September 22, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript
September 22, 2026 - Board of Public Works
Okay, now if I can get back to my screen, I think we'll call the Board of Public Works meeting to order.
It's the Wayland Board of Public Works meeting, September 22, 2026. It is 6 p.m. We are conducting this meeting via remote access only via Zoom.
Let's see. The meeting is being recorded and will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting.
The public will be excluded from executive sessions. We don't have any planned for this evening.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, we are conducting this meeting via remote access in accordance with applicable law.
As this meeting has only remote access, there's no in-person attendance.
Let's see. For public comment, we'll allow folks in to speak for up to two minutes during our public comment portion of the meeting, and with that, we'll get started. We did not hold an August meeting, so we have some catching up to do. So it's a pretty full meeting. We have our consultant, Klinefelder, here to talk about two topics, an update on the long-term water supply project and the lead service line replacement. And let me do a roll call just to have folks confirm they're here. Judy. Here. Great. John. Here. Hello. Ed.
Ed, if you just raise your hand or say you're here, that'd be great.
And Mike. I'm here. Great. And Wager Power here. We do note that Ed is here, listed under Julie Gusty's title. So with that, do we have any announcements, Tom? I do not have any announcements, no. Anyone else have announcements?
I do not have any.
So with that, we can move on to public comment. Let's see. I am looking, and I do not see. Oh, I do see one hand raised, Dave Bernstein. Great. So I can promote him. All right. I did. So he should be good to speak. Great. Hi, Dave. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. So I just want to comment that there have been a notable increase in attacks on municipal water systems. Artificial intelligence makes municipal scale attacks much more accessible than has ever been the case. I have no idea whether any of our water infrastructure is accessible online and how, but I do know that if it is, it may be a vulnerability. This is budget season, so it would be a good time to review that and make sure that any vulnerabilities are dealt with. And that should be done in executive session so that vulnerabilities are not revealed online. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. If you can just comment on the road you live on. Say again? Yeah. Can you just comment on the road you live on if you hadn't already?
My name and address is Dave Bernstein, 25, please, online. Thank you.
Thank you for that comment. You know, we can discuss that at some point in the future and potentially under executive session. It is something we pay attention to along with the IT department and we do receive periodically updates and posts from Dave. So I appreciate that. And I know myself, Don, and the IT director and Nick Lombardi do receive those and read them. Great. Thanks, Tom. Do we see any other public comment? I do not.
Mike, there was an email from Tom Siaka. I don't know if you got to see it, where he was forwarding comments about PFAS. Hmm. I don't know if I saw that one. No? Okay. I'll try to forward it after the meeting. Okay. Anything you want to mention from the article? It was fairly long. Okay. And basically, like, I probably shouldn't summarize it, so. Okay. All right. Well, we'll take a look at. Okay. Possibly I missed it. But if not, if you forward, that would be great. Okay. With that, we'll move on. Kirsten is here. Our liaison, Kirsten Ryan from Kleinfelder. Are you ready to roll, Kirsten? Hello. Good evening, everybody. I am. Great. Let's get right into it. I'll share. So, I think we're going to do kind of a quick executive summary overview and then dive into a little bit of the details just to give you an update on where things are at so that you can ask any questions you might have. Yep, exactly. I won't take too much of your time on this this evening, but that's exactly what we want to do right here, as you can see. Cool. So, just real quick for anybody who has not been following along with the project, this is an overview map of the water supply improvements, long-term water supply improvements, that we are in the middle of designing. There's actually two, they're being designed as two contracts for bidding and design under parallel. The first one being Happy Hollow Water Treatment Facility right here and behind the high school and the water main that will be replaced, the existing water main that's going to be replaced with a new one here. And the other contract is the MWA interconnection and distribution improvement. So, starting over here in the west in Framingham at the MWA Shaftal interconnection, new transmission main, parallel to the Holtman Aqueduct, and then continuing on into Weyland, new pump station at Castle Road, and replacement of existing water mains up Old Connecticut Path as necessary. So, that is the project that we are designing. Kind of super high-level overview on where the overall project is at. Design, I would call it about 75% complete right now. We're in the middle of advancing the 60% deliverable to the 90% deliverable set of drawings and specifications, and we're about 15% into that. So, permit approvals, approximately 30% complete. So, overall, between this first phase of design permit and bidding and award would be about 50% complete. So, we are on track to complete that work into the spring of May 2027, and then be ready to advertise sometime in summer of 2027, such that a contract would be awarded in late 2027, and construction would begin in December 2027 or early 2028. So, that's our overall timeline. Great. So, we're still on track to potentially start late next calendar year, the following? Yes. Great. So, a little bit more detail on what's been happening since we last talked to you. As I said, we're progressing the design on those two contracts. The 60% milestone package was completed in April. 90% package is in progress. We are on track to complete that mid-November for a DPW review, and then that will proceed to a 100% milestone as well.
There's been a lot of local permitting activity or conservation commission hearings. We had our hearing with Framingham for the portion of the work that's in the city of Framingham. We had a hearing on the 2nd of September, and it was continued until the 16th, and they closed the hearing on the 16th. So, we will be receiving our wetland order of conditions for the Framingham portion shortly. There wasn't really anything particularly of note there. It was pretty straightforward. But there's pretty limited impacts to wetland buffer zones in Framingham. The Weyland Conservation Commission hearing is scheduled for the 30th next week. There's quite a bit more resource areas under jurisdiction there, so it's going to be a little bit more in-depth process. I'm sure it will take more than one hearing for that. Meanwhile, we also went before the planning board on the 9th of September. And going through that process now, we have a meeting this Thursday, the Design Review Advisory Board, working through some revisions to some of the pump station design, aesthetics, and other considerations. We've also been coordinating with the Board of Health to advance a variance. Part of the plumbing code would require a bathroom in the pump station, which would require a septic system, which is not desirable for cost reasons. MWA is not keen on having a septic system near their aqueduct. And so, we're pretty confident we'll be able to get the variance. And that will help save some money on the construction side as well. Great. The 100% design is scheduled to be done in April. And so, just a lot of coordination ongoing with MWA staff, their design staff, their planning folks, their permitting folks. So, they've been quite helpful. And we've also met recently with their designer who's designing the interconnection piece that we will need to connect to here at Shafdell. So, that is all going along. There'll be a bathroom at Happy Hollow, though, correct? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's over the size requirement, size threshold for a waiver request. Oh, okay. Great. Okay. As far as, like, the permits and approvals side for, like, the statewide permits, the Mass Environmental Policy Act review and Water Resources Commission approval. It's quite a mouthful. So, inter-basin transfer approval is required, obviously, for this. As we are working through that process, we were able to get the draft Environmental Impact Report Certificate in May. And then we just recently received the certificate on the final environmental impact report without any supplemental requirements from MEPA. We do have some things we need to, the town needs to address with the Water Resources Commission. So, we were able to get that certificate, but the Water Resources Commission, which is the regulatory body that approves the inter-basin transfer permit to accept water from the MWRA, which is coming from the Quabbin Reservoir, outlined several things that need to be completed before the final authorization is given, you know, to move forward with the transfer. So, some of those things include additional water audits, you know, Wayland has had some challenges with unaccounted-for water, so they want to make sure that, basically, Wayland is managing water responsibly and will continue to do so going forward with this new water source. Also, requiring a written, formal water conservation plan, water loss control plan, and a drop management plan. So, don't we have a lot of these in place? They need to be updated? We actually do not. I mean, we have one audit that was just completed, but relative to two, three, and four, we don't. Not to the level, the expectations of the Water Resources Commission and the MWRA. Okay. Yeah, they are looking for some very detailed, formalized plans, and it's not that unusual for communities such as yourselves to have sort of informal activities, but they really are kind of using this opportunity to, you know, get something much more formalized. So, there's various elements, I won't go into a lot of detail here, but the Water Conservation Program slash plan requires elements relating to residential usage of efficiency, public outreach, outdoor water conservation, and then looking at non-residential, industrial, commercial, and institutional water users, you know. So, are there any opportunities, you know, for those top users to be more efficient in their water use, municipal facilities, you know, doing an audit and identifying opportunities for upgrading plumbing fixtures and a schedule. The second element is relating to water loss control, so that's things like leak detection and repair, which we know the town does, but, you know, really trying to get a handle on what's causing the unaccounted for water issues, looking at interconnections and testing valves to make sure nothing's staying open. So, there's various elements here. One thing that, you know, one thing that, you know, the board here should maybe, I should highlight for them is one thing during the course of preparing the final EIR and answering Water Resources Commission questions, providing documentation, we did discover that your regulations do have a prohibition against theft, but there's no actual, like, penalty for water theft included or specified. So, that's kind of a relatively easy fix that the board would need to take up. And then the metering program, just kind of working with the DPW to outline a more formal schedule and process for testing large meters. And then lastly, the drought management plan. Yeah, that's something that would need to be developed. So, we have prepared a proposal to assist on that and basically utilize guidance that the state has already put together. There's, you know, water conservation standards Massachusetts developed a number of years ago and drought management plan guidance. So, I've kind of worked with Tom to put together a kind of a work plan of these are all the items, various items that are requiring, here's what you have in place, here's what's a compliance gap, and here's how we can help, and here's what the town would really need to be responsible for doing. I mean, to your point, Mike, is that we're not starting from zero, as Kirsten had on the prior slide. We perform a lot of the, you know, the items, we just don't have a compilation of that all into these particular plans. So, you know, we're not in as bad a shape as if we were considered, you know, being starting from scratch. That's not the case. Yeah. So, it's documenting a lot of what we do and then filling in the gaps. Finesseing, yeah, finessing what we do and documenting and reporting and, like I said, the expectation. You've got to have this format in a particular way, in a pretty detailed way. So, that's really what the effort will be. Great. Yeah, and there was another element that Water Resources Commission is speaking to is pressure management and, you know, looking for some public outreach material to be put onto your website regarding pressure relief valves and what the customers can look out for and what, you know, where they can get help and resources to work on that. So, yeah, lots of different elements coming together and then July 2027 is the date by which we've, the town is committed to preparing all that. So, great. Other things related to the project, just backtracking a little bit, reapplied for SRF funding back in July. We'll be looking, you know, this winter to see what the decision is on that. Usually, the draft decision is issued in January or in a final in March. Tom has, I know, been working with, and I think Michael McCall, working with the state delegation on enabling legislation to kind of check that box for joining the MWA membership. And then we've also been coordinated with the MWA on, you know, what we'll need for proceeding with construction in terms of permits, easements, and things like that. So, those are all being tracked and worked on. Right. So, just wrapping up with next steps. Next step would be for, you know, the task order that I mentioned for that water conservation planning to be executed, getting your firm that does your water audit under contract as well. So, and then we would work on, start working on that. We'd continue to advance the design and permitting in parallel and continue with the coordination. So, really just keeping on track, keeping moving along.
Sounds good. And that's really all I had. Great. Are we doing any digging along the way to see what we might encounter? Or has that all been done already in the, in the earlier design? Yeah. Yeah, that's all been done as part of the earlier parts of the design. Okay. Yeah. Great. Is the design drawing going to submit to, to us for review at 60% completion? I think if we were waiting until 90%, it would be too late to make any comment. I mean, I think what we might do, if the board was open to this, if, you know, you wanted to have Ed act as a board representative, we did this for a prior project. I'm trying to think of which one it was, whereby Ed came in a number of times and reviewed, it was a project that Abby was working on, Abby Charest, the town engineer. So, we could certainly do that. We could, you know, at the 75% point, Ed, if that was agreeable to you and the board, invite you in, have Kleinfelder go over the, the project, the design with you at that point.
I think, 75%. I think he looked at the tank. I was worried if we got to 90% and it come at a change or the cost more that way. Yeah.
I know it, it was, yeah, I think Ed, you participated in the 30% meeting and I, I thought you did on 60% as well in the spring, but maybe I'm misremembering. And we could share a progress set right now. We don't really have a formal 75% deliverable, but we have, you know, plan sets that are going through the local permitting process that are kind of in between 60 and 90. So, we can share a progress set with you. Yeah, maybe what we could do, I think it might be easier for Ed, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ed, is actually having a hard copy. Sure. You know, that, have that sent to us or delivered to us and then we can have Ed, he can review it at our place or he can take them with him and review them at home. Yeah. Is there anything you can share with the board? Not, not the large drawings, details, but are there any like PDFs that the board can just take a look at or is that too difficult? No, that's not too difficult. I mean, like I said, we've, we've got permit applications prepared that have a PDF, you know, that could be shared. Okay, great. Yeah, I think, Tom, didn't you have, didn't Ed look at the tank design as well? Yeah, I think he, I think that, that makes sense because Abby was overseeing that project. That was probably the case as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good with that. I don't, the rest of the board, I don't know that we have to vote on that, but are we okay with that? Yes. Great. Can I ask a question? Great. Yeah, please go ahead. So, I know it's not uncommon to have unaccounted water loss. Kristen, I was just wondering, with your work with other towns, what seems to be a normal amount versus an abnormal amount of unaccounted for water? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, the state standard is 10%. Yeah, we did an analysis not too long ago, and many towns are over 10%. I think over 20% is pretty high, and that's not that common. I would say in between 10 and 20 is fairly common. So, you guys are definitely on the higher side of the spectrum. The thing that's unique to us is we've had large swings in unaccounted for water. We've had it, you know, when I arrived here, it was 14%, and when we went up to 20, we were down to 8. We went up to 42, back down to single digits, and a lot of that, we believe, is due not so much for due to water leaking or lost water. It's actually the accounting of the water and the metering, not only just reading meters every six months. So, now that we're reading these meters nearly every day, we have that information, we'll be able to have a much tighter reconciliation of our water. We've described this, you know, to the Water Resources Commission and the MWRA and the DEP as well. So, they all understand that, and that's the reason why they're interested in requiring us to have annual audits, these M36. M36 is a manual, it's Manual 36 with the American Water Works Association, and it goes into detail, you know, accounting for water, pressure control, all of those types of things. So, that's why you'll see M36 referenced regularly. Okay, thank you. I was just going to say, now that we've gone to an automatic water meters, hopefully we have a better idea of our water loss, but you'll just answer that. Yep, absolutely. Okay. Great. So, we're all on track. Things are looking good at the moment. We'll knock on wood. So, that's great to hear. Yeah.
Okay. Any other questions before we move on to lead service?
