeah. We'll take it. Is there money in the budget for it? Yeah. Please. Oh, sorry. Is there money in the budget for these? Is this new, the changes you're going to make for the cybersecurity? I mean, any costs associated with those type of operating costs are handled within our operating budget under professional services. So we include those types of funds. Under our budget, you mean the DPW's budget or the $38 million budget? It's under the, it's under the water enterprise fund. We have, we operate as an enterprise fund. So each year we have an operating budget. That's in excess of $5 million. And, uh, we have different lines and we have a professional services line that's specifically identified for these types of things. Yeah. So if Mike wants to talk us through that, this was the graph that we were referring to a short time ago. Yeah. So Matt, Matt can probably speak to this best. Um, I'll say this is a bit dated. Um, I had to pull it up, uh, from one of Kirsten's, uh, PowerPoint decks. Um, from maybe a year or two ago. Yeah. Um, but Matt, maybe you could walk us through the study. I can briefly say the MWRA line here, if we were to use a hundred percent MWRA, that's the blue line. Um, the, the orangish reddish line is the hybrid model. We're talking about implementing, which is where we'd have about 15% of our water during peak times come from MWRA. And the rest would come from happy hollow. And you can see about year six or seven. Um, the more cost effective option is the hybrid option. Um, Matt, maybe, maybe you can describe what went into the, um, what factored into the costs, the annual costs. Sure. Uh, good evening, everyone. This is Matt Abrahams from the Abraham's group. So yeah, happy to speak about this graph. Um, so all the costs that went into the calculations that you see in front of you were both capital and operating costs. Um, capital would be whatever capital would be needed to, um, to do the option that's in front of you. So for the MWRA full supply option, it would be the connection to the MWRA and nothing else, meaning no happy hollow work. Whereas the hybrid option would be connecting to the MWRA plus capital related to happy hollow as well. So the hybrid option included larger capital expenses than the MWRA full option, but then there's the operating piece. And this was spoken. This comment was made a few moments ago that the MWRA water is expensive. And over time, if Whalen were to draw all of its water supply from the MWRA, those are costs that surely add up over time. So the blue line represent includes those large costs for the MWRA water at a hundred percent of water. Whereas the orange line. And yes, you're still, you're still drawing water from the MWRA, but you're drawing at a much lesser clip. So therefore the, um, cost of that water is a lot lower. So surely I think as, as Kirsten mentioned, when she made her comments, it does flip not too far into the future. Um, if you see where the red crosses the blue, that's somewhere in the, uh, FY 34, FY 35 timeframe. Granted this analysis was done one, two, one to two years ago, I believe. So if we were to rerun this, it might look slightly different, but the message overall would be the same. Thank you. And that would be based on paying off in 25 years. So, or is it paying off 25 years. It's up to 25 years. So here, we might, we might have run this as 30 year borrowings. I don't know off the top of my head, but whatever we use, it was, it was, it was comparable across the options. But it meant paying for the whole thing is included in the period of time as well as. Debt service cost is included in that. Yes. Good question. Yes. Debt service costs are included in these numbers in front of you. Yes. Carol. Carol. I just wanted to find out. Did we actually determine? I'm sorry. Again, Carol. I just wanted to find out if we've actually learned whether the town and the school were paying for the water they were using. They are paying for the water that they're using. Yes. Yeah. Everybody pays a water bill. Yeah. Okay. Cause that was early on. That was a question that there was no answer. So good. You know, everybody pays a hundred percent needed a hundred percent paid for. Now the rate that they're paying is all a tier one rate, which we're going to look at, but they are being billed. But they're not being billed at the residential rate. They're being billed at the municipal rate, which is a tier one residential rate. Yeah. Yeah. Sir in the back name and address. Yeah. Mr. Scranton, Wilker street. First of all, thank you to the folks who worked on this. It's really a lot of work. It's very important. So appreciate that. Thank you. The first few slides I saw were very, uh, uh, evocative in displaying the need for the water and how the town is using water. And if there are overages, I've certainly been aware of all the water bans that we have at various points and they seem well advised. Given those slides, I was expecting to see also in parallel with 25-year cost comparisons and the length of years of the dead, I was expecting to see a parallel projection of water usage for the town of Weyland. I imagine that doing this project, folks will have already done that analysis, but I think that parallel water usage projection should be part of this presentation, and it should also include expectations of expanded usage due to warming climate. As we're seeing record high temperatures, and we're seeing wilting of all kinds of foliage, there's clearly going to be situations in the future where residents are going to be trying to use more water, just the existing, not talking about new residents, not talking about the natural expansion of the population of the town, but the existing residents and businesses will be trying to use more water than they have in the past in order to water their properties. I know that's not allowed in certain situations, but I see that fight coming, and so this kind of analysis would be strengthened with, I saw the figure earlier, I think it was 1.35, what was the metric? What was the metric? You got me. Gallons per minute. So that's a natural metric, if