Okay. All right. I think we can move on to the next topic. I can just give some opening remarks. Ajay Sharma, who's on right now, is with Kleinfelder, and he's going to present a lot of the details. Just a bit of background. You're probably all familiar with the lead and copper rule. It's been around for decades, and it governs the amount of lead and copper in drinking water. And municipal water suppliers have to abide by a number of regulations. We have to sample a number of times each year, provide public outreach should particular services exceed allowable thresholds and all of that. And about two years ago, I might be wrong on the dates, but there was actually a revision. So, it's the lead and copper rule revised, LCRR. And what has happened is that there's been an increase in the work, the requirements that are placed on municipal water suppliers and all water suppliers to assure homeowners, business owners, that lead is not in their drinking water. And it goes in as far now as it's focusing on the actual materials that make up the water service, whether it's lead, whether it's galvanized pipe, whether it's iron, whether it's unknown. So, Ajay is going to talk about the inventory that we just completed last year, how we're preparing ourselves to this and exceed excess of about 300 services that need to be physically inspected. We're going to do that by November of next year. And then there'll be some discussions and some decisions necessary for the board to be involved with, because although we don't own the portion of the water service that's from the curb stop, the property line, into the home, we are now responsible for facilitating the replacement of that. There's a number of ways to do it. Some of them are expensive. The alternatives require a heavy administrative role, but that's the reason we're here before you tonight, is this is a pretty big deal. All municipal communities are going through this, and Meinfelder is supporting us in this effort, and Ajay is going to, I know it's a pretty comprehensive presentation. It really is, he'll go over it tonight, but it really is for your use, and we'll wind up putting this up on our water webpage as well, so people can view it and see what this is all about. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Ajay. Thanks, Tom. Thank you all for taking some time this evening to let me talk about this. Again, Ajay Sharma here with Kleinfelder. And the way I'm going to kind of break out this presentation here, I'll just kind of briefly go through kind of what we've completed under phase one of the work. I'm really going to focus really on what we're doing right now, which is technically phase two. And then, like Tom mentioned, give you an idea of the best way to prepare kind of moving forward. So, yep, like Tom mentioned here, this regulation has evolved quite a bit. So, we're kind of operating in between, I would say, like Tom said, the lead and copper rule revisions, and then really preparing for what's called the lead and copper rule improvements. And I'll have a slide on that in a second here, but just friendly reminder, when we talk about a single service line, we're going to be talking about kind of three main components. A gooseneck, which is how the service line is connected, obviously, to the main, if applicable. And then you really have two major components, the first of which is what we call the public side, basically owned by the town. That's the part of the main here that's oftentimes in the street, and then goes right up to the shutoff, the valve. And then from there, the rest of that side of the service line that goes into the home here is the private side, oftentimes owned by the customer. So, like I mentioned, we're operating currently under phase two. So, just quick refresher on phase one. This was a grant that we'd gotten through MassDEP, and this was basically putting together the service line inventory. Remember, the inventory needs to have every single service line that the system or the town serves, and then goes into the detail of identifying the materials on those three components that I just mentioned on the prior slide. So, that was really a bulk of what this phase one project was, was putting all of the records together, going through anything that we had available to us to kind of put that inventory together. And then using that, we were able to put together a map. This is an example of what the town sees on your website, and it just ends up being a lot easier for them to look at, as opposed to taking a look at a spreadsheet and having something that they're able to understand when looking at that. The other component here, public outreach, you'll see this is a common theme and something that the regulation requires quite a bit, but it ends up being a good opportunity for the town to just re-engage customers and let them know that you're already addressing a lot of this work and their concerns. And I'll talk about that in a second here, but what I really want to focus on is phase two. So, this is kind of all the work that we're doing in getting ready for the Leading Copper Rule improvements, which go into effect on November 1st of 2027. So, this is really broken down into three main things that we're looking to accomplish. First of which, like Tom mentioned, the town had actually done a training with their, the manufacturer of the hydro excavator that the town owns, with the purpose of basically going out and doing some of those inspections. So, the main thing that we had completed, or had basically done during phase one, was we had basically asked customers to go in through their basements, take photos for us, send that back in, so that we could document the private side of the service line. But what we're still left with is quite a number of unknowns on the public side. So, just that little small portion there, oftentimes in the street. So, this effort here, using the town's hydro excavator, will really be to identify the material at the shutoff on the public side. And like Tom mentioned, this is something that's going to be coming up shortly. But one of the things that we've worked on supporting here is basically developing a GIS map to help the town identify where they need to go, and then an inspection form. So, that all those results will come right back to us, and then we can easily update that overall inventory spreadsheet that the state requires. Can I ask a question, Jake? Of course, sure. So, are we pretty confident that that piece number three that you outlined, the private side, that has all been identified? Good question, Mike. I will, in the coming slides here, I'll give you a breakdown of kind of like where we stand in terms of overall. So, like the three main categories that MassDP is going to be looking at would be LED, your galvanized requirement replacement, your unknowns, and obviously the non-LEDs. But it's those prior three that I can give you an idea of where we stand based on how many customers participated. Great, thanks. I have a question that's totally up from the left field. No worries.
We're going to get a drone with LED, I'm not going to say it right, LIDAR or LIDAR or something. Right, Tom? Abby's getting a drone. So, we have a drone, and it is LIDAR equipped, yes. Does that help with any of this kind of detection at all? So, unfortunately, yeah, we're using it for leak detection, which is a recent, you know, kind of technology. But unless Jay knows of something different, the drone LIDAR would not give us any indication of the service pipe material. So, that's correct, Tom, yeah. And I'm assuming this drone, LIDAR, is this the company that starts with an A, Estera, or something like that? Or is this separate? I am not sure about the vendor name, but it's a drone we've had for a couple of years, and it was intended. We've got infrared, we have LIDAR, but it will not assist identifying pipe material. So, is there some technology that would, besides digging into the Earth and finding it? Yeah, so, one of the technologies, there's a couple different ones, but the common theme. So, the example that I'll mention here is basically, imagine like a handheld, almost like a Milwaukee drill unit. And what this unit basically does is it has an electrical probe at the end of it. So, let's just say that the town were, you know, perhaps during meter replacements, that sort of thing. They were disconnecting the meter in the basement so that basically that pipe was exposed on the private side. This would also require emptying that pipe as well. But what you could, in theory, do is kind of pull that probe through, and it basically shoots a small electric current as it goes up there. And then you have kind of like a screen that reads out these almost like electric resistance or resistivity profiles that are indicative of certain materials. We had already talked about this with, you know, Tom, Don, and the team. There's a lot of implications with using that. Honestly, from a cost perspective as well, it would end up being almost the same, if not more, than actually digging the holes. One of the things that MassDEP does want if using that is basically Brita filters essentially provide to that customer with, you know, a certain number, I think it's almost like six months of extra cartridges. There's also an issue where, you know, if, let's just say, any of those pipes end up being lead, town currently doesn't have any, but if it were, that probe will also kind of like, best way to describe it is like it scrapes away at almost like this protective layer that's kind of built up over time. And there could be implications of whatever that material may be actually getting into the water. So it does require like a flushing by the customer. So. So no. Okay. Long story short. Yeah. There is something that exists, but I know Don and Tom, we've, we kind of talked about this. Judy, we, we did evaluate this sort of risk reward and, and found that we just felt like it was too risky and also not the cost benefit was not really there to recommend it. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Uh, I have a question. Uh, it's, uh, I, I saw your diagram of the connection from the street to the house. Uh, I didn't see any, uh, backflow prevented, uh, check there, either way, usually we would probably put one before the meter, some, some time we're even required to put one after the meter. So that's, so when we replace the lip pipe, all we need is to pay attention is that between the street, water may, and the connection to the meter, anything after that, we should tell the homeowner to replace by themselves, because that's what helped them to save that. Yeah. I think what you're referring to it is, um, you know, for, for, for residential, the, the only common backflow protector, uh, and it really focuses more on protecting irrigation systems or water and irrigation systems. It's a, a pressure vacuum breaker. That's, uh, generally on the, on the side of the house. Um, the only time we really don't have a, I think what you're describing is a containment backflow containment policy. And that's generally, if, um, there's a, a business that has a high risk, whether it's photo processing, or if it's a, a funeral home, that's doing, uh, you know, that type of work, you actually have a containment device that protects the system from that, that particular building. Those are few and far between in Wayland, uh, it being a residential, you know, primarily a residential population. We don't have backflow protection devices, as you describe at the property line or on the service line. We don't have that level, that, that containment, uh, program. Does that make sense? Yeah, um, well, we, we, we, we should have tried to, any new house or any renovation, complete renovation, just tell them to put a backflow, you know, backflow preventer. And that's so that our community, not getting the lid water from the house, because most of the lid come from the inside the house. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you know, another question I have is, uh, we, uh, we pay attention to AC pipe, which is also cause cancer. Right, right. I think, I know Don's muted, but I, I think he offers an opinion that we don't have any asbestos cement pipe? We have less than one mile left in the distribution system. Okay. In that case, maybe we should have considered some time to replace that, less than one mile. It's not like if some of the time kicked cars, almost 85% of AC pipe.
Okay. I have a question. Sure. When you, um, investigate at the curb stop, is, are you having to make, make a hole that a human can get in to, to look at the, the pipe from the main to the curb stop? Or do you have a technique of making a very small hole, hole with a vac truck and, and, and testing the service pipe there?
Yeah, I, Tom, Don, you can, um, you know. Um, yeah, what, what a J was, a J was saying a hydro excavator. In essence, that's what he's describing our vector truck. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're, we're engaging our vector truck for this work. And, uh, for context here, typically Jonathan, the, uh, the hole itself, um, honestly, the, the, the whole max diameter, um, oftentimes isn't even bigger than like a foot by a foot. And it's more of like a, a hole, less of a square, just cause you're really just kind of prodding this hole slowly open. And then once you do have it uncovered, um, yeah, I mean, these service lines can be pretty shallow. They can be pretty deep. Um, typically the recommendation is that once you get it uncovered, luckily you're using a hydro excavator. So it cleans pretty well with the water. And ideally you can actually see the material. You definitely don't want to get down there. Um, nor would there be enough space anyway. Um, so oftentimes once you clear that out and you kind of, you know, are, are cleaning it off with the actual hydro wand itself, um, you're able to see the material. And then the other thing, um, you know, when, whenever we start this work, I'll definitely can be coming out there. And the recommendations that I always have are, you can actually scrape the pipe itself with a long object. And that can actually tell you, for example, like lead is pretty, pretty shiny once you scrape it and soft. So you'll be able to tell that way. Um, and then also too, uh, you can also put sometimes like a, like a pretty strong, uh, magnet on the end of a unit. And that can also help you test it as well. Yeah. John, are you. I don't think it was all visual or whether there was a, uh, another way of telling. John, are you worried about children or animals falling in? No, I'm just, I, I, I think it's great if you can do it with a relatively small hole and they're going to, they're going to vac the hole out. And then they're going to backfill it as soon as they determine what the material of the pipe is. Um, so it's not in there. That's exactly the plan. Big hole and somebody actually going down and looking at it.
Right.
Any other questions here? I think, I think we can move on. Perfect. Um, so the, the other big component that I just want to mention here. So prior to us, uh, identifying for the town where we want to do these inspections, um, as you all know, you know, the town's been undergoing this, uh, meter replacement program. So we made sure prior to that, we took all of that information. Uh, we updated the inventory, um, to obviously go to places that, you know, having had the meter replaced, there's a clear idea of what's on the customer side. If that same location, we also knew about the public side of the service. There's no reason to be digging that up. So those were the locations we were purposely avoiding, uh, and didn't include there. Um, and then the other big component of this. So last December, uh, of 2025, um, and Mike, I'll get to this to answer your original question, but, uh, based on the number of lead unknown and then galvanized requirement replacement service lines that have been identified. Um, basically these customers need to get a mailer every single year, um, essentially telling them that they have that type of material, um, until that material is no longer valid. And I'll, I'll show that here in a second. Um, and then the other stuff that we were really doing as part of public outreach for this phase. Um, so a couple of things. Um, so the first thing that you're seeing right here on the left, this is a disturbance notification. So any customer that, uh, the town is going to be going and do this hydro excavate excavation at, um, at that point in time, they'll be provided with this notice. Um, basically just telling them why what's happening. Um, there's also, uh, information there because technically what the EPA is requiring eventually in 2027, but we're going to do this now to get a feel for how customers respond. But, um, by doing excavation, uh, vibration on a lead pipe, again, we don't have any lead as of now, but vibration on a lead pipe in theory could cost some lead material to come out, uh, of, of the pipe when you're doing that inspection. So this just has some simple instructions about just running your water for an extended period of time, uh, that sort of thing. Um, but again, this is really just to make sure, uh, we have a clear idea of how customers are going to respond before this actually becomes a requirement, um, in 2027. The other piece here that we also had put together is called the lead action level exceedance. So, you know, as of right now, if there's any samples that come back and they're exceeding 15 parts per billion, uh, this basically this notice would need to go out, um, and then starting in 2028, uh, the regulation is going to bring that down to 10 parts per billion. Um, so in case that happens, this is more of the town has something handy. Um, though we've done a historical analysis of your results and you have never gotten close. So this is simply just purely insurance is all. Um, and then one of the other things, uh, you know, that the, the town's required to do is put together a water quality report. Um, so there's just some changes in the regulation about some additional information that needs to be included. Uh, so when that happens next year, uh, you have all the information there, uh, about what in addition needs to be included. So, uh, and then Mike, this is to answer your original question. So I'm showing two kind of numbers here. Like I said, lead, uh, during phase one, we didn't counter any. And now that we're in phase two, still nothing. So no lead, which is great. Um, and then starting in phase one, we did encounter, uh, 12 galvanized or prime replacement, uh, just a friendly reminder on that. So any iron pipe galvanized pipe, um, if that iron pipe cannot be proved to have been downstream of any lead, uh, it unfortunately needs to conservatively come out, meaning it needs to come out and be replaced with something that's non iron. Uh, the regulations interpretation of, of iron pipe is that it just acts like a sponge to lead, um, and then slowly leaches it out. So, like I said, if there's any documentation that we have to uncover, uh, at some point that says that, you know, the, the, these iron pipe, uh, were never downstream of lead, uh, we can just classify them as galvanized and they wouldn't need to be replaced. But, um, this is a pretty common theme amongst a lot of systems in the new England area. Um, so this is to go up to 88. Non-lead, uh, we were able to reduce this down a little bit more. So we now have a total of like 3000, which is great. And then unknowns, um, we were able to reduce this as well down to 2000, uh, and 89. So these numbers here, uh, these three, one for galvanized, uh, unknown, and then this zero lead, these are the total number of notices that are basically going out on an annual basis to those customers, um, to notify them that, Hey, you have a galvanized requirement replacement or you have an unknown. Um, and then the other kind of thing to caveat here, unfortunately, the way these classifications work is an unknown is a good example. Let's just say that the public side of the service line. So this side right here on the street is unknown, but the customer has already identified their service line. This entire service line is still categorized as unknown. So that was one of the things that I know the town was getting a lot of questions on. Uh, and then we worked with, uh, Tom and Don here to put a little disclaimer. On the town's map online, that kind of explains that. Um, and now it kind of tells them that, yes, you got an unknown, but if you look up your address, there was no action items from the customer needed at this time. And can I ask about how many of this 40% have already, um, shown that from the house out it's known it's not led. Good question. Um, honestly, it's a majority of this 40% where the customer, we know that side, uh, largely also due to the meter replacement program, but unfortunately the system side is unknown, but that's what the hydro excavation, uh, work will hopefully, uh, resolve. Okay. Yeah. Good. Uh, so what I wanted to spend here, the next couple of slides on. So, like I said, what we're really preparing for here is the LCRI and this goes into effect November 1st of 27. So basically what the EPA and mass EP is going to see at that point, um, they want, uh, an inventory, uh, and I'll basically describe what we're trying to do here, but all in all, the main priority is really just eliminate unknowns, um, which the town has a plan to do, uh, with the hydro excavation. Um, and then the other thing that starts around that time is also a need to sample all your schools and license child care facilities or daycares. Um, this screenshot here, um, is just for your reference only about a lot of the requirements. It's a quite a bit, um, and the way that we're kind of distilling this down, uh, is between our kind of phased approach here. So, like I said, here, we're operating under phase two. So stuff that we're currently doing, uh, is focusing on eliminating those unknowns. Um, and what this is going to help us hopefully reduce, um, is once these unknowns are gone, uh, that ongoing mailers that go out to those customers who have unknown, uh, that will come to an end. Um, and then in addition, um, there's a lot of kind of administrative burden that comes with kind of the phone calls that you're receiving, uh, you know, also there's the work in general that you're having to do. Um, and the really big goal here is once we eliminate unknowns, uh, reducing that kind of burden, uh, on you and your town staff. Uh, and then the other thing I just wanted to quickly mention, so we're using this predictive modeling approach. So Tom mentioned earlier, this comes out to around 300 holes and basically what we're doing here, uh, and what the state has accepted as a method is we're taking the entire service line inventory, the entire spreadsheet that has all your service lines listed. And then we basically randomly generate a list of service lines that are both unknown and have also are categorized as known, meaning that we have some type of record information in which we know the materials of. So we basically provided this list, uh, to Don and Tom, uh, to focus on where they're going to hydro excavate. Once all those unknowns are resolved, we'll basically populate a predictive model. And this model will be able to tell us that if, for example, we haven't encountered any lead at that point in time, um, the town most likely may not have an, any lead and we can rationalize to the state that we're in a good position here. Um, and they'll accept that as a method. Um, however, we do have GRRs. And so this model will then also help us to identify where other GRRs may exist. And then eventually if we do additional inspections, which are included in this 300 total here, um, our model will basically tell us that we have encountered what it thinks is the most amount of GRRs or all of the GRRs in the town, uh, based on a certain confidence. And we can face a report to the state that, Hey, we've identified all the GRRs. Um, and we've also been able to do it without needing to dig up every single unknown. So going back to that number here, we don't need to dig up the entirety of this 2,189 number. We can kind of keep this at 300 holes, um, and then use a model to help us predict if there are any more galvanized. Okay. Um, I think if it's not too difficult, it'd be nice to know of those unknowns that 2000, what portion or even a number are already known from the, um, private side, uh, because I think that would help us to also be a little bit predictive on what's on the, um, public side. Absolutely. Yeah. And as soon as I wrap this up, I can quickly look it up too, Mike. Okay. It'll also look less daunting when we have that many unknowns, 2000, um, you know, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, cool. Um, do we have any other questions on this?