I'm not mistaken, right? That's a today metric. That's today, yep. And that's, you know, if we complete this, then we expect to have that as our, essentially our peak system available water. It's important for us to all understand what the peak will be 10, 15, 20, 30 years from now. And if you have that, I'd love to see the information. I'm sure somebody's- The flip side of that coin is what is the impact on people's demand for water with the increase in the water rates? That's what I'm saying to you. But I'm saying it may go down, no, no. Because of the higher rate, they're going to say, well, wait a minute, I can't afford to water my lawn, I can't afford to do X because of the higher rate. That's the trade-off. And I wish I had a crystal ball to know which way it's going to go, but we really don't. I understand what you're saying. Just to use what you're saying, that implies that the town may seek to manage water consumption by increasing the amount charged for water over the next however many years, which is a natural way to do it, that certainly, now we're getting into a question of how much are residents paying in terms of the amounts we're paying for an expanded water system or a non-expanded water system versus how much are we going to be paying in increased fees for using water because the system has not been expanded? Well, we do that today, it's called tiered water rates. And the one thing that I'd like to point out too is that we operate under a Water Management Act permit with MassDEP and it has particular criteria. We have to report unaccounted for water. We also have to report a particular figure on gallons per capita per day. So we're allowed 65 gallons per person per day. And we have to report that every year. So we will, we do not and will not have the ability to exceed that. That, that criteria is established within our permit. That permit, you know, it's a 20 year permit. So it's, we're kind of locked into that. And, and that's something done, knowing the answer, but if people in the town turn on their taps and, and, and are on pace to use more than that, what happens? Do you shut the water off? No, no, we wouldn't shut the water off, but we, you know, you have something to say, the MWRA connection is big and even if happy Halloween offline, totally, we can supply all the water we need from MWRA. So unless the town would have to have like triple the amount of water needed, the system is going to be plenty big. It's just going to take more from the MWRA. And it's going to cost. That's true. I'm not talking about the idea that there wouldn't be enough water. Yeah. Talking about the feasibility of this analysis without a parallel understanding of how much water usage, water demand, not usage, demand. But in terms of, Cliff, in terms of rate, the rates that we'll be setting are going to be higher than we're going to be paying for the MWRA at water. So we'll, you know, there's not going to be a negative from that. There'll be a positive. So maybe what would be useful then is to understand if the demand for water goes up. So I think we're not imagining that the demand for water might just not go up. We might want to see how we expect the price of water in mainland to go up commensurately. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about this saving us money because we're buying something that's going to pump water and have it be enough for everybody. And we're going to pay a certain price. As you said, if the demand for water goes up and we have to raise the price because the amount of water is going to stay the same, then that increase in price is a useful thing for us to be discussing over a 30-year time frame. That's my comment.
Just a note that we have an opening up here coming up shortly. So if you want to keep standing up or come up here, we'd welcome you. We have an opening on our board coming up soon. Well, I'd like to point out as a water supply engineer, I design water supply system from New York City to Providence, you know, where so many clients is, we frankly say, Wayland doesn't have adequate water supply. It doesn't matter what you're doing right now, based on our own supply, okay, for groundwater source, you should assume the largest production well, all the service, and the rest well can still meet your maximum day demand. We don't. There's no way we're going to do it. We're actually just one really production well. And also it's a well field, okay? And well field, you can have very easy to have one well being polluted, and then you reduce your supply. So usually we're supposed to have, you know, one well shut down, all the other well working so you can still meet, you know, maximum day demand. And sometimes, sometimes the town doesn't have it, they build more storage to try to help. But you look at the next town, I was there consulting for 50 years, Sunderburg Water District, okay? They have more well than they ever need. And I find it most of the well for them. And I designed this storage tank to provide additional during the time when we're looking for source. You know, groundwater is not like surface water. Surface water usually have a large reservoir and store enough water. So you're, you're definitely have a, uh, uh, meet your demand. So like a Massachusetts, we have a two large reservoir. One is a Wachiosus, one is a carbon reservoir. Okay. And even that I did the MWRA, uh, water source, uh, emergency need. I did the report with Sanderson Consultant. So even, even with that, we worry about it. See, assuming somebody bombed their dam, your reservoir gone. Then what happened? Okay. That's the reason when I was the first elected to be the board member, uh, you know, you could completely go to MWRA. Forget all the well field and I said we should keep one, even cost us extra money to maintain the fix. But if something happened with MWRA, we still have a well can provide us a little water. So we want to be complete dry. So sometimes we consider money too important. Okay. But you really think about all the utility. Water is the cheapest one. How much you pay for your gas? What do you pay for your electric?