This is very helpful. It sounds like we're heading in the right direction. The inventory, the grant for the inventory, uh, all that's been executed and that's helped out quite a bit. So, um, thank you for your work here. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and then the only other thing I'll touch on here. So again, these slides are for your reference. So there's a lot of information. Feel free to kind of peruse that, uh, on your own. Um, but the main thing that we're really preparing for is once all of this work here, these investigations are done. Um, we're looking to use that information to identify what needs to be replaced. Right. Um, and that we're looking to start, um, basically as soon as the regulation goes into place. So 2028, um, and a couple of things to note there that in order to touch any type of mass DP funding, um, and if at that time, MWRA funding is available to you, um, one of the main requirements is that you do need to replace the full service line to be eligible for that funding. Um, so that's just something to think about there. And then to Tom's, uh, one of his earlier points here, once 2027 does roll around, um, there's a lot of kind of replacement specific requirements, um, that are going to be important to keep in mind. So for example, let's just say that there is a water main project in the street, or perhaps any type of maintenance that needs to get done on the public side of the service that would require the town to replace that side of the service. One of the main things that you're going to need to do is basically notify the customer within 40 days of you doing that work, uh, in case they would also at that point in time, like their side of the service to be replaced if it's required. Um, and the way the regulation is basically interpreting this is that if they also want to engage in the same contractor, perhaps that you happen to be using and are willing to pay for that contractor as well, um, one hole, they can kind of do that replacement in its entirety. So that's just something to keep in mind there. Um, and then the other thing too, is any service lines that do get replaced. This is the, uh, second to last bullet here that's important, but any service lines that do get replaced, um, you are going to be required to basically provide like a picture filter, uh, and then six months of replacement cartridges, um, excuse me, uh, until basically you come back and are able to offer a sample. Excuse me one second. You know, I think, I think, I think we could move on. I know that there, there, we're going to have to, um, as a board, once we understand what the replacement costs might be to the town, we're going to have to discuss this and vote on, uh, funding this. Um, so I think we'll have this on a future agenda, Tom, if that makes sense. It does. It does. And I have a place, I have a placeholder in FY 29, um, for this work, um, but we'll have a better sense of what that, that cost will actually be in the future. Okay. Again, thanks Ajay. Ajay. And, uh, I think with that, um, unless anyone else has any other questions here, let's move on to our next agenda item. All right. Thank you. Kleinfelder team. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. Thanks for the evening. You too. John, do you have any like sense of like, is this like a black cloud that's hanging over your head? This, this project, or do you think like, oh, this isn't going to be as bad as we think? It's, it's a daunting task, but I mean, you know, Kleinfelder has made it so easy for us, you know, um, you know, like the, the real physical work is going to be starting here this fall with us going out and doing these hydro excavations, um, you know, so we can, we'll, yeah, it's, it's not too bad, but. All right. Well, fingers crossed from all of us. Thank you. Appreciate it. Nice. Great. Um, so we, we have a couple of items, um, uh, a preview of the capital budget. So we thought we'd start with an overview tonight. Um, uh, Tom, do you want to move ahead with this? Yeah, certainly. Certainly I can. Um, so I think it was yesterday morning. I had sent out, um, two of the, I think I sent out the transfer station and the water and also the DPW, the, the three capital budget worksheets. Um, and as a little bit of background, the town now has a capital improvement planning committee, SIPSE, and they started last year. Uh, they're continuing this year. We're in the midst of, um, developing, presenting, defending, uh, our capital budget to them. And I had met with them, uh, the latter part of August and had presented, you know, all of these capital requests we're starting much earlier this year than we've ever done in the past. Um, so that's why we're, we're bringing it, you know, to this, uh, membership in September rather than typically it's likely November that you would, you would see this. The SIPSE, uh, membership had two particular items that they wanted, um, a little bit more information on, and they were interested in the Board of Public Works position on them. And those are the two that are listed tonight. One is the, uh, uh, the transfer station roll-off truck, which, uh, has a value of $380,000. And then on the water enterprise side, there is a water asset management plan, uh, that was listed as $500,000. Don's got some more information about that, including a reduction in the, uh, in the, the value of the request. So Mike, I'm not sure how you'd like me to proceed. I can speak directly to the roll-off. Uh, Don can talk, uh, about the asset management plan. Um, I can share my screen real quick and we go through these one at a time. So, um, you know, this, this kind of provides an overview of the five-year plan. Um, if everyone can see my screen, um, yep, I can see it fine. Okay, great. Uh, how do I get this out of my way? Um, okay. Yeah, so you'll see that this is the, the summary sheet. Each one of these, as you're reviewing this in your own time, and I'll, we'll, we'll have this as agenda items in October, November, then there'll be the operating budget coming after that. But you'll see on the bottom tab that Mike's on right now is the summary tab. And you'll see that transfer station roll-off is project number one in column a, if you, you know, at any point in time, you go over to the request number one tab. And if you want to click on that real quick, Mike, just to, uh, you see what I'm talking bottom request number one multiple. Yeah. So that, that is the, you're all familiar with the CIP. This is what the CIP now looks like. And, um, it's got all the information. The old one used to have with additional information. Um, it's asked, you know, is this the cost? Is it, there's a ranking? Is this a priority? And then in that, where are you looking right now, those particular headings? Yeah. Right there, you, we score them for one to five. Uh, and these are, this is how SIPC, you know, uh, prioritizes because every department in town are submitting these and there's a lot of competing needs. Uh, so this is what, uh, uh, this is what this looks like. So it's, they, they put this, um, worksheet together for each department, for each enterprise fund. Um, so it's, it's pretty good. And as you, as you, uh, change, as we change, as staff change these values, it automatically updates the summary. So the transfer station roll-off is an FY28 request. And then this is, this is DPW, uh, engineering vehicle replacement and dump truck. Yep. Yeah. So that's on the general fund side of things. Yep. Yeah. You'll see, you'll see roadway, you'll see a sidewalk, you'll see stormwater and here's the water and there's the $500,000 that, uh, that, uh, that Don will talk about a reduction and what that actually scope of services will be. But that was, that was, uh, something that we introduced this year in FY28. This was not our five-year plan prior. It was not, it was not. That's why it's, I highlighted these in blue for the finance group so that they knew what, uh, um, that these were, these were, you know, now being introduced. Okay. Yeah. Uh, so I, we talked briefly about the $380,000 roll-off truck. Um, and given the, the, the current discussions and study in the transfer station, uh, I, I mentioned to you that I wonder if maybe it makes sense to push that off a year until we know what's gonna, what are we going to be doing with the transfer station? Is it going to be a transfer station? Is it going to be a recycling center? Um, or, you know, or otherwise, um, what are your thoughts on that? So that, that is a philosophy, but I have to say my position would be that regardless if it's a transfer station or a recycling center, um, you know, the, the amenities, the customer service amenities that would be included in a recycling center will, um, have a need for a roll-off, uh, vehicle. So I, I, I, my position would be that this needs to be replaced based upon the current condition, uh, and it's in very poor condition with some very expensive repairs. And, um, you know, so going back to, regardless of what it is, this truck is of value and would be, uh, of service to both a transfer station and a recycling center. And I, I like in the, you know, we all on our personal cars, we keep making repairs, repairs, repairs. And at some point in time, you make the decision, yeah, this, I'm just putting good money after bad here, and I'm just going to replace the vehicle and, and, and trade it in. And that's where we're at with the roll-off is that, uh, um, it's the, the frame is, is corroded, rusted. The, the, uh, uh, the body is rusted. It needs expensive rollers. It needs an expensive clutch and transmission. So to make repairs on a 26 year old vehicle is not practical. So it's for that reason that we're, and that this has been on, um, it was just the reason it's blue is that the, the value increased from 300 to 380. That's why it's blue. It has been on the five-year plan for a number of years. Okay. And the other question is how we would pay for this. Um, because right now under the current scenario, the, uh, transfer station users would pay for this truck. If we move to, um, and again, we're exploring all these options. Our committee is meeting again later this month. Um, if we do move to, and it's needed for either a transfer station or recycling center, then the case, you know, could be made that this needs to be supported by the town. Um, so I think that's, that's the other question we have. If we make that determination before this is purchased, then we'll know how it's going to be funded. We don't know yet how this would be funded those two scenarios. Yep. Agreed. Okay. Um, and the water infrastructure asset management plan, this would be an update of the plan that was created 2015, 2016, 2016. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that's a, that's the capital efficiency plan that we've been working off of for over a decade. And, um, you know, what Don's going to describe it's, it's not only that report, it's actually, um, it's a, it's a, it's an inventory of the assets, what the maintenance, the conditional maintenance that we have to provide for it. Um, you know, instead of being redundant, I know Don is prepared to speak on this. So I'm going to stop talking now and hand it over to Don. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Don, before you jump in, the other question I had for Tom on this one was if we're going to mothball most of our systems and, and build a brand new system at happy hollow, um, is now really the time to be updating this plan or should we wait until we have our new long-term water supply system in place? It's a fair question. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a vertical, um, asset condition assessment, and then there's a horizontal. So the horizontal is basically the stuff that's buried underground. The vertical would be the pump stations, treatment plants. Um, but I mean, you know, we obviously wouldn't survey a building that we're, that's going to get, you know, demolished in, uh, you know, two, three years, you know, um, this, like, this is more, um, booster station, um, you know, just, just basically pulling, you know, the, the, the emergency connection with the MWRA, um, you know, uh, all that stuff into the capital improvement plan, uh, updating pricing for the water main replacement projects, um, you know, all that nut and bolt stuff. I mean, we, we use this document like monthly. You know, I mean, out of all of the required reports that EPA, mass DEP has us do, this is the, you know, this is not required by the state or, or DEP, but the, this is our planning tool to, to update these, you know, 20, 30 year capital plans. Um, it's, it's a really important document. So in that case, you know, you know, if we are referring to this monthly and we're, we're going through our water main replacement program, aren't we just updating the plan as we complete this, this water mains now been replaced? Um, okay. Yep. So, so then what would, where would we be spending half a million dollars then? So it's, it's, it's really not half a million dollars. So we, um, so myself, Abby, uh, I think Tom was involved in the conversation as well. We, we put that number in there as a placeholder because we were not sure exactly what, what the price tag would be. It was kind of coming up to, you know, the deadline to get this, the, this thing in. Um, today, um, I actually received a, a very high level scope of services and a ballpark figure from, um, Weston and Sampson. So Abby hooked us up with this, this, um, this different engineering firm, um, who kind of specialize in, in really going in, in depth, um, with capital efficiency plans. Um, and you know, they, they gave us a high level number of 250 grand. Um, so, I mean, it's, you know, we were way off in our estimate, uh, is, is the easiest way to say it. So at a minimum, we'll be reducing this to that, uh, proper value. Yes. Okay. And the other, uh, something related to that, uh, Tom and I discussed something of this size, we should bid out. Um, I feel we should get at least two to three bids. Absolutely. I mean, that's, it's a huge number. Um, yeah. Um, just wasn't sure if you had any other questions to, does anyone else have any questions? I can go to the third one as well. Um, oops, here we have the engineering vehicle replacement and a dump truck. Yeah. Those are the, the reason those are highlighted in blue is that the engineering vehicle, uh, was increased in value from 50 to 60,000 and the one 50, the H six, we actually advanced that, that was, um, in a future year. And it's just, uh, uh, it's now recognizes needing to be replaced now. So that's why that's highlighted in blue. It was on the plan, but it was in a future year. Got it. But you'll see the, you know, the road improvements are, you know, right where they need to be. This is a year, uh, that we have the 250 grand for sidewalks, um, route 20, uh, rehabilitation design, South 20 landfill that, that cap restoration that needs to be updated. That was an old, I've been using that project title for too many years. That's now South 20 landfill, uh, repurposement redevelopment. Okay. So that's what that looks for FY 28. So it's pretty, pretty straightforward. Anyone questions about these? And again, as, as you're in your own time or whatever, and we can talk about this in October as well, is that if you click on, if you're looking at these on your own time at home, you can just click on those CIPs and you'll see that every, every single one of them has an explanation and a rating, a prioritization, all of that information's in there. Great. Yeah. I think, uh, my thoughts would be to delay at least a year, those two items, um, not because they're not needed, um, but because of the fiscal challenge we're facing right now. And because of the changes that are going on in both of those programs, do you need a vote from us tonight or just a sense? I think, um, SIPC was looking for a sense, um, their membership had asked me to, to bring this to the board. Um, so I think that that would be, you know, uh, okay. If you want to, if you want to, you know, pull the membership or whatever, get to get a sense. What, what do you, what do you think? Judy, Mike, John, Ed, any of those, uh, you want to comment on any of the others or the ones I just mentioned? I think the roll-off truck sounds like it's a priority, whether we go for recycling only or continue to have, um, transfer station capability. Sort of a dual purpose is the sense I'm getting from Tom. Yeah, that's the case. I think we're just not sure who's going to be paying for that yet. And we're, you know, we're, we're, we're meeting again. We've narrowed down the, um, choices. We haven't, we haven't, uh, taken off the table, not having either. Um, but that's the way the board, the committee is leaning. I would say that's my sense. Um, would you agree? Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, yeah, there's a, there's a handful of decisions, but each time we meet, we actually narrow down the options, you know, so now we're at a point as a transfer station, as a recycling center, we know it's going to be something that property is going to have some functionality. The only thing I want to just, you know, saying about the roll-off is that, you know, it is in a condition right now, uh, we would not recommend spending tens of thousands of dollars to make the repairs that I was describing. So should that go out of service, we are going to be, um, saying no to a lot of requests that come in, you know, not only does our department use it, but, you know, for household hazardous waste day, for, you know, town cleanups, we're asked regularly to, to mobilize containers around town for different functionalities. And without that vehicle, we don't have the ability to do it any longer. So one question I would have is, is, um, do we have to buy a new one or are there used ones that we can look into? It's, it's a good question. Um, you know, one thing we were thinking about doing was leasing. That, that's not practical. I think buying a used one, these are, you know, kind of rough work environments. I'm going to be talking about another topic, uh, the Hudson transfer station. These are very rough environments that these, these vehicles operate under. So I think buying something used, although it would be less expensive, it would be a much less, um, you know, useful life we would have. So it's, uh, I, I would, we, we don't, aside from one Ford escape, we don't really buy used utility vehicles. Tom, does, does the town keep like a spare roll-off truck, like just, just backup? No, we have one. It's 26 years old. It's the one and only. When you get a new one, will you keep this one as a backup? No, no, no. We'll, we'll wind up either auctioning it off or maybe perhaps a trade. If somebody, you know, if, if there was a, I'm almost thinking like a farmer or somebody that was going to keep it almost local to their particular property, uh, they might be able to make use out of it. But aside from that, it's in pretty tough shape. Okay. Well, I guess that's the rub then is we need to find someone to pay for it because I don't think the transfer station can pay for it. Is that fair, Mike? Well, I, it's, it also sounds to me as though it's, it's primary use is not for transfer station users. It's for town services. Um, if, if you're using it to go around town and help folks out, you may not be able to do that. Um, it's a combination. It's a, you know, yeah, it's a, you know, now that you've presented it that way, a majority of its use is associated with the transfer station. We do a lot of hauling with that weekly hauling with that. Uh, but I was the, um, we would wind up outsourcing some of that hauling and, um, we would be saying no to some of the other town requests. Got it. If the, if the vehicle doesn't last for another year. We didn't have it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's, you know, so what we're talking about is FY 28. So it means that it's this time next year that we would be ordering this. These vehicles can take up to 15 months to receive them. So by, by making a decision to delay it a year, you're in essence, I'm was talking about two and a half years. And this would be paid with debt, correct? We would borrow this. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, so it's, it's one of those, what you could do with this board could do is if, um, you could certainly take a motion or whatever and just outline your concerns that, you know, the board understands the need, but has concerns about the timing of it, knowing that the transfer station, you know, is being evaluated and that, you know, the, the, the payment of this thing could change in a future year or something along, at least that they'll know, at least the finance committee and SIPC members will know where the board, where your thoughts are. Okay. Um, but you said they just need a sense for where we're at, right? They just, they just want to know, yeah, one, one, you know, uh, were you aware of it and what were your thoughts on it and for your sense of just to give them as they're trying to, to grapple with things. I think a little bit less of what they, the enterprise fund, they know, um, what really both of them, it's really the, uh, water rates that pay for, you know, the asset management and it would be the transfer station fees that would pay the debt service currently, but that's, they just wanted to get a sense of where the board stood. Okay. Yeah. I, I think it sounds like the, um, roll off truck is a little more urgent. Uh, and if we're, we're, we're talking about debt, um, it may be a year or two where the, or maybe less, uh, depending on when the truck comes in, where just the transfer station users would be paying for it. So maybe it's not as impactful. Um, I think the other, I think we should wait a little bit to see where we end up with the, um, uh, uh, the 500,000 or the 250,000, whatever it is. I think we should see a little bit more where we end up with our overall, um, long-term water supply. Any other thoughts on that? Yes. No, that sounds good. Or no, I think that sounds good. Okay. Okay. All right, Tom, is that, is that sufficient? It is. It is. And I guess, I guess what I would, I don't want to make a lot of work. Um, what I could do is I could craft, um, language that I would send to SIPSE. Um, I could shoot it over to you for a quick glance, just to make sure that I've, that I'm accurately reflecting the board's position. Um, and you can reply back and then I could, I could send that off. Sounds good. Okay. Yeah. And at some future point, we're going to be voting on the capital plan anyway. Okay. On the, once, uh, they come back to us with a final, correct? Right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Um, I think that concludes that topic. Um, I know we may lose Mike a little bit early tonight. Um, do you want to give us just after eight? Okay. Do you want to give us an update on the annual report? There is no update. Oh no. We're hoping to have a draft here so we could review and vote it. Um, so, uh, what I've got a couple of pages that I've kind of started working on, but I have, I'm still working through the minutes of last year to try and summarize things. And, uh, also coming up with, you know, the highlights of the year, you know, obviously the highlight of fiscal year 25 was, you know, getting the, getting their, um, the art, the approval of the town to move forward with the water project. Um, but what, what, any ideas would, would I'll take nominations for other highlights of the year? Well, just, uh, Tom provided an idea of, of using AI to, you know, just collect the minutes and run it through and give it the format. Um, I'm, I can see if, uh, I can engage my son or, um, someone to do, to do that. Um, but I, I think the way I did it in the past was I just took the format that was provided. A lot of it can be reused, you know, when it, where we talk about what we do. Um, and then, okay, you've done that already. Yeah, no, I've reused it. I've reused a lot of it, but even running through the minutes through, through AI, you still come up with two paragraphs for each, each meeting. Got it. And if we're trying to keep this thing down, uh, I think it was like 3000 words. Yeah. It's, it's not going to work. We're still talking 5,000 to 10,000 words. Yeah. So what I did was I just went through and I looked at the motions that we had approved because those are generally, those are the hot or, or the, uh, most important topics and, and just chose the ones that seemed, uh, impactful. Sherman. That's, that's a really good idea. Okay. No jerk nudity. Not Sherman bridge. I'm sure, I'm sure Tom feels that that's a big highlight. When we have the ribbon cutting, it will be a highlight. Yeah. Oh yes. Okay. Um, so I, I think, uh, but I'll get, I'll get a draft out, uh, the end of this week and, uh, to email it to all of you and, uh, we can start picking away at it. I, we can't do that. Um, cause that, oh, that's right. Yeah. But we did, we did make a motion that you and I could work on it together. Um, so if we can continue on that motion, uh, that was approved, let's, let's you and I just kind of, uh, work it out if everyone else is okay with that. Yes. Okay. Okay. Great. All right. Um, any other topics you want to get to be, I know we have some time left still, but, um, we went through capital budget, we're up to route 20 rehabilitation project, but if there are any others, let me know. All right. Let's start with the route 20 rehabilitation project. Yes. Well, I can speak a little bit about that. So, and you just saw it in the capital plan, uh, we've got $500,000, uh, requested for FY 28. The route 20 rehabilitation project is, um, a project whereby we will be focusing on what I call the commercial corridor, which is route 27 westerly to really it's the Alta Oxbow, uh, complex where the transfer station access road is. So that's the, the limits of the work. Um, it is a project whereby we will be rehabilitating, reconstructing sidewalks, everything in the right of way. Um, and although it's, it's a, um, it's a state road, uh, we are intending to get on the state's tip program. Tip means transportation improvement program. So a year ago, um, we, uh, have a $250,000 was appropriated really for seed money to get us started. We have, um, solicited qualifications, uh, from a number of firms. We had two submittals, which we currently have a project such as this. And I I've done these in, in other communities is that, um, there is a tremendous value in having, um, members of different stakeholders be part of this whole process from the conceptual design throughout the design. Um, and then, you know, really is part of like acting as liaisons during the construction. So we have established, um, or establishing a working group. Uh, we've got a couple of staff, myself and Abby Charest are the staffers. We have a member of the economic development board. We have a member of the select board and, uh, we have a member of the land use department. And I thought it would be practical to have a member of the board of public works. And this group will, um, meet periodically. Um, um, whoever would like to sign up, uh, would, uh, have to make themselves be available for daytime meetings. That's when this group will meet. Um, we'll meet with the designers. We'll be meeting at some point with the abutters, each of the abutters, uh, the property owners, uh, there's a fair amount of engagement that goes on with them. Um, so we are going to be, uh, starting off very soon. Uh, the first order of business for the working group is to evaluate the two proposals that we have, and we will likely have interviews with these two firms. So if there is somebody from the board of public works that would, uh, like to be a representative for the board, they would be a practical, you know, component of this, uh, of this working group. Tom, you mentioned daytime meetings. Is that virtual or in person or either? It would, it would be hybrid. Yeah. It certainly would be a virtual, uh, availability. Yes. Zoom meetings. Okay. Yeah. And it's one of those things where, you know, I would say at the beginning, you know, it's your meeting periodically. You would not have to make every single meeting. Uh, you know, if there was some major decisions being made, we would like the full membership, but, um, you know, there are, sometimes it's just like an update or whatever. So I'm just trying to offer up a level of effort, you know, uh, that type of a thing, but obviously the more somebody can participate, the better.