Even the sewer, it costs money. You think about it. Water is the only utility you pay the least. So we are trying to solve it. So we don't have any adequate water. If we, we have to try to provide adequate water first.
People can know food for seven days, but you cannot know water three days. Thank you. Listen, that's, that's the reason. I think, you know, we really need to pay attention to boost up our water supply. Thank you. I wanted to just, I don't see anybody here, but I wanted to ask Robbie, is there anybody from the viewing audience on Zoom that is interested in asking a question? Oh, I do see one. Can you advance, Mr. Bernstein? Yep.
Go ahead, Dave.
Dave, can you hear us?
Yeah, he looks like he is. He's unmuted, I see that.
Dave, can you hear us? We're ready to listen to you.
After you say the illimitally is in lane. All right, maybe we go to Hope and Michael and then come back to Dave. I'll come back to him. Well, it sounds like, yep, you might be having an issue with audio. That's Hope Podell.
Can we go to the, there we go. And now just, they just need to unmute. There we go.
Good evening. Hello. Yes. Hello. Could you just give us your name and address, street name, please? Sure. Hope Podell, 7 Jennison Road. I guess my husband might be listed now, too. His name is Michael Gilbreath, same address. Okay.
There's a couple of questions and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. One is, I guess I should have been going to meetings for the last 15 or 20 years of the 27 we're here, because obviously I missed a lot. Um, before I forget, um, I just want to mention to people who might be also online, um, because the rest of you know this, uh, the cost for the PFAS removal is, I guess, what you, what you say it is now. It's a now thing versus it's going to cost, not going to change for the next 30 years. I don't know. But, you know, I mean, you know as well as I do that PFAS is with us. I mean, we even had a consultant. It's not going anywhere. It's not going to be completely removed. And if it is in one area for one period of time, it's for a short period of time. Opposite the middle school is, uh, one of the next places that are going to have to be, something's going to have to be done with. Um, I know it's not relative to the water supply now, but I don't ever want anybody to be fooled about PFAS. So whatever you're going to do, um, there should be like a caveat of explanation, which makes me remember that I wanted to see the PowerPoint, um, put up on our Wayland website so we can have access to it for those of us that are just lay people. Um, and, uh, I don't, I don't know who and what steps it went through and how much tree clearing there is, but that's always something, especially this town is starting to get a little bit enlightened about the horror of tree clearing. Um, you can always go to the Dover amendment grounds where they're building and they're, they just are clearing everything in sight to, uh, build, but so it's a concern to me and it's my fault that I didn't get attention to find out, um, sooner how much is, has what's been, you know, done, has attention been paid to, you know, do the tree clearing as little as possible to continue on, um, I, I also whoever said it and so it's at a context of what the, um, the staff and the board and the department, um, I think the idea that, um, it's a total of 38 million up to this point. Um, and that, that when I thought of the MWRA water is much more expensive than the hybrid and all that, it's like, and that 38%, um, I think that was the figure the rate increase that people don't care or not don't care, but we'll keep watering. I mean, I have a neighbor who doesn't make a ton of money and he, uh, just waters when he feels like it now. So is there, are the neighbors supposed to be the ones to call up? I mean, are we going to have water police? So my question is, um, does this go through any process of, oh yeah, this is great. We'll accept this at town meeting and, uh, how, and, and now since it was like, why wasn't the money approved from the state to, to get some of the water we need? I mean, it's like, there's so many holes in it for me, it's hard, but so does this go to town meeting and they say yes or no? Um, that's, yeah, that's correct. So it's gone to town meeting several times for the design funds and this is the final step. Now that we have 60%, um, design, um, we're looking for the construction cost to be approved. Uh, did I miss that number? What was that? The construction cost? That was the 38.6 million. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, so if that is, if that is by chance not approved, what does that mean for this situation in Wayland? I can take that question. So there are a number of regulatory and financial deadlines that we have to meet, uh, regulatory being, you know, dealing with the PFAS, um, the, the operational issues that we're faced with right now are very concerning. At our four locations, we have aged equipment. That equipment is at the end of its design life. Much of it, the parts are no longer made, so we're not able to replace them. So we are doing the best we can to make repairs to these systems, but it's just a matter of time before we're unable to keep some of these sources operating. And one option we have currently is to use the emergency connection, but that is not permitted nor designed to be a full-time supply for us. The MWRA won't allow that. So the consequences, um, if we do not pass this are significant. Um, I mean, I can say, and I don't want to be over dramatic, but, um, there will become a point in time when our local sources are unable to provide enough water to keep our tanks filled, to keep the proper pressure. We're required to, to maintain 35 PSI at every service connection in town. There might be a point when we're not able to do that. Um, firefighting would become an issue at that point. So I don't want to offer scare tactics, but it is a real concern. Um, that would be the consequence if this is not passed on May 4th. Um, well, I, I, I guess then, uh, you have to get the best person possible to speak their, uh, presentation to the town meeting. Um, it's like between a rock and a hard place with this. I mean, it has to be passed apparently, or we're hope. Okay. Um, hope this Carol Martin. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. I'm, um, happy to talk to you offline and fill up some of the holes you feel are in this presentation. The select board is just call me, um, not tomorrow, but Thursday or Friday. Um, the select board is co-sponsoring this article because this is, this is a situation that we really need to move forward. And we have been working on this for about five years. I'm looking at Mr. Lewis, at least five or six years. Um, we have had forums, we have gone to town meeting and asked for permission and gotten approval for every step. And the next step is we need to approve the construction project. So, um, why don't you call me so we can feel comfortable about this before we go to town meeting. Okay. Thank you, Carol. No, Ms. Carter, you can't call. We just have, uh, Dave Bernstein. We're going to get back to, and then we can take another question. Let's give Dave another try. Can you hear me now? You got you now, Dave. Two questions. One is if this is approved, when would you expect based on expected schedule, uh, the, uh, the full completion of this project? We would plan, uh, to have this completed by late summer of 29, calendar year 29. Okay. Second question. Let's say we're, uh, running along, uh, using the, the, uh, improved Happy Hollow Wells. This is after the summer of 29, uh, supplying all of Wayland's water at that point. And there's some mechanical problem that requires the Happy Hollow Wells to be shut down. How long would it take to, uh, connect to MWRA at that point to restore service? Instantaneously. Okay. We will be connected. Uh, we will be drawing water, uh, from them, uh, to exercise all of the, uh, the pumps and all of that equipment. So we'll have the ability, uh, to make an immediate, transition to their water. Thanks. That's the right answer. All right. Judy Ling. I have a question. Concord Road. Um, you know, I, I don't have, I don't see any numbers on the slide, so I'm just going to tell you what page number, uh, I have a question on the slide. Yeah. So page number nine, where it says project cost and funding. And you mentioned that the state revolving fund actually denied us, even though on the application itself, it said that the 500.4 was going to be assigned to those that are building for PFAS reasons. So even when we applied for it, that was the criteria, but they pulled the criteria after the applications went in. Yeah. So that's what we are hearing. That's what we're learning that in July of 25, and we submitted this, you know, the rules of engagement were that, uh, you know, if you were able to demonstrate that you had a project that mitigated PFAS contamination, that you would be ranked at a 500 for that, that particular tier. Um, upon receiving our score, it was far less than that. It was just a little over 200. Um, the DEP and the state revolving fund group have been a little vague, um, in giving us the rationale for that ranking, but it does appear that between July and March that, um, their weight has been changed such that PFAS is not the priority. I wouldn't say that. I just don't, I don't understand why they didn't score you guys in the 500s. That's what the whole basis of the written testimony we provided was point by point rebutting, you know, this is your criteria. This is what the point should be. Um, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, we had seen some articles written that, um, that had, you know, kind of the authors of the articles had written what I was describing that it seems like the, yeah, the rate, the ranking, you know, criteria, the weighting of it had changed over the course of eight months, nine months. And it almost seems like in the midst of, but yeah. And the other frustrating thing is there's projects that are on the funding list that are not ready to go forward like this one is. So, right. It's really, I think it's on the final. They are on the list. Yeah. They did after. There's a lot of political things. Yeah. Where we thought we might've been able to have their funding transition. You know, I'm, um, I share everyone's frustration that we didn't get the SRF loan. However, even though it's tooted as a 0% loan, there's a 1% admin fee and there's also some other fees that could come in. So it's not a hundred and as Kristen, it's what, and what they also changed this time was took away the 0%. So right. Even if you were on the list, you're not getting, you're not getting 0%. So I want to say this, that this is pretty exciting to us. So it's been part of the discussion of this project and part of the article write up. It's in the warrant that you're going to get in the mail in about two