Yeah. If someone has an interest, please raise your hand. Um, I'd be willing to attend if, uh, if no one else has an interest, um, and, or maybe we could, uh, I don't know how this would work, but if I couldn't make a meeting, maybe someone else could jump in or if, if someone wants to take the lead, maybe I could jump in. Um, how often do you expect to have meetings? I would say on average, probably once every couple of months for an hour, hour and a half. I could do that. Great. Thank you, John.
Yeah. Good. That's great. So, uh, I'll take a motion to appoint John Storer as our liaison, uh, to the capital, I'm sorry, the root 20 rehabilitation project. So moved. Second. Mike's Mike raised his hand. Um, all in favor. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed. Do I see Ed? Ed, uh, you approved John to represent us? Okay. Thanks. And Mike. Yes. Okay. Thank you, John. That's great. Yeah, that's excellent. So I, just so you know, John, probably in the coming week or so, I will be sending out the working group, uh, the two proposals, um, and kind of instructions on, you know, a timeline to, to review them as a score sheet and evaluation sheet that you can go through. And, uh, and then at some point in time, we'll, we'll schedule some interviews. Great. All right. I think there's a couple items I'd like to get to while we're all here. Uh, these are discussions. One is, uh, the, the, uh, credit card fees for water payments. And the second is the municipal rates discussion. Um, uh, which one is easiest Tom, do you think? Uh, probably the credit card. Uh, okay. Yeah. I don't know if I have, you know, a tremendous amount of news, but what I did is I did speak with the treasurer. So background on this is that, uh, uh, we were contacted, uh, somebody was, uh, concerned, displeased, uh, that the, uh, the fee that, that they had to pay to make payment on their water bill using the town's online services, which is city hall systems. And, um, so the DPW has no control over that. Um, but I did have a conversation, uh, at the counter with, uh, our, our town treasurer. And in essence with city hall systems, when you pay by credit card, there's a 2.95, uh, of the, the value of the bill that you're going to pay that is charged, um, as a convenience charge or whatever to use your credit card. Um, it's told to you when you're working your way through the system and you put that bill into your cart, it identifies and says, this is the, this is the percentage, this is the cost. And then you acknowledge that you pay it. And then you get, you get, you know, charge that additional fee on top of whatever your bill happens to be. There is a way to pay by e-check. I don't know what that really is. Uh, it costs 50 cents. So it's a lot less money. Um, so that is an alternative, or you can do it the old fashioned way and either mail in a check or come into town building, bring it to the, you know, the counter, or there's a drop box on the outside of town building. So those are, those are your options, but I think there was some thought that DPW or this board would have an impact or an influence on, on that fee. And I'm not certain that's the case. Well, uh, okay. I understood. I might take exception to that if, if it's charging charges related to the water enterprise fund and water fees, but, um, that, I don't think we have to tackle that right here. 2.95% doesn't sound outrageous. Um, I, so we had faced similar high charges or, or we had faced high charges with the transfer station credit card system or payment systems. Um, and we made a change, um, to sportsman at the transfer station and the, the change was for the much better. Um, so those, uh, those fees went down quite a bit. Um, so I was just wondering if we could look into that. I asked Tom to look into these to see if these were, um, in a similar situation. Um, so this isn't a flat fee of, I think it was $10 or $20 like the transfer station was. Yeah. The transfer station, it was a very high percentage. And I remember it being a culmination of three percentages. It was like two points, something, two points, something, two points, something. They were three. It wound up being nearly 10%. Um, and I, I'm not sure exactly why that was. I think it was just the credit card. I'm not sure if it was called, um, world bank. I think that might've been world bank at that point in time that we were, that was servicing our credit card processing at the transfer station. Okay. Um, so we were to your point correctly, we converted to sportsman and, um, the fees are much, much lower. Okay. So this is, this is city hall systems. This is a, you know, uh, something that we don't, we don't operate. We don't have any, we don't touch that. I understand, but wouldn't we be able to engage with, uh, another payment system if we don't like the one that's, uh, that we're using that's that if it's overcharging and gouging. So you could, um, I, you know, I think what I would do is I would advise the board to reach out to the treasurer slash collector because they're, they collect, we don't collect. Um, so they are the ones that manage that and would make any decisions, you know, and it's the finance director that, uh, that that department, uh, uh, uh, is under as well. So it would wind up being, and it's not only water, it's the, you know, excise tax property tax, all of that goes through city hall systems. So it's, it's all under one umbrella. Okay. But transfer station is not transfer station. Those are, that's called a point of sale, uh, system. So those people are standing in front of you, um, and, um, you know, making payment, although we do have a, we do have a, the DPW, you online store that people can do it online, but that's through sportsman, but, um, it's, it's different from then the collections. It's, it's just, uh, it's a different level of collections. Okay. Okay. Well, again, I don't think 2.95% is outrageous. Uh, it doesn't sound like the near 10% we had at transfer station before. Um, then maybe it was just the size of the, of the invoice, um, which, which, uh, accounted for a large charge. Yeah. They could have been paying water excise property lumping a couple of them all together and putting it into their cart and then, you know, getting that, that fee is attached to it. Okay. So if anyone ends up paying through the, um, new system, let us know your thoughts, you know, your experience, any other questions on that?
Okay. Um, municipal, municipal rates. We were, we were talking about municipal rates, uh, at our water hearing. And when we voted the water rates, uh, we talked about increasing the municipal rate. Um, we decided at the time not to do that because the respective departments did not have that increase in their budgets. Um, uh, uh, before folks start building their budgets, Judy rightly said, why don't we come back to that topic and let's, let's start to at least give folks a sense of where we'll be, um, next year on municipal water rates. So Judy, it summarizes it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I had something from October, 2025 that listed out households versus, uh, businesses versus municipal. And I, I did share that online. I didn't know if we had any more up to date numbers and Tom said not, not right now. Um, but now I was thinking about this over our break, uh, over the summer and I was thinking, well, you know, municipal, uh, entity really is not a household, you know, like you could say to someone as a household, you have the choice to water your lawn or not the municipal. If you're watering a lawn so people can play soccer on it, I guess you don't really have a choice, you know? So that's, that's in my mind, trying to be fair to the, uh, spirit of the entity. Um, does it really make sense to say, oh, you know, you just pay like anybody else. So we have four rates and you get up the fourth rate, then, you know, that's life. Uh, or do we say, uh, what we're doing currently is we're, we're charging the lowest rate, uh, which is actually below our cost of doing business, which again, that does that make sense? Because in my mind we should, I think if we charge municipal, uh, rates at whatever our break even is Tom, is it like 10 bucks or 11 bucks or something like that? Yeah, I, I would not categorize tier one as less than cost. I don't, I don't think any of the, I don't think that's the case. Tier one, uh, is not less than cost. It just, it's, it's the least, um, price per unit in trying to build a tiered system that allows for kind of water conservation. But so I, I don't know that the breakdown sitting here, uh, tonight, what that cost is, but, um, you know, the cost of doing business, um, is not less than that. That's good to know. Um, I think part of the reason we were looking at increasing the municipal rate was because the water enterprise fund was being asked to fund the entire dual source system, both the happy hollow construction, as well as the MWRA connection. We had recommended, I think finance committee recommended and requested that we split those. And I think this was one way of, okay, let's move some of that back to the tax side, um, through the municipal water rates. Now, I don't know based on that there, the municipal usage, how much that will really affect things. Uh, but I think that was, that was kind of where the, where this came up. Uh, I hear you, Mike. And the reason why I thought it was less than cost of doing business is that's my recollection of the discussion when George was bringing it up. So, you know, I'm happy to be wrong. I'm not saying that my recollection is correct. It would be good to get what is the cost of doing business. Um, I do, I, I hear you, Mike. And if we walk through the process of moving some of the costs onto the municipalities, which at least based in the 2025 numbers are fairly low. Um, and I remember us being really surprised at that point in time at whether or not that number was correct. And that's another reason why it would be great. If we could get an updated, uh, number for that particular spreadsheet, Tom, um, so that we could see if we did increase the rates, uh, obviously it just goes to taxpayers as, as part of your, you know, taxes later on. Um, but how does that help us to pay for whatever the cost of the dual source will be? Um, it's hard to do this without any real numbers. Um, yeah, real data. Yeah. But that's, that's sort of the thinking and I wanted to bring it up and we don't have to make any decisions right now, but at least we, uh, should start thinking about it. I don't think, uh, as you mentioned, I don't think the, um, the usage of levels, um, are really going to make too much difference. And, um, but I think maybe if we, if we let folks know that there's a sense that we're going to charge tier two rates, um, then at least that they can have an idea of for what, what to expect or what they might expect when they're putting together their budgets. And I, I, we could probably pretty easily calculate that percent increase because we have the tier one rate and the tier two rates. So we could say, you can expect, um, the tier one rate from last year to the tier two rate this year, um, and give them an idea of their percentage that the water bill might increase for each department. Would you cap it at tier two or would you let it roll as, you know, some of these accounts are quite large, so they would likely go into tier three and perhaps even tier four. Mm. Okay. So for example, the Wayland, um, pool, which I, I understand is public private. What do you guys, what is this structure? It's sort of, uh, it's, it is private. The select board lease the property to the, uh, private entity. So it, it is a, their own, it is a private entity. It's not that different than a restaurant, but I guess what I'm trying to say, um, or is there like they're a charity or something? I don't know. Is there any kind of distinction about the, uh, way it's set up that makes it a, whatever, you know, like, uh, it's a 501, it's, it's a 501, 501, three C nonprofit. Right. Wayland community pool and they lease it from the town. So for example, that's the one thing I can think of that would use a lot of water because it's a pool. Right. So, and they have no real way to use less water because it's a pool. You need the water, but do we really need to be, uh, subsidizing them? Uh, what would happen if we charged them all the way up to, you know, tier four, for example, if we did that, I think we do right now, actually the pool, we actually do. Yeah. Okay. So that's the wrong example. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about, uh, parks department, uh, schools, right. Town building schools, public safety building library. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we don't have a municipal, uh, tier. We just, uh, we charge municipal, um, the same way we charge individuals or households.
Yeah. They're in the tiered system. So they would, they would just be put into the tiered system. Yep. Yep. I think that would be, that would be fair. Um, it would just move some of the cost of water into the tax side for the town. Uh, that means the people who are watering the fields with, again, do they have an option to use less water? That's my question. That happens to be us. Um, I know, I know. Yeah. Recreation actually pays those bills. Okay. Yeah. But then they, if their costs go up, then their user fees go up, you know? So that's, that's how they, they run themselves almost as a business or whatever. So that's how they'll, that's how they'll account for that. Account for that. But the schools, you know, town building, library, public safety building, you know, those are, they don't, they don't have fees like recreation. So it would be, their budgets would go up. And so then there, that would impact the tax revenue required to, to, to sustain that. Right. Yep. So I can, you know, for our next meeting, I can have, that analysis done. Um, I can have a comparison of what those municipal accounts currently pay tier one, and then what they would likely pay. Um, should we release that into a fully tiered billing program? Sounds good. And then if the board was prepared to, to vote on that, because these departments will need to, uh, I know you, you were sensitive to, to being able to notify departments, uh, of that increase. They'll need to know that relatively soon. We'll be getting our directions for the operating budget preparation soon. Yep. I don't know if we can vote on the water rates without having a hearing. I guess we wouldn't be voting water rates, but kind of a policy. No, you just, you would just be removing what you call the municipal rates, which I don't think you have to have a hearing for that. Okay. Yeah. I can check into it, but I don't think so. Okay. My thought is, if you really want to be safe, you charge for the use with a client rate,
so we come out. Some of the time you're part of the charge, the water charge, depending on what's your building assessment, which is not quite right. You know, like, uh, I just use myself as an example. We have a larger house. Originally, when I built it, I'm hoping one of my kids will move back, living with us, but they are doing fine. They don't want to get there. Where is the assessment? We're high. Large pool. Look at the water. We totally use it. Most of the people, because only two of us, you know, there must be lots of older age people, there's only one or two living in a house. So if you, if you charge them water, based on what their house works, which are not, to me, it's not fair. You know, I think if we charge, okay, if you use 10 gallon, we charge you 10 gallon. What's the total budget for the year and divided by the total gallon we use, then you're coming out with what we should charge people. Yeah. And that's, that's how we're doing it. That we're just talking about the like town buildings. We gave them a break with a single tier one rate. And we're, we're talking about no longer giving that break and just having them pay the same that you and I would pay, you know, just for the water we use. Okay. Just myself. I, I really don't care how much I pay because the water is still the cheapest of the ecology anyway. Yes. Cheaper than gas for sure. Um, okay. Uh, I, I'll give one real quick update on the transfer station evaluation update. We are meeting, I already mentioned this, we're meeting next week, um, as follow up to an earlier meeting where we narrowed down some, some of our, um, choices to, uh, like, I think it's three cart sizes and having a transfer station with two or three days a week or a recycling center two to three days a week, or we're doing these comparisons. So we asked our consultant to hone in on certain items, uh, certain options, um, instead of, we had a lot of options before. So we've, we've asked them to kind of narrow in and focus on these and get us more concrete numbers. And we're going to be looking at those next week. So we're continuing to go through that process. Um, Tom, do you have anything to add or Joe that? Yeah, I think that sums it up. We, we've, we have, uh, since our last meeting, there were a number of questions that were raised. Uh, we did meet with the, uh, the consultant, uh, we're able to fill in some of the, the information that she needs. So she's, she's working on, uh, updating all of that again, like I mentioned before, narrowing down the number of options. And so I think, you know, we're getting, getting close to a, uh, a better understanding of what some of these, these couple of options, what the financial and logistical impacts are. Any questions on that? You have a date for a meeting set up yet? Yes, it is the 30th. I believe that's what I have 2 PM. Yes. The 30th at 2 PM. Okay. All right. So I think we can jump back now, Tom to your, your, uh, bullets here. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I know there was, uh, there was an inquiry as to probably, I don't know, a year, 18 months ago, time goes by so fast is that, uh, you know, we were considering the option of having solar, uh, a solar array on, uh, the landfill at the transfer station. And I think the facilities department had engaged tie and bond. Uh, they were looking at, you know, some of the options, some options, you know, townwide. And it was my recollection that there was a very small portion of the, the landfill that was actually, uh, capable of, of hosting because of the slopes and all of that. And I think that a recent question was posed. Is there any activity? And so I did reach out to the, uh, the facilities director and there really hasn't been any recent, um, you know, attention given to that. They've had some, um, staffing transitions. They're fully staffed. Now, um, Mike fair, the facilities director said that this is on their radar screen. Uh, they know that the board of public works is interested in, in being part of that conversation and assured me that, uh, once they, they get themselves squared away, that, uh, that this is a topic that will then get closer to the center of their radar screen and they'll reach out to us. Okay. Yeah. In, in the ask, uh, simply was following up on Judy's ask about a year and a half ago, um, where there, there were issues with the slope and most of the landfill. Uh, so equipment couldn't go on there. Um, just the question is, is there new technology, um, that may facilitate now utilizing, uh, those sloped areas? Um, so yeah, if there is that, that might be interesting. Yeah. That continues to evolve and change regularly. Thanks Tom. Sure. Sure. Uh, Hudson transfer station. So there was mention of, um, the facility that's in Hudson it's owned and operated by BP trucking. Uh, it's a transfer station. Uh, it's a transfer station. It's privately owned, but there was an article about, um, the town of Hudson and some of the financial, uh, things that they were working with BP to, uh, uh, to try to, you know, contract with them. They are, they have a host agreement between BP trucking and Hudson, which makes things, um, a little different than what, you know, we don't currently have that type of a situation. And I was asked, you know, could we, is, is that, would that be an option? And so I actually, I went to the site, visited it and, uh, wrote in the dilapidated roll off truck, uh, was that's where that goes a couple of times a week. And, um, so there, there are some, certainly some challenges just to identify the way that that property operates is, um, they are contracted with a number of towns, you know, 30 or 40 towns, private vendors that come onto the property. They go on a scale. They're weighed when they come in full. And then that truck is weighed when they're emptied. Um, you pay by weight, uh, those trucks then, uh, tip onto a tipping floor. And then that trash is then, um, loaded into vehicles, uh, other, um, you know, uh, dump body trucks that haul it off site to a whole host of, you know, rail stations, to, uh, burn facilities. That's where Wayland strategy goes down to, uh, a group, uh, down near the Cape called sea mass. And, um, you know, so there's a lot of activity, a lot of trucks coming in, a lot of trucks coming out, a lot of queuing. So, you know, they have a scale. Go ahead, Mike. Uh, if I could just provide some context, John had mentioned that, um, uh, the town, um, the town, not only, uh, the town, the folks in town get to use the transfer station free of charge. The town receives a fee to utilize that land. Um, and he said, why don't we look into that? That might be interesting. Um, it's actually a small fee to tip your own trash there. Oh, is it? Okay. So yeah, it sounded very financially, uh, interesting. Um, and so I, I, Tom, Tom gave me his opinion right away saying, I think that's way too large a facility, a much larger facility. And there's a lot going on there. It really wouldn't fit, uh, in Wayland, but, um, uh, he went and checked it out and that's, that's the information he's providing on, um, you know, would, you know, even if this was financially feasible, um, would this be something we want in Wayland? And, and I'll, that's the context I just wanted to provide Tom. Yeah. Yeah. So I think just the, the challenge is, um, you know, I think that there's upwards of 800 truck trips per day on that property, you know, so for Wayland to accommodate that, that would be very unpopular. Uh, so I, I think it was my observations. That was a, a nice thought. Uh, but I don't think what they have there and their operation would even in part would not be applicable to what we're able to do at our property. I appreciate you checking that out though. Yep. Yep. No worries. John, any other questions on that or? Nope. I just, I, I go there, um, and, and get rid of stuff with my, my dump trailer and it's a pretty neat, neat setup. And, um, I, uh, you know, I wonder, um, there's a lot of people that enjoy going to the dump and it would be a shame if it's, um, if it's closed and we've got to use, everyone's going to use private refuse haulers. Yep. Agreed. All right. I'm going to jump off. Thanks, Mike. Thank you, everybody. All right. I'll chat with you later this week, Mike. Sounds good. Take care and thank you for everybody's time. Good night. You got it. Good night. Um, and Sherman's bridge, uh, just a little update on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we are pressing on, um, all the, uh, the permitting is complete. There was significant amount of permitting that was involved with this. Uh, the bridge materials have been ordered and this is being done in conjunction with, uh, MassDOT. They hold the contract, uh, to do the work. They hold the contract with the materials company, um, us and, and Sudbury, um, are players in this, uh, such that, uh, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's in our towns and we have to accommodate all of this, but much of the, much of the scheduling, uh, and contracted is, is all done by MassDOT. We just met with them, all of us together, the contractor, MassDOT, Sudbury and Wayland staff, met last week. And, uh, we're expecting delivery of the materials, um, first part of November. The MassDOT contractor is prepared to mobilize and begin their work beginning of December. They assure us that, um, weather is not a problem, that they are, uh, equipped, you know, to do this work, uh, in winter months. The, the, the material itself, it really, weather has no bearing on it. Um, we have,
uh, developed a traffic management plan that will be advertised, uh, as we get closer to the, uh, commencement of the project, uh, probably a couple of weeks in advance, uh, between Sudbury and Wayland, we will be providing message boards, detour signs, all of that, uh, you know, project fencing and those types of things will be provided by the towns. It is anticipated that this is going to be a three to four month duration. So the bridge will be closed for that time. Uh, we had hoped to have done this during summer months only so that the Lincoln Sudbury school district, uh, would not be as inconvenienced. Uh, you know, their buses, um, are a primary user of that bridge. So when that's closed, all of those buses will be going elsewhere. Um, but, um, the schedule is what it is. And, uh, so we, yeah, we're, we're prepared to begin beginning of December. It's great. Yeah. Other than the three to four months. Yeah. It's just, uh, yeah. I mean, I, I think, you know, I think that they want to cover themselves. Um, you know, it may be, it may be towards the earlier part of that than the latter, but, uh, they just, they don't want to promise something and then have to go back on that. Cool. Yeah. So we're, we're in a good place. It's gonna, it's gonna, you know, I'm confident that the, uh, the design is, uh, is good. And I think the amenities that are going to be provided and the materials, I think it's gonna, when it's complete, I think we'll all be very pleased with it. It's great. Yeah.
Any questions on that? Okay. We'll move on to Hazelbrook Lincoln road. I'm going to defer to, to Joe only because he's got more of a direct involvement with this. So, uh, Joe, if you want to provide an update to that. Um, a few weeks ago, I think it was two or three weeks ago. We had our subcontractor, uh, remove the top material, uh, Lincoln road from Concord road to Hazelbrook and then Hazelbrook full length. Uh, we replaced it with the spec that TEC and the mass dot had given us, we went through a different vendor. We went through Kimball sand and gravel. Uh, that material went down. They put down a mag chloride on top. It seems to be, uh, working very well. As a matter of fact, while I was, uh, during the meeting, you might've seen me on the phone. I was actually on the phone with one of the residents from Hazelbrook. And I asked him, well, I had him on the phone. It was, it was not related to the road, but I said, how was the road? And he said it was a 10 out of 10. So he says it's exactly what they expected. Um, it's, it's, we've done an excellent job with it. So I give our contractor and everyone involved an A plus on that. That's awesome. That's great to hear. Yeah. That's, that's great news. Oh, Joe, I don't know if you're the person in charge of the fences that went up on Concord road. Uh, they look great. Good. Yeah. We, we looked at that actually, it was probably about nine months ago and I spoke with the resident that brought it to our attention. Um, it was a little bit too much work for us to tackle. So, um, we waited for the fence company to slow down and, and give us a better price and finally got it taken care of. Great. Thank you. Great. Uh, now I think we can move to the review and approval of minutes from our July 28th meeting. Did anyone have any updates for that? For those hearing none? I would accept a motion to approve. No move. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor. Judy. Yes. Thank you. John. Yes. Ed. Yes. Thank you. And Mike. Yes. Okay. Um, no,
let me see. Did we have a concern? Yep. Board member concerns. Do we have any concerns that anyone would like to raise? I had the same concern that, uh, Dave Bernstein had. It was kind of interesting. Um, but I, I would expect if there was any kind of a cyber attack, it would be more for MWRA than us. But as you said, we should discuss that in an executive session. Hmm. Yeah. I'm not sure if I see Don muted and video off, but, uh, uh, um, I mean, I can say that Don is working with our IT director. You're back. Yeah. Sorry. We actually, we are, we are actually actively engaged in ensuring, uh, you know, cyber protection at, uh, for the water, you know, uh, facilities, Don, do you want to add anything to that? Yeah. I mean, I'm, I obviously will not get into any deep stuff, but, um, we, we have gone through a, a cybersecurity review with, um, with EPA. Um, and we are also working with Nick from IT, uh, on a, a, um, a vulnerability scan. And it's really all I can really go into right now, but, um, yes, we are well aware we get the updates from, um, MIMA, um, pretty much daily these days. So we are well aware we are on top of it and doing everything we can, uh, to prevent it. Thank you, Don. No problem. Thank you. Any others, John, Ed? All right. And I think we can set dates for upcoming meetings. Um, Joe, are, are we intending to have a fall tree hearing? No, I spoke with Robert, um, from planning. They have Wednesday, October 21st open and Wednesday, November 4th open. Um, we would have to do like a six or six 30 because their regular meeting starts at seven. So usually it takes us about, uh, between both, uh, groups, you know, no more than I would say a half an hour. So we could probably do a six 30 maybe, uh, you're, I don't, I think the number will be under 50 on the trees. Um, and primarily now it's, you know, I've been working with the, uh, the fire chief police chief and with our arborist, uh, it's mostly dead trees. So I don't think there's any real controversial ones right now anyways. Okay. Um, are we, are we doing any, anything related to the tragedy that happened nearby in Wayland, uh, in terms of checking trees on, um, our parks and that type of thing? So we were already in the midst of doing that prior to school starting. Um, I will say the fire chief took a, an interest in this as well. So we actually toured some of the facilities with him. Um, we had some trees removed, not only internally, but, um, we had stumpies come in and remove some trees on tree on the school grounds. We're still in the process. We've, uh, we've tackled the elementary schools. Um, our crew actually right now, when we worked in conjunction with conservation, we got approval from them to take down quite a few dead trees at the high school, which are, you know, these aren't required for hearing because they're actually just on public grounds, not right away. So we're actually, uh, working on that currently. That's great to hear. Um, one other question, Don, uh, are you familiar with what's going on with MWRA and Weston? I am not. Oh, okay. Yeah. They're, they're doing a ton of work up, um, up off Loring Road, uh, the, the facility there, if you're familiar with it. Oh, yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's the big cover reservoir, I believe. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yep. They have a couple of large fields and yeah. Um, yeah. So I don't, I just thought, uh, I wonder if we should be aware of that or understand what's going on there and, and how that might affect our plans. I will find out. Okay. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Sure. Um, okay. So, uh, October 21st or November 4th, these are both Wednesdays. We usually start at six, so we could do six, 615 or 630 at, you know, just as long as we have enough time before they, they get their meeting started. Um, do either of those dates work better or are either not feasible for folks. Can you say it again? October what? October 21st or November 4th. The 4th would give us just a little bit more time to get all the information out. Um, but I mean, I could squeeze in the 21st if we had to. Um, I mean, I'll get you the tree information prior to that so you can see them where there's still leaves on. I'm assuming the nor'easter doesn't take them all down this weekend. Uh, so I prefer the 4th, but I'll let you guys make the decision. Both days work for me. Yeah. And the 4th works fine for me too. So yeah, you're good. Okay. Why don't we shoot for the 4th for that one? Uh, November 4th. Does that work? I'll reach out to planning tomorrow. Okay. All right. And then our next, uh, standard date is the 20th. Um, for our next regular board meeting is, does that work for everyone still? Yes. Excellent. So anyone else have anything else they'd like to, I have a conflict for November 17th. Okay. Um, but a next time.
Yeah. Should we do, would you want to move it to the 10th or the 24th? Well, probably the 10th right away from Thanksgiving. Uh, I have a conflict. Okay. All right. Yeah. Let's talk about that next time. Yeah. All right. Um, cool. All right. I will, does anyone else have anything else? Are we good?
Hearing none. Um, why don't we take a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Thank you, Ed. Um, Ed, your vote. Yes. To adjourn. John? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. Judy? Yes. Mike? Yes. All right. Thank you, everyone. All right. Very good. Thank you.
Let's see. For public comment, we'll allow folks in to speak for up to two minutes during our public comment portion of the meeting, and with that, we'll get started. We did not hold an August meeting, so we have some catching up to do. So it's a pretty full meeting. We have our consultant, Klinefelder, here to talk about two topics, an update on the long-term water supply project and the lead service line replacement. And let me do a roll call just to have folks confirm they're here. Judy. Here. Great. John. Here. Hello. Ed.
Ed, if you just raise your hand or say you're here, that'd be great.
And Mike. I'm here. Great. And Wager Power here. We do note that Ed is here, listed under Julie Gusty's title. So with that, do we have any announcements, Tom? I do not have any announcements, no. Anyone else have announcements?
I do not have any.
So with that, we can move on to public comment. Let's see. I am looking, and I do not see. Oh, I do see one hand raised, Dave Bernstein. Great. So I can promote him. All right. I did. So he should be good to speak. Great. Hi, Dave. Can you guys hear me okay? Yes. So I just want to comment that there have been a notable increase in attacks on municipal water systems. Artificial intelligence makes municipal scale attacks much more accessible than has ever been the case. I have no idea whether any of our water infrastructure is accessible online and how, but I do know that if it is, it may be a vulnerability. This is budget season, so it would be a good time to review that and make sure that any vulnerabilities are dealt with. And that should be done in executive session so that vulnerabilities are not revealed online. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. If you can just comment on the road you live on. Say again? Yeah. Can you just comment on the road you live on if you hadn't already?
My name and address is Dave Bernstein, 25, please, online. Thank you.
Thank you for that comment. You know, we can discuss that at some point in the future and potentially under executive session. It is something we pay attention to along with the IT department and we do receive periodically updates and posts from Dave. So I appreciate that. And I know myself, Don, and the IT director and Nick Lombardi do receive those and read them. Great. Thanks, Tom. Do we see any other public comment? I do not.