weeks. But when you think about it, we do not vote at town meeting on the funding sources. We vote to proceed with projects. And if you look at that legal language up at the top, it says we vote to authorize the select board to come up with the best funding solution to, to pay for this project. And that's what we're going to do on May 4th. So the select board is going to do along with Mr. Holder and everyone else, and Mr. Cavaney up there, our finance director come up with a number of different ways. We may have to cobble this together. We have applied for this Senate congressional loan, which is actually a grant, which was terrific. We did that last Friday. There is PFAS funding that we have gotten from being part of a class action consortium. I think those funds are going to be applied against this. We have time to come up with a clever, creative best solution for financing this for the town. So I'm on that board. I'm cheap. Don't worry. We're going to find the cheapest way there. So I'm really concerned that we're more concerned about the loan and not getting the loan when I really want, like I just said to Ms. Potell, that everyone understands what's going to happen, why it's going to take another five years to get where we need to get. So we have real good security in our hearts and our minds about our water. So thank you. Can I ask one more question? So on page 10 of the handout, the slide on top, financing analysis, the average residential user of almost $1,200 per year. And that is, I assume for a year, it just says cubic feet per quarter. So this is cubic feet per quarter or is it per year? It's 1800 cubic feet per quarter. The figures are, the dollar figures are annual. Oh, okay. So the cubic feet is quarter, but the dollar figure of 312 bucks is annual. Because people get a quarterly bill right now. Right. So they could equate to the numbers. So doing this project will result in $312 increase on average per residential household per year. Correct. Thank you. I was wondering. Yeah, we need to clarify that. Plus the cost of water. Pardon? Plus the cost of water. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn't come true.
That is the cost of water. That is the cost of water. So essentially what this graph is saying, and I'll bring it up real quick, is that the average user will spend about $1,200 on water per year. And will the base rate though, that we have to pay also be increased? That's total. That's total cost. This is including the base rate.
I, this is Matt's question. Matt has to answer this one. Yeah, so my, my understanding is that right now we're paying around $900 per year on average. And the costs will go up to about $1,200 per year on average. Annual cost, all, all inclusive of the administrative fee, as well as the cost of water, of the water itself. Just remember this is average cost. So if you're a low user in tier one only, it's going to cost you a lot less than if you're a high user watering your yard every day. And you're in a tier four, your rate's going to go up more. So that's why the, the percentage and the dollar amount is there. So you can judge the new, uh, the new, uh, no, car clapper, just for people. Yeah. Uh, so the new, the new, the new processing plant at, um, happy hollow, I will it, you know, I know, I understand we have redundancy because we have the, the backup of the MW or a water, but for the, for the happy hollow, uh, system itself, will there be redundancy in that? So is there a failover that it can do eternally? I believe so. Do you, do you want to take that Tyler? Yeah. Um, yes, there is redundancy full redundancy built into the treatment facility in a number of ways. There are redundant finished water pumps. Um, so if any of the finished water pumps ever broke or went out of service, um, there are extra pumps there. Um, and then the treatment vessels themselves are set up in a manner where they are fully redundant as in the sense that there is twice as much treatment capacity as is technically, technically needed to treat the water. So, um, any one of the vessels could be taken offline for whatever reason and still treat the design flow from the plant. Thank you. Great. So we have one other that I see a hand raised, Richard Turner, are you able to, uh, promote him, uh, Robbie? Thank you. Rich, you're on, here we go. Richard Turner, 7 Knob Hill Road. Um, my concern is the storage tanks. Um, the one you have now at Reeves Hill is getting old
and the second storage tank was demolished. So you're still operating with one storage tank. And I remember when they had that fire over in that strip mall in, uh, in Cachituit, they had a water pressure issue because I guess the storage tank went down so low that the pumps were having trouble to keep up. Um, hopefully with MWRA, there'll be redundancy. Like, uh, like Tyler just said, when pumps go offline, they can be repaired and they have standby, but water is a valuable resource and we need to address this very quickly and get it done. And so that's all I have. And it's unfortunate that you, the town got rejected for the revolving fund, but that we have to move on. And so let's move on and get the thing properly funded and get it paid for and have good, good dependable water. We appreciate your remarks, Richard. Thank you. Yes. And you want to mention the new water tank? Yeah, I can, uh, your question Richard about, uh, the tanks is quite timely and you're right. The, uh, the tank that we have in place right now, I think