Mike, there was an email from Tom Siaka. I don't know if you got to see it, where he was forwarding comments about PFAS. Hmm. I don't know if I saw that one. No? Okay. I'll try to forward it after the meeting. Okay. Anything you want to mention from the article? It was fairly long. Okay. And basically, like, I probably shouldn't summarize it, so. Okay. All right. Well, we'll take a look at. Okay. Possibly I missed it. But if not, if you forward, that would be great. Okay. With that, we'll move on. Kirsten is here. Our liaison, Kirsten Ryan from Kleinfelder. Are you ready to roll, Kirsten? Hello. Good evening, everybody. I am. Great. Let's get right into it. I'll share. So, I think we're going to do kind of a quick executive summary overview and then dive into a little bit of the details just to give you an update on where things are at so that you can ask any questions you might have. Yep, exactly. I won't take too much of your time on this this evening, but that's exactly what we want to do right here, as you can see. Cool. So, just real quick for anybody who has not been following along with the project, this is an overview map of the water supply improvements, long-term water supply improvements, that we are in the middle of designing. There's actually two, they're being designed as two contracts for bidding and design under parallel. The first one being Happy Hollow Water Treatment Facility right here and behind the high school and the water main that will be replaced, the existing water main that's going to be replaced with a new one here. And the other contract is the MWA interconnection and distribution improvement. So, starting over here in the west in Framingham at the MWA Shaftal interconnection, new transmission main, parallel to the Holtman Aqueduct, and then continuing on into Weyland, new pump station at Castle Road, and replacement of existing water mains up Old Connecticut Path as necessary. So, that is the project that we are designing. Kind of super high-level overview on where the overall project is at. Design, I would call it about 75% complete right now. We're in the middle of advancing the 60% deliverable to the 90% deliverable set of drawings and specifications, and we're about 15% into that. So, permit approvals, approximately 30% complete. So, overall, between this first phase of design permit and bidding and award would be about 50% complete. So, we are on track to complete that work into the spring of May 2027, and then be ready to advertise sometime in summer of 2027, such that a contract would be awarded in late 2027, and construction would begin in December 2027 or early 2028. So, that's our overall timeline. Great. So, we're still on track to potentially start late next calendar year, the following? Yes. Great. So, a little bit more detail on what's been happening since we last talked to you. As I said, we're progressing the design on those two contracts. The 60% milestone package was completed in April. 90% package is in progress. We are on track to complete that mid-November for a DPW review, and then that will proceed to a 100% milestone as well.
There's been a lot of local permitting activity or conservation commission hearings. We had our hearing with Framingham for the portion of the work that's in the city of Framingham. We had a hearing on the 2nd of September, and it was continued until the 16th, and they closed the hearing on the 16th. So, we will be receiving our wetland order of conditions for the Framingham portion shortly. There wasn't really anything particularly of note there. It was pretty straightforward. But there's pretty limited impacts to wetland buffer zones in Framingham. The Weyland Conservation Commission hearing is scheduled for the 30th next week. There's quite a bit more resource areas under jurisdiction there, so it's going to be a little bit more in-depth process. I'm sure it will take more than one hearing for that. Meanwhile, we also went before the planning board on the 9th of September. And going through that process now, we have a meeting this Thursday, the Design Review Advisory Board, working through some revisions to some of the pump station design, aesthetics, and other considerations. We've also been coordinating with the Board of Health to advance a variance. Part of the plumbing code would require a bathroom in the pump station, which would require a septic system, which is not desirable for cost reasons. MWA is not keen on having a septic system near their aqueduct. And so, we're pretty confident we'll be able to get the variance. And that will help save some money on the construction side as well. Great. The 100% design is scheduled to be done in April. And so, just a lot of coordination ongoing with MWA staff, their design staff, their planning folks, their permitting folks. So, they've been quite helpful. And we've also met recently with their designer who's designing the interconnection piece that we will need to connect to here at Shafdell. So, that is all going along. There'll be a bathroom at Happy Hollow, though, correct? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's over the size requirement, size threshold for a waiver request. Oh, okay. Great. Okay. As far as, like, the permits and approvals side for, like, the statewide permits, the Mass Environmental Policy Act review and Water Resources Commission approval. It's quite a mouthful. So, inter-basin transfer approval is required, obviously, for this. As we are working through that process, we were able to get the draft Environmental Impact Report Certificate in May. And then we just recently received the certificate on the final environmental impact report without any supplemental requirements from MEPA. We do have some things we need to, the town needs to address with the Water Resources Commission. So, we were able to get that certificate, but the Water Resources Commission, which is the regulatory body that approves the inter-basin transfer permit to accept water from the MWRA, which is coming from the Quabbin Reservoir, outlined several things that need to be completed before the final authorization is given, you know, to move forward with the transfer. So, some of those things include additional water audits, you know, Wayland has had some challenges with unaccounted-for water, so they want to make sure that, basically, Wayland is managing water responsibly and will continue to do so going forward with this new water source. Also, requiring a written, formal water conservation plan, water loss control plan, and a drop management plan. So, don't we have a lot of these in place? They need to be updated? We actually do not. I mean, we have one audit that was just completed, but relative to two, three, and four, we don't. Not to the level, the expectations of the Water Resources Commission and the MWRA. Okay. Yeah, they are looking for some very detailed, formalized plans, and it's not that unusual for communities such as yourselves to have sort of informal activities, but they really are kind of using this opportunity to, you know, get something much more formalized. So, there's various elements, I won't go into a lot of detail here, but the Water Conservation Program slash plan requires elements relating to residential usage of efficiency, public outreach, outdoor water conservation, and then looking at non-residential, industrial, commercial, and institutional water users, you know. So, are there any opportunities, you know, for those top users to be more efficient in their water use, municipal facilities, you know, doing an audit and identifying opportunities for upgrading plumbing fixtures and a schedule. The second element is relating to water loss control, so that's things like leak detection and repair, which we know the town does, but, you know, really trying to get a handle on what's causing the unaccounted for water issues, looking at interconnections and testing valves to make sure nothing's staying open. So, there's various elements here. One thing that, you know, one thing that, you know, the board here should maybe, I should highlight for them is one thing during the course of preparing the final EIR and answering Water Resources Commission questions, providing documentation, we did discover that your regulations do have a prohibition against theft, but there's no actual, like, penalty for water theft included or specified. So, that's kind of a relatively easy fix that the board would need to take up. And then the metering program, just kind of working with the DPW to outline a more formal schedule and process for testing large meters. And then lastly, the drought management plan. Yeah, that's something that would need to be developed. So, we have prepared a proposal to assist on that and basically utilize guidance that the state has already put together. There's, you know, water conservation standards Massachusetts developed a number of years ago and drought management plan guidance. So, I've kind of worked with Tom to put together a kind of a work plan of these are all the items, various items that are requiring, here's what you have in place, here's what's a compliance gap, and here's how we can help, and here's what the town would really need to be responsible for doing. I mean, to your point, Mike, is that we're not starting from zero, as Kirsten had on the prior slide. We perform a lot of the, you know, the items, we just don't have a compilation of that all into these particular plans. So, you know, we're not in as bad a shape as if we were considered, you know, being starting from scratch. That's not the case. Yeah. So, it's documenting a lot of what we do and then filling in the gaps. Finesseing, yeah, finessing what we do and documenting and reporting and, like I said, the expectation. You've got to have this format in a particular way, in a pretty detailed way. So, that's really what the effort will be. Great. Yeah, and there was another element that Water Resources Commission is speaking to is pressure management and, you know, looking for some public outreach material to be put onto your website regarding pressure relief valves and what the customers can look out for and what, you know, where they can get help and resources to work on that. So, yeah, lots of different elements coming together and then July 2027 is the date by which we've, the town is committed to preparing all that. So, great. Other things related to the project, just backtracking a little bit, reapplied for SRF funding back in July. We'll be looking, you know, this winter to see what the decision is on that. Usually, the draft decision is issued in January or in a final in March. Tom has, I know, been working with, and I think Michael McCall, working with the state delegation on enabling legislation to kind of check that box for joining the MWA membership. And then we've also been coordinated with the MWA on, you know, what we'll need for proceeding with construction in terms of permits, easements, and things like that. So, those are all being tracked and worked on. Right. So, just wrapping up with next steps. Next step would be for, you know, the task order that I mentioned for that water conservation planning to be executed, getting your firm that does your water audit under contract as well. So, and then we would work on, start working on that. We'd continue to advance the design and permitting in parallel and continue with the coordination. So, really just keeping on track, keeping moving along.
Sounds good. And that's really all I had. Great. Are we doing any digging along the way to see what we might encounter? Or has that all been done already in the, in the earlier design? Yeah. Yeah, that's all been done as part of the earlier parts of the design. Okay. Yeah. Great. Is the design drawing going to submit to, to us for review at 60% completion? I think if we were waiting until 90%, it would be too late to make any comment. I mean, I think what we might do, if the board was open to this, if, you know, you wanted to have Ed act as a board representative, we did this for a prior project. I'm trying to think of which one it was, whereby Ed came in a number of times and reviewed, it was a project that Abby was working on, Abby Charest, the town engineer. So, we could certainly do that. We could, you know, at the 75% point, Ed, if that was agreeable to you and the board, invite you in, have Kleinfelder go over the, the project, the design with you at that point.
I think, 75%. I think he looked at the tank. I was worried if we got to 90% and it come at a change or the cost more that way. Yeah.
I know it, it was, yeah, I think Ed, you participated in the 30% meeting and I, I thought you did on 60% as well in the spring, but maybe I'm misremembering. And we could share a progress set right now. We don't really have a formal 75% deliverable, but we have, you know, plan sets that are going through the local permitting process that are kind of in between 60 and 90. So, we can share a progress set with you. Yeah, maybe what we could do, I think it might be easier for Ed, and correct me if I'm wrong, Ed, is actually having a hard copy. Sure. You know, that, have that sent to us or delivered to us and then we can have Ed, he can review it at our place or he can take them with him and review them at home. Yeah. Is there anything you can share with the board? Not, not the large drawings, details, but are there any like PDFs that the board can just take a look at or is that too difficult? No, that's not too difficult. I mean, like I said, we've, we've got permit applications prepared that have a PDF, you know, that could be shared. Okay, great. Yeah, I think, Tom, didn't you have, didn't Ed look at the tank design as well? Yeah, I think he, I think that, that makes sense because Abby was overseeing that project. That was probably the case as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good with that. I don't, the rest of the board, I don't know that we have to vote on that, but are we okay with that? Yes. Great. Can I ask a question? Great. Yeah, please go ahead. So, I know it's not uncommon to have unaccounted water loss. Kristen, I was just wondering, with your work with other towns, what seems to be a normal amount versus an abnormal amount of unaccounted for water? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, the state standard is 10%. Yeah, we did an analysis not too long ago, and many towns are over 10%. I think over 20% is pretty high, and that's not that common. I would say in between 10 and 20 is fairly common. So, you guys are definitely on the higher side of the spectrum. The thing that's unique to us is we've had large swings in unaccounted for water. We've had it, you know, when I arrived here, it was 14%, and when we went up to 20, we were down to 8. We went up to 42, back down to single digits, and a lot of that, we believe, is due not so much for due to water leaking or lost water. It's actually the accounting of the water and the metering, not only just reading meters every six months. So, now that we're reading these meters nearly every day, we have that information, we'll be able to have a much tighter reconciliation of our water. We've described this, you know, to the Water Resources Commission and the MWRA and the DEP as well. So, they all understand that, and that's the reason why they're interested in requiring us to have annual audits, these M36. M36 is a manual, it's Manual 36 with the American Water Works Association, and it goes into detail, you know, accounting for water, pressure control, all of those types of things. So, that's why you'll see M36 referenced regularly. Okay, thank you. I was just going to say, now that we've gone to an automatic water meters, hopefully we have a better idea of our water loss, but you'll just answer that. Yep, absolutely. Okay. Great. So, we're all on track. Things are looking good at the moment. We'll knock on wood. So, that's great to hear. Yeah.
Okay. Any other questions before we move on to lead service?
Okay. All right. I think we can move on to the next topic. I can just give some opening remarks. Ajay Sharma, who's on right now, is with Kleinfelder, and he's going to present a lot of the details. Just a bit of background. You're probably all familiar with the lead and copper rule. It's been around for decades, and it governs the amount of lead and copper in drinking water. And municipal water suppliers have to abide by a number of regulations. We have to sample a number of times each year, provide public outreach should particular services exceed allowable thresholds and all of that. And about two years ago, I might be wrong on the dates, but there was actually a revision. So, it's the lead and copper rule revised, LCRR. And what has happened is that there's been an increase in the work, the requirements that are placed on municipal water suppliers and all water suppliers to assure homeowners, business owners, that lead is not in their drinking water. And it goes in as far now as it's focusing on the actual materials that make up the water service, whether it's lead, whether it's galvanized pipe, whether it's iron, whether it's unknown. So, Ajay is going to talk about the inventory that we just completed last year, how we're preparing ourselves to this and exceed excess of about 300 services that need to be physically inspected. We're going to do that by November of next year. And then there'll be some discussions and some decisions necessary for the board to be involved with, because although we don't own the portion of the water service that's from the curb stop, the property line, into the home, we are now responsible for facilitating the replacement of that. There's a number of ways to do it. Some of them are expensive. The alternatives require a heavy administrative role, but that's the reason we're here before you tonight, is this is a pretty big deal. All municipal communities are going through this, and Meinfelder is supporting us in this effort, and Ajay is going to, I know it's a pretty comprehensive presentation. It really is, he'll go over it tonight, but it really is for your use, and we'll wind up putting this up on our water webpage as well, so people can view it and see what this is all about. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Ajay. Thanks, Tom. Thank you all for taking some time this evening to let me talk about this. Again, Ajay Sharma here with Kleinfelder. And the way I'm going to kind of break out this presentation here, I'll just kind of briefly go through kind of what we've completed under phase one of the work. I'm really going to focus really on what we're doing right now, which is technically phase two. And then, like Tom mentioned, give you an idea of the best way to prepare kind of moving forward. So, yep, like Tom mentioned here, this regulation has evolved quite a bit. So, we're kind of operating in between, I would say, like Tom said, the lead and copper rule revisions, and then really preparing for what's called the lead and copper rule improvements. And I'll have a slide on that in a second here, but just friendly reminder, when we talk about a single service line, we're going to be talking about kind of three main components. A gooseneck, which is how the service line is connected, obviously, to the main, if applicable. And then you really have two major components, the first of which is what we call the public side, basically owned by the town. That's the part of the main here that's oftentimes in the street, and then goes right up to the shutoff, the valve. And then from there, the rest of that side of the service line that goes into the home here is the private side, oftentimes owned by the customer. So, like I mentioned, we're operating currently under phase two. So, just quick refresher on phase one. This was a grant that we'd gotten through MassDEP, and this was basically putting together the service line inventory. Remember, the inventory needs to have every single service line that the system or the town serves, and then goes into the detail of identifying the materials on those three components that I just mentioned on the prior slide. So, that was really a bulk of what this phase one project was, was putting all of the records together, going through anything that we had available to us to kind of put that inventory together. And then using that, we were able to put together a map. This is an example of what the town sees on your website, and it just ends up being a lot easier for them to look at, as opposed to taking a look at a spreadsheet and having something that they're able to understand when looking at that. The other component here, public outreach, you'll see this is a common theme and something that the regulation requires quite a bit, but it ends up being a good opportunity for the town to just re-engage customers and let them know that you're already addressing a lot of this work and their concerns. And I'll talk about that in a second here, but what I really want to focus on is phase two. So, this is kind of all the work that we're doing in getting ready for the Leading Copper Rule improvements, which go into effect on November 1st of 2027. So, this is really broken down into three main things that we're looking to accomplish. First of which, like Tom mentioned, the town had actually done a training with their, the manufacturer of the hydro excavator that the town owns, with the purpose of basically going out and doing some of those inspections. So, the main thing that we had completed, or had basically done during phase one, was we had basically asked customers to go in through their basements, take photos for us, send that back in, so that we could document the private side of the service line. But what we're still left with is quite a number of unknowns on the public side. So, just that little small portion there, oftentimes in the street. So, this effort here, using the town's hydro excavator, will really be to identify the material at the shutoff on the public side. And like Tom mentioned, this is something that's going to be coming up shortly. But one of the things that we've worked on supporting here is basically developing a GIS map to help the town identify where they need to go, and then an inspection form. So, that all those results will come right back to us, and then we can easily update that overall inventory spreadsheet that the state requires. Can I ask a question, Jake? Of course, sure. So, are we pretty confident that that piece number three that you outlined, the private side, that has all been identified? Good question, Mike. I will, in the coming slides here, I'll give you a breakdown of kind of like where we stand in terms of overall. So, like the three main categories that MassDP is going to be looking at would be LED, your galvanized requirement replacement, your unknowns, and obviously the non-LEDs. But it's those prior three that I can give you an idea of where we stand based on how many customers participated. Great, thanks. I have a question that's totally up from the left field. No worries.