it was built, you know, in the 1950s, 1955. Um, so we are, uh, planning to build a second tank. We have, uh, uh, that project is bid and, uh, we'll begin construction probably about this time next year. It'll be a 750,000 gallon tank that will sit in the exact location that the one you referenced that was demolished. So, uh, probably in about a year and a half, we will have tank redundancy. Thank you. Yeah. Maybe one, one is to write a couple of last questions. Sure. Sure. Tom, again, Tom Siak, a couple of comments. One, uh, as an engineer, I want to second Ed's, Ed's comments and third and fourth of them as well. Uh, the life critical resource, reliability has to be top priority and redundancy is a wonderful thing when you absolutely have to have reliability of source. Secondly, um, had some wearing at the moment or river stewardship council, energy and climate committee, we will be increasingly trying to educate people as time moves on that, um, using lots of water on your plantings is really not necessary. Huge, lushly watered lawns are really not necessary. Techniques like drip irrigation save a lot of water. And as climate change progresses and it will progress and we will alternate from flood to drought conditions, we'll have to learn how to deal with the droughts. So, um, in the, the, uh, issue of how much water we use in the future is very much not, not, not resolved. Thanks for your remarks. Eliza. Elisa. Elisa. My mistake. Pardon. Yeah. I'm sorry to be quick. So they're going, you're going to be putting in 20 inch pipes that are iron. Dr. Iron. Yeah. Pipeline. So that can rust. There's cement lines. It's they're all American Water Works Association approved. There's actually a ductal iron research foundation that's quite active, um, you know, in, in promoting, you know, longevity of iron pipe. So it's, it's, it's what's putting the ground all over the, all over the country. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just, um, I was surprised. So I just wanted to ask, and then the PFAS is only being filtered through charcoal. That's enough to get PFAS out of the water. Yeah. It's called granular carbon. We've done a pilot intestine study to make sure that it removes everything to non-detectable levels and that's been completed. So just going through, it doesn't have to be like dumped or something. Eventually the media, um, becomes exhausted and you need to change it out. And so there will be multiple vessels that are set up in a configuration so that you keep running while one of the vessels is changed out. Um, Tyler, do you want to do a one minute explanation of the whole lead lag, you know, how that works? That's enough. She said that's fine. Okay. Nevermind. The only other question is, is there a chance we're going to get that $7 million waiver, um, if we switch by 2027 and is that included? Or is that going to come out of, you know, we're going to take $7 million off that budget if we get that? It's tied into 38. So we, so if we don't hook up by the, by 2027, and we're not planning to, we're going to have to pay another $7 million or whatever much it is. So what are the chances? I mean, you said 2029. No, we just have to December of 27 is the deadline that we have to have been accepted by the MWRA to connect. And we will, our schedule will make that deadline. Not project completion submission. Yeah. It's based on the approval of the funding of the construction. Um, so if the town is committing to the funding of construction, that moves us through continue, continues to move us through the process. We've been in the process and we've got the design funds approved and that's shown good faith that we're moving forward. So this would be construction approved. And that would be the final step in terms of the town saying, yep, we're committed. We're going to join. Yeah. Great. And, and I, I just wanted to comment. I, I think this is, I'm very impressed by the presentation and I appreciate obviously many years of hard work on this, um, to ensure that people here can have water and still to care. Um, and with all respect to the, um, wonderful comments about, yeah, water is more important than food and money. Nonetheless, um, our, you know, we are, the taxpayers have a lot of burdens at this time, and this is going to be a big one going forward for a long time. So I'm not complaining. I'm just saying this is why people are bringing it up because it is a big investment and we are already constantly having our budgets going up every year and we have other things that we're paying for. So it's not that, you know, we think money is more important than water. It's just, it's a big number and we have a lot of other crap going on right now. So don't take it. Yeah. And everything's going to get worse. But we're going to stop. Yeah. Annette. Annette Lewis, Clay Biddle Road. What I was just going to say is we all have burdens and we're paying for schools to take about 75% of our budget and all of our infrastructure gets nothing. Um, and we have had to do water work for years. I mean, we've been here for 46 years and it hasn't been under control until this group of people started taking it under control and it's just time to get it done. Thank you. All right. If there's nothing else, um, I think we'll conclude the presentation and we have to, we have to close it out. Okay. Go to it. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Moved. Second. Made in second. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.