We're going to get a drone with LED, I'm not going to say it right, LIDAR or LIDAR or something. Right, Tom? Abby's getting a drone. So, we have a drone, and it is LIDAR equipped, yes. Does that help with any of this kind of detection at all? So, unfortunately, yeah, we're using it for leak detection, which is a recent, you know, kind of technology. But unless Jay knows of something different, the drone LIDAR would not give us any indication of the service pipe material. So, that's correct, Tom, yeah. And I'm assuming this drone, LIDAR, is this the company that starts with an A, Estera, or something like that? Or is this separate? I am not sure about the vendor name, but it's a drone we've had for a couple of years, and it was intended. We've got infrared, we have LIDAR, but it will not assist identifying pipe material. So, is there some technology that would, besides digging into the Earth and finding it? Yeah, so, one of the technologies, there's a couple different ones, but the common theme. So, the example that I'll mention here is basically, imagine like a handheld, almost like a Milwaukee drill unit. And what this unit basically does is it has an electrical probe at the end of it. So, let's just say that the town were, you know, perhaps during meter replacements, that sort of thing. They were disconnecting the meter in the basement so that basically that pipe was exposed on the private side. This would also require emptying that pipe as well. But what you could, in theory, do is kind of pull that probe through, and it basically shoots a small electric current as it goes up there. And then you have kind of like a screen that reads out these almost like electric resistance or resistivity profiles that are indicative of certain materials. We had already talked about this with, you know, Tom, Don, and the team. There's a lot of implications with using that. Honestly, from a cost perspective as well, it would end up being almost the same, if not more, than actually digging the holes. One of the things that MassDEP does want if using that is basically Brita filters essentially provide to that customer with, you know, a certain number, I think it's almost like six months of extra cartridges. There's also an issue where, you know, if, let's just say, any of those pipes end up being lead, town currently doesn't have any, but if it were, that probe will also kind of like, best way to describe it is like it scrapes away at almost like this protective layer that's kind of built up over time. And there could be implications of whatever that material may be actually getting into the water. So it does require like a flushing by the customer. So. So no. Okay. Long story short. Yeah. There is something that exists, but I know Don and Tom, we've, we kind of talked about this. Judy, we, we did evaluate this sort of risk reward and, and found that we just felt like it was too risky and also not the cost benefit was not really there to recommend it. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Uh, I have a question. Uh, it's, uh, I, I saw your diagram of the connection from the street to the house. Uh, I didn't see any, uh, backflow prevented, uh, check there, either way, usually we would probably put one before the meter, some, some time we're even required to put one after the meter. So that's, so when we replace the lip pipe, all we need is to pay attention is that between the street, water may, and the connection to the meter, anything after that, we should tell the homeowner to replace by themselves, because that's what helped them to save that. Yeah. I think what you're referring to it is, um, you know, for, for, for residential, the, the only common backflow protector, uh, and it really focuses more on protecting irrigation systems or water and irrigation systems. It's a, a pressure vacuum breaker. That's, uh, generally on the, on the side of the house. Um, the only time we really don't have a, I think what you're describing is a containment backflow containment policy. And that's generally, if, um, there's a, a business that has a high risk, whether it's photo processing, or if it's a, a funeral home, that's doing, uh, you know, that type of work, you actually have a containment device that protects the system from that, that particular building. Those are few and far between in Wayland, uh, it being a residential, you know, primarily a residential population. We don't have backflow protection devices, as you describe at the property line or on the service line. We don't have that level, that, that containment, uh, program. Does that make sense? Yeah, um, well, we, we, we, we should have tried to, any new house or any renovation, complete renovation, just tell them to put a backflow, you know, backflow preventer. And that's so that our community, not getting the lid water from the house, because most of the lid come from the inside the house. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you know, another question I have is, uh, we, uh, we pay attention to AC pipe, which is also cause cancer. Right, right. I think, I know Don's muted, but I, I think he offers an opinion that we don't have any asbestos cement pipe? We have less than one mile left in the distribution system. Okay. In that case, maybe we should have considered some time to replace that, less than one mile. It's not like if some of the time kicked cars, almost 85% of AC pipe.
Okay. I have a question. Sure. When you, um, investigate at the curb stop, is, are you having to make, make a hole that a human can get in to, to look at the, the pipe from the main to the curb stop? Or do you have a technique of making a very small hole, hole with a vac truck and, and, and testing the service pipe there?
Yeah, I, Tom, Don, you can, um, you know. Um, yeah, what, what a J was, a J was saying a hydro excavator. In essence, that's what he's describing our vector truck. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're, we're engaging our vector truck for this work. And, uh, for context here, typically Jonathan, the, uh, the hole itself, um, honestly, the, the, the whole max diameter, um, oftentimes isn't even bigger than like a foot by a foot. And it's more of like a, a hole, less of a square, just cause you're really just kind of prodding this hole slowly open. And then once you do have it uncovered, um, yeah, I mean, these service lines can be pretty shallow. They can be pretty deep. Um, typically the recommendation is that once you get it uncovered, luckily you're using a hydro excavator. So it cleans pretty well with the water. And ideally you can actually see the material. You definitely don't want to get down there. Um, nor would there be enough space anyway. Um, so oftentimes once you clear that out and you kind of, you know, are, are cleaning it off with the actual hydro wand itself, um, you're able to see the material. And then the other thing, um, you know, when, whenever we start this work, I'll definitely can be coming out there. And the recommendations that I always have are, you can actually scrape the pipe itself with a long object. And that can actually tell you, for example, like lead is pretty, pretty shiny once you scrape it and soft. So you'll be able to tell that way. Um, and then also too, uh, you can also put sometimes like a, like a pretty strong, uh, magnet on the end of a unit. And that can also help you test it as well. Yeah. John, are you. I don't think it was all visual or whether there was a, uh, another way of telling. John, are you worried about children or animals falling in? No, I'm just, I, I, I think it's great if you can do it with a relatively small hole and they're going to, they're going to vac the hole out. And then they're going to backfill it as soon as they determine what the material of the pipe is. Um, so it's not in there. That's exactly the plan. Big hole and somebody actually going down and looking at it.
Right.
Any other questions here? I think, I think we can move on. Perfect. Um, so the, the other big component that I just want to mention here. So prior to us, uh, identifying for the town where we want to do these inspections, um, as you all know, you know, the town's been undergoing this, uh, meter replacement program. So we made sure prior to that, we took all of that information. Uh, we updated the inventory, um, to obviously go to places that, you know, having had the meter replaced, there's a clear idea of what's on the customer side. If that same location, we also knew about the public side of the service. There's no reason to be digging that up. So those were the locations we were purposely avoiding, uh, and didn't include there. Um, and then the other big component of this. So last December, uh, of 2025, um, and Mike, I'll get to this to answer your original question, but, uh, based on the number of lead unknown and then galvanized requirement replacement service lines that have been identified. Um, basically these customers need to get a mailer every single year, um, essentially telling them that they have that type of material, um, until that material is no longer valid. And I'll, I'll show that here in a second. Um, and then the other stuff that we were really doing as part of public outreach for this phase. Um, so a couple of things. Um, so the first thing that you're seeing right here on the left, this is a disturbance notification. So any customer that, uh, the town is going to be going and do this hydro excavate excavation at, um, at that point in time, they'll be provided with this notice. Um, basically just telling them why what's happening. Um, there's also, uh, information there because technically what the EPA is requiring eventually in 2027, but we're going to do this now to get a feel for how customers respond. But, um, by doing excavation, uh, vibration on a lead pipe, again, we don't have any lead as of now, but vibration on a lead pipe in theory could cost some lead material to come out, uh, of, of the pipe when you're doing that inspection. So this just has some simple instructions about just running your water for an extended period of time, uh, that sort of thing. Um, but again, this is really just to make sure, uh, we have a clear idea of how customers are going to respond before this actually becomes a requirement, um, in 2027. The other piece here that we also had put together is called the lead action level exceedance. So, you know, as of right now, if there's any samples that come back and they're exceeding 15 parts per billion, uh, this basically this notice would need to go out, um, and then starting in 2028, uh, the regulation is going to bring that down to 10 parts per billion. Um, so in case that happens, this is more of the town has something handy. Um, though we've done a historical analysis of your results and you have never gotten close. So this is simply just purely insurance is all. Um, and then one of the other things, uh, you know, that the, the town's required to do is put together a water quality report. Um, so there's just some changes in the regulation about some additional information that needs to be included. Uh, so when that happens next year, uh, you have all the information there, uh, about what in addition needs to be included. So, uh, and then Mike, this is to answer your original question. So I'm showing two kind of numbers here. Like I said, lead, uh, during phase one, we didn't counter any. And now that we're in phase two, still nothing. So no lead, which is great. Um, and then starting in phase one, we did encounter, uh, 12 galvanized or prime replacement, uh, just a friendly reminder on that. So any iron pipe galvanized pipe, um, if that iron pipe cannot be proved to have been downstream of any lead, uh, it unfortunately needs to conservatively come out, meaning it needs to come out and be replaced with something that's non iron. Uh, the regulations interpretation of, of iron pipe is that it just acts like a sponge to lead, um, and then slowly leaches it out. So, like I said, if there's any documentation that we have to uncover, uh, at some point that says that, you know, the, the, these iron pipe, uh, were never downstream of lead, uh, we can just classify them as galvanized and they wouldn't need to be replaced. But, um, this is a pretty common theme amongst a lot of systems in the new England area. Um, so this is to go up to 88. Non-lead, uh, we were able to reduce this down a little bit more. So we now have a total of like 3000, which is great. And then unknowns, um, we were able to reduce this as well down to 2000, uh, and 89. So these numbers here, uh, these three, one for galvanized, uh, unknown, and then this zero lead, these are the total number of notices that are basically going out on an annual basis to those customers, um, to notify them that, Hey, you have a galvanized requirement replacement or you have an unknown. Um, and then the other kind of thing to caveat here, unfortunately, the way these classifications work is an unknown is a good example. Let's just say that the public side of the service line. So this side right here on the street is unknown, but the customer has already identified their service line. This entire service line is still categorized as unknown. So that was one of the things that I know the town was getting a lot of questions on. Uh, and then we worked with, uh, Tom and Don here to put a little disclaimer. On the town's map online, that kind of explains that. Um, and now it kind of tells them that, yes, you got an unknown, but if you look up your address, there was no action items from the customer needed at this time. And can I ask about how many of this 40% have already, um, shown that from the house out it's known it's not led. Good question. Um, honestly, it's a majority of this 40% where the customer, we know that side, uh, largely also due to the meter replacement program, but unfortunately the system side is unknown, but that's what the hydro excavation, uh, work will hopefully, uh, resolve. Okay. Yeah. Good. Uh, so what I wanted to spend here, the next couple of slides on. So, like I said, what we're really preparing for here is the LCRI and this goes into effect November 1st of 27. So basically what the EPA and mass EP is going to see at that point, um, they want, uh, an inventory, uh, and I'll basically describe what we're trying to do here, but all in all, the main priority is really just eliminate unknowns, um, which the town has a plan to do, uh, with the hydro excavation. Um, and then the other thing that starts around that time is also a need to sample all your schools and license child care facilities or daycares. Um, this screenshot here, um, is just for your reference only about a lot of the requirements. It's a quite a bit, um, and the way that we're kind of distilling this down, uh, is between our kind of phased approach here. So, like I said, here, we're operating under phase two. So stuff that we're currently doing, uh, is focusing on eliminating those unknowns. Um, and what this is going to help us hopefully reduce, um, is once these unknowns are gone, uh, that ongoing mailers that go out to those customers who have unknown, uh, that will come to an end. Um, and then in addition, um, there's a lot of kind of administrative burden that comes with kind of the phone calls that you're receiving, uh, you know, also there's the work in general that you're having to do. Um, and the really big goal here is once we eliminate unknowns, uh, reducing that kind of burden, uh, on you and your town staff. Uh, and then the other thing I just wanted to quickly mention, so we're using this predictive modeling approach. So Tom mentioned earlier, this comes out to around 300 holes and basically what we're doing here, uh, and what the state has accepted as a method is we're taking the entire service line inventory, the entire spreadsheet that has all your service lines listed. And then we basically randomly generate a list of service lines that are both unknown and have also are categorized as known, meaning that we have some type of record information in which we know the materials of. So we basically provided this list, uh, to Don and Tom, uh, to focus on where they're going to hydro excavate. Once all those unknowns are resolved, we'll basically populate a predictive model. And this model will be able to tell us that if, for example, we haven't encountered any lead at that point in time, um, the town most likely may not have an, any lead and we can rationalize to the state that we're in a good position here. Um, and they'll accept that as a method. Um, however, we do have GRRs. And so this model will then also help us to identify where other GRRs may exist. And then eventually if we do additional inspections, which are included in this 300 total here, um, our model will basically tell us that we have encountered what it thinks is the most amount of GRRs or all of the GRRs in the town, uh, based on a certain confidence. And we can face a report to the state that, Hey, we've identified all the GRRs. Um, and we've also been able to do it without needing to dig up every single unknown. So going back to that number here, we don't need to dig up the entirety of this 2,189 number. We can kind of keep this at 300 holes, um, and then use a model to help us predict if there are any more galvanized. Okay. Um, I think if it's not too difficult, it'd be nice to know of those unknowns that 2000, what portion or even a number are already known from the, um, private side, uh, because I think that would help us to also be a little bit predictive on what's on the, um, public side. Absolutely. Yeah. And as soon as I wrap this up, I can quickly look it up too, Mike. Okay. It'll also look less daunting when we have that many unknowns, 2000, um, you know, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, cool. Um, do we have any other questions on this?
This is very helpful. It sounds like we're heading in the right direction. The inventory, the grant for the inventory, uh, all that's been executed and that's helped out quite a bit. So, um, thank you for your work here. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and then the only other thing I'll touch on here. So again, these slides are for your reference. So there's a lot of information. Feel free to kind of peruse that, uh, on your own. Um, but the main thing that we're really preparing for is once all of this work here, these investigations are done. Um, we're looking to use that information to identify what needs to be replaced. Right. Um, and that we're looking to start, um, basically as soon as the regulation goes into place. So 2028, um, and a couple of things to note there that in order to touch any type of mass DP funding, um, and if at that time, MWRA funding is available to you, um, one of the main requirements is that you do need to replace the full service line to be eligible for that funding. Um, so that's just something to think about there. And then to Tom's, uh, one of his earlier points here, once 2027 does roll around, um, there's a lot of kind of replacement specific requirements, um, that are going to be important to keep in mind. So for example, let's just say that there is a water main project in the street, or perhaps any type of maintenance that needs to get done on the public side of the service that would require the town to replace that side of the service. One of the main things that you're going to need to do is basically notify the customer within 40 days of you doing that work, uh, in case they would also at that point in time, like their side of the service to be replaced if it's required. Um, and the way the regulation is basically interpreting this is that if they also want to engage in the same contractor, perhaps that you happen to be using and are willing to pay for that contractor as well, um, one hole, they can kind of do that replacement in its entirety. So that's just something to keep in mind there. Um, and then the other thing too, is any service lines that do get replaced. This is the, uh, second to last bullet here that's important, but any service lines that do get replaced, um, you are going to be required to basically provide like a picture filter, uh, and then six months of replacement cartridges, um, excuse me, uh, until basically you come back and are able to offer a sample. Excuse me one second. You know, I think, I think, I think we could move on. I know that there, there, we're going to have to, um, as a board, once we understand what the replacement costs might be to the town, we're going to have to discuss this and vote on, uh, funding this. Um, so I think we'll have this on a future agenda, Tom, if that makes sense. It does. It does. And I have a place, I have a placeholder in FY 29, um, for this work, um, but we'll have a better sense of what that, that cost will actually be in the future. Okay. Again, thanks Ajay. Ajay. And, uh, I think with that, um, unless anyone else has any other questions here, let's move on to our next agenda item. All right. Thank you. Kleinfelder team. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. Thanks for the evening. You too. John, do you have any like sense of like, is this like a black cloud that's hanging over your head? This, this project, or do you think like, oh, this isn't going to be as bad as we think? It's, it's a daunting task, but I mean, you know, Kleinfelder has made it so easy for us, you know, um, you know, like the, the real physical work is going to be starting here this fall with us going out and doing these hydro excavations, um, you know, so we can, we'll, yeah, it's, it's not too bad, but. All right. Well, fingers crossed from all of us. Thank you. Appreciate it. Nice. Great. Um, so we, we have a couple of items, um, uh, a preview of the capital budget. So we thought we'd start with an overview tonight. Um, uh, Tom, do you want to move ahead with this? Yeah, certainly. Certainly I can. Um, so I think it was yesterday morning. I had sent out, um, two of the, I think I sent out the transfer station and the water and also the DPW, the, the three capital budget worksheets. Um, and as a little bit of background, the town now has a capital improvement planning committee, SIPSE, and they started last year. Uh, they're continuing this year. We're in the midst of, um, developing, presenting, defending, uh, our capital budget to them. And I had met with them, uh, the latter part of August and had presented, you know, all of these capital requests we're starting much earlier this year than we've ever done in the past. Um, so that's why we're, we're bringing it, you know, to this, uh, membership in September rather than typically it's likely November that you would, you would see this. The SIPSE, uh, membership had two particular items that they wanted, um, a little bit more information on, and they were interested in the Board of Public Works position on them. And those are the two that are listed tonight. One is the, uh, uh, the transfer station roll-off truck, which, uh, has a value of $380,000. And then on the water enterprise side, there is a water asset management plan, uh, that was listed as $500,000. Don's got some more information about that, including a reduction in the, uh, in the, the value of the request. So Mike, I'm not sure how you'd like me to proceed. I can speak directly to the roll-off. Uh, Don can talk, uh, about the asset management plan. Um, I can share my screen real quick and we go through these one at a time. So, um, you know, this, this kind of provides an overview of the five-year plan. Um, if everyone can see my screen, um, yep, I can see it fine. Okay, great. Uh, how do I get this out of my way? Um, okay. Yeah, so you'll see that this is the, the summary sheet. Each one of these, as you're reviewing this in your own time, and I'll, we'll, we'll have this as agenda items in October, November, then there'll be the operating budget coming after that. But you'll see on the bottom tab that Mike's on right now is the summary tab. And you'll see that transfer station roll-off is project number one in column a, if you, you know, at any point in time, you go over to the request number one tab. And if you want to click on that real quick, Mike, just to, uh, you see what I'm talking bottom request number one multiple. Yeah. So that, that is the, you're all familiar with the CIP. This is what the CIP now looks like. And, um, it's got all the information. The old one used to have with additional information. Um, it's asked, you know, is this the cost? Is it, there's a ranking? Is this a priority? And then in that, where are you looking right now, those particular headings? Yeah. Right there, you, we score them for one to five. Uh, and these are, this is how SIPC, you know, uh, prioritizes because every department in town are submitting these and there's a lot of competing needs. Uh, so this is what, uh, uh, this is what this looks like. So it's, they, they put this, um, worksheet together for each department, for each enterprise fund. Um, so it's, it's pretty good. And as you, as you, uh, change, as we change, as staff change these values, it automatically updates the summary. So the transfer station roll-off is an FY28 request. And then this is, this is DPW, uh, engineering vehicle replacement and dump truck. Yep. Yeah. So that's on the general fund side of things. Yep. Yeah. You'll see, you'll see roadway, you'll see a sidewalk, you'll see stormwater and here's the water and there's the $500,000 that, uh, that, uh, that Don will talk about a reduction and what that actually scope of services will be. But that was, that was, uh, something that we introduced this year in FY28. This was not our five-year plan prior. It was not, it was not. That's why it's, I highlighted these in blue for the finance group so that they knew what, uh, um, that these were, these were, you know, now being introduced. Okay. Yeah. Uh, so I, we talked briefly about the $380,000 roll-off truck. Um, and given the, the, the current discussions and study in the transfer station, uh, I, I mentioned to you that I wonder if maybe it makes sense to push that off a year until we know what's gonna, what are we going to be doing with the transfer station? Is it going to be a transfer station? Is it going to be a recycling center? Um, or, you know, or otherwise, um, what are your thoughts on that? So that, that is a philosophy, but I have to say my position would be that regardless if it's a transfer station or a recycling center, um, you know, the, the amenities, the customer service amenities that would be included in a recycling center will, um, have a need for a roll-off, uh, vehicle. So I, I, I, my position would be that this needs to be replaced based upon the current condition, uh, and it's in very poor condition with some very expensive repairs. And, um, you know, so going back to, regardless of what it is, this truck is of value and would be, uh, of service to both a transfer station and a recycling center. And I, I like in the, you know, we all on our personal cars, we keep making repairs, repairs, repairs. And at some point in time, you make the decision, yeah, this, I'm just putting good money after bad here, and I'm just going to replace the vehicle and, and, and trade it in. And that's where we're at with the roll-off is that, uh, um, it's the, the frame is, is corroded, rusted. The, the, uh, uh, the body is rusted. It needs expensive rollers. It needs an expensive clutch and transmission. So to make repairs on a 26 year old vehicle is not practical. So it's for that reason that we're, and that this has been on, um, it was just the reason it's blue is that the, the value increased from 300 to 380. That's why it's blue. It has been on the five-year plan for a number of years. Okay. And the other question is how we would pay for this. Um, because right now under the current scenario, the, uh, transfer station users would pay for this truck. If we move to, um, and again, we're exploring all these options. Our committee is meeting again later this month. Um, if we do move to, and it's needed for either a transfer station or recycling center, then the case, you know, could be made that this needs to be supported by the town. Um, so I think that's, that's the other question we have. If we make that determination before this is purchased, then we'll know how it's going to be funded. We don't know yet how this would be funded those two scenarios. Yep. Agreed. Okay. Um, and the water infrastructure asset management plan, this would be an update of the plan that was created 2015, 2016, 2016. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that's a, that's the capital efficiency plan that we've been working off of for over a decade. And, um, you know, what Don's going to describe it's, it's not only that report, it's actually, um, it's a, it's a, it's an inventory of the assets, what the maintenance, the conditional maintenance that we have to provide for it. Um, you know, instead of being redundant, I know Don is prepared to speak on this. So I'm going to stop talking now and hand it over to Don. Thank you. Okay. Uh, Don, before you jump in, the other question I had for Tom on this one was if we're going to mothball most of our systems and, and build a brand new system at happy hollow, um, is now really the time to be updating this plan or should we wait until we have our new long-term water supply system in place? It's a fair question. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a vertical, um, asset condition assessment, and then there's a horizontal. So the horizontal is basically the stuff that's buried underground. The vertical would be the pump stations, treatment plants. Um, but I mean, you know, we obviously wouldn't survey a building that we're, that's going to get, you know, demolished in, uh, you know, two, three years, you know, um, this, like, this is more, um, booster station, um, you know, just, just basically pulling, you know, the, the, the emergency connection with the MWRA, um, you know, uh, all that stuff into the capital improvement plan, uh, updating pricing for the water main replacement projects, um, you know, all that nut and bolt stuff. I mean, we, we use this document like monthly. You know, I mean, out of all of the required reports that EPA, mass DEP has us do, this is the, you know, this is not required by the state or, or DEP, but the, this is our planning tool to, to update these, you know, 20, 30 year capital plans. Um, it's, it's a really important document. So in that case, you know, you know, if we are referring to this monthly and we're, we're going through our water main replacement program, aren't we just updating the plan as we complete this, this water mains now been replaced? Um, okay. Yep. So, so then what would, where would we be spending half a million dollars then? So it's, it's, it's really not half a million dollars. So we, um, so myself, Abby, uh, I think Tom was involved in the conversation as well. We, we put that number in there as a placeholder because we were not sure exactly what, what the price tag would be. It was kind of coming up to, you know, the deadline to get this, the, this thing in. Um, today, um, I actually received a, a very high level scope of services and a ballpark figure from, um, Weston and Sampson. So Abby hooked us up with this, this, um, this different engineering firm, um, who kind of specialize in, in really going in, in depth, um, with capital efficiency plans. Um, and you know, they, they gave us a high level number of 250 grand. Um, so, I mean, it's, you know, we were way off in our estimate, uh, is, is the easiest way to say it. So at a minimum, we'll be reducing this to that, uh, proper value. Yes. Okay. And the other, uh, something related to that, uh, Tom and I discussed something of this size, we should bid out. Um, I feel we should get at least two to three bids. Absolutely. I mean, that's, it's a huge number. Um, yeah. Um, just wasn't sure if you had any other questions to, does anyone else have any questions? I can go to the third one as well. Um, oops, here we have the engineering vehicle replacement and a dump truck. Yeah. Those are the, the reason those are highlighted in blue is that the engineering vehicle, uh, was increased in value from 50 to 60,000 and the one 50, the H six, we actually advanced that, that was, um, in a future year. And it's just, uh, uh, it's now recognizes needing to be replaced now. So that's why that's highlighted in blue. It was on the plan, but it was in a future year. Got it. But you'll see the, you know, the road improvements are, you know, right where they need to be. This is a year, uh, that we have the 250 grand for sidewalks, um, route 20, uh, rehabilitation design, South 20 landfill that, that cap restoration that needs to be updated. That was an old, I've been using that project title for too many years. That's now South 20 landfill, uh, repurposement redevelopment. Okay. So that's what that looks for FY 28. So it's pretty, pretty straightforward. Anyone questions about these? And again, as, as you're in your own time or whatever, and we can talk about this in October as well, is that if you click on, if you're looking at these on your own time at home, you can just click on those CIPs and you'll see that every, every single one of them has an explanation and a rating, a prioritization, all of that information's in there. Great. Yeah. I think, uh, my thoughts would be to delay at least a year, those two items, um, not because they're not needed, um, but because of the fiscal challenge we're facing right now. And because of the changes that are going on in both of those programs, do you need a vote from us tonight or just a sense? I think, um, SIPC was looking for a sense, um, their membership had asked me to, to bring this to the board. Um, so I think that that would be, you know, uh, okay. If you want to, if you want to, you know, pull the membership or whatever, get to get a sense. What, what do you, what do you think? Judy, Mike, John, Ed, any of those, uh, you want to comment on any of the others or the ones I just mentioned? I think the roll-off truck sounds like it's a priority, whether we go for recycling only or continue to have, um, transfer station capability. Sort of a dual purpose is the sense I'm getting from Tom. Yeah, that's the case. I think we're just not sure who's going to be paying for that yet. And we're, you know, we're, we're, we're meeting again. We've narrowed down the, um, choices. We haven't, we haven't, uh, taken off the table, not having either. Um, but that's the way the board, the committee is leaning. I would say that's my sense. Um, would you agree? Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, yeah, there's a, there's a handful of decisions, but each time we meet, we actually narrow down the options, you know, so now we're at a point as a transfer station, as a recycling center, we know it's going to be something that property is going to have some functionality. The only thing I want to just, you know, saying about the roll-off is that, you know, it is in a condition right now, uh, we would not recommend spending tens of thousands of dollars to make the repairs that I was describing. So should that go out of service, we are going to be, um, saying no to a lot of requests that come in, you know, not only does our department use it, but, you know, for household hazardous waste day, for, you know, town cleanups, we're asked regularly to, to mobilize containers around town for different functionalities. And without that vehicle, we don't have the ability to do it any longer. So one question I would have is, is, um, do we have to buy a new one or are there used ones that we can look into? It's, it's a good question. Um, you know, one thing we were thinking about doing was leasing. That, that's not practical. I think buying a used one, these are, you know, kind of rough work environments. I'm going to be talking about another topic, uh, the Hudson transfer station. These are very rough environments that these, these vehicles operate under. So I think buying something used, although it would be less expensive, it would be a much less, um, you know, useful life we would have. So it's, uh, I, I would, we, we don't, aside from one Ford escape, we don't really buy used utility vehicles. Tom, does, does the town keep like a spare roll-off truck, like just, just backup? No, we have one. It's 26 years old. It's the one and only. When you get a new one, will you keep this one as a backup? No, no, no. We'll, we'll wind up either auctioning it off or maybe perhaps a trade. If somebody, you know, if, if there was a, I'm almost thinking like a farmer or somebody that was going to keep it almost local to their particular property, uh, they might be able to make use out of it. But aside from that, it's in pretty tough shape. Okay. Well, I guess that's the rub then is we need to find someone to pay for it because I don't think the transfer station can pay for it. Is that fair, Mike? Well, I, it's, it also sounds to me as though it's, it's primary use is not for transfer station users. It's for town services. Um, if, if you're using it to go around town and help folks out, you may not be able to do that. Um, it's a combination. It's a, you know, yeah, it's a, you know, now that you've presented it that way, a majority of its use is associated with the transfer station. We do a lot of hauling with that weekly hauling with that. Uh, but I was the, um, we would wind up outsourcing some of that hauling and, um, we would be saying no to some of the other town requests. Got it. If the, if the vehicle doesn't last for another year. We didn't have it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's, you know, so what we're talking about is FY 28. So it means that it's this time next year that we would be ordering this. These vehicles can take up to 15 months to receive them. So by, by making a decision to delay it a year, you're in essence, I'm was talking about two and a half years. And this would be paid with debt, correct? We would borrow this. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, so it's, it's one of those, what you could do with this board could do is if, um, you could certainly take a motion or whatever and just outline your concerns that, you know, the board understands the need, but has concerns about the timing of it, knowing that the transfer station, you know, is being evaluated and that, you know, the, the, the payment of this thing could change in a future year or something along, at least that they'll know, at least the finance committee and SIPC members will know where the board, where your thoughts are. Okay. Um, but you said they just need a sense for where we're at, right? They just, they just want to know, yeah, one, one, you know, uh, were you aware of it and what were your thoughts on it and for your sense of just to give them as they're trying to, to grapple with things. I think a little bit less of what they, the enterprise fund, they know, um, what really both of them, it's really the, uh, water rates that pay for, you know, the asset management and it would be the transfer station fees that would pay the debt service currently, but that's, they just wanted to get a sense of where the board stood. Okay. Yeah. I, I think it sounds like the, um, roll off truck is a little more urgent. Uh, and if we're, we're, we're talking about debt, um, it may be a year or two where the, or maybe less, uh, depending on when the truck comes in, where just the transfer station users would be paying for it. So maybe it's not as impactful. Um, I think the other, I think we should wait a little bit to see where we end up with the, um, uh, uh, the 500,000 or the 250,000, whatever it is. I think we should see a little bit more where we end up with our overall, um, long-term water supply. Any other thoughts on that? Yes. No, that sounds good. Or no, I think that sounds good. Okay. Okay. All right, Tom, is that, is that sufficient? It is. It is. And I guess, I guess what I would, I don't want to make a lot of work. Um, what I could do is I could craft, um, language that I would send to SIPSE. Um, I could shoot it over to you for a quick glance, just to make sure that I've, that I'm accurately reflecting the board's position. Um, and you can reply back and then I could, I could send that off. Sounds good. Okay. Yeah. And at some future point, we're going to be voting on the capital plan anyway. Okay. On the, once, uh, they come back to us with a final, correct? Right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Um, I think that concludes that topic. Um, I know we may lose Mike a little bit early tonight. Um, do you want to give us just after eight? Okay. Do you want to give us an update on the annual report? There is no update. Oh no. We're hoping to have a draft here so we could review and vote it. Um, so, uh, what I've got a couple of pages that I've kind of started working on, but I have, I'm still working through the minutes of last year to try and summarize things. And, uh, also coming up with, you know, the highlights of the year, you know, obviously the highlight of fiscal year 25 was, you know, getting the, getting their, um, the art, the approval of the town to move forward with the water project. Um, but what, what, any ideas would, would I'll take nominations for other highlights of the year? Well, just, uh, Tom provided an idea of, of using AI to, you know, just collect the minutes and run it through and give it the format. Um, I'm, I can see if, uh, I can engage my son or, um, someone to do, to do that. Um, but I, I think the way I did it in the past was I just took the format that was provided. A lot of it can be reused, you know, when it, where we talk about what we do. Um, and then, okay, you've done that already. Yeah, no, I've reused it. I've reused a lot of it, but even running through the minutes through, through AI, you still come up with two paragraphs for each, each meeting. Got it. And if we're trying to keep this thing down, uh, I think it was like 3000 words. Yeah. It's, it's not going to work. We're still talking 5,000 to 10,000 words. Yeah. So what I did was I just went through and I looked at the motions that we had approved because those are generally, those are the hot or, or the, uh, most important topics and, and just chose the ones that seemed, uh, impactful. Sherman. That's, that's a really good idea. Okay. No jerk nudity. Not Sherman bridge. I'm sure, I'm sure Tom feels that that's a big highlight. When we have the ribbon cutting, it will be a highlight. Yeah. Oh yes. Okay. Um, so I, I think, uh, but I'll get, I'll get a draft out, uh, the end of this week and, uh, to email it to all of you and, uh, we can start picking away at it. I, we can't do that. Um, cause that, oh, that's right. Yeah. But we did, we did make a motion that you and I could work on it together. Um, so if we can continue on that motion, uh, that was approved, let's, let's you and I just kind of, uh, work it out if everyone else is okay with that. Yes. Okay. Okay. Great. All right. Um, any other topics you want to get to be, I know we have some time left still, but, um, we went through capital budget, we're up to route 20 rehabilitation project, but if there are any others, let me know. All right. Let's start with the route 20 rehabilitation project. Yes. Well, I can speak a little bit about that. So, and you just saw it in the capital plan, uh, we've got $500,000, uh, requested for FY 28. The route 20 rehabilitation project is, um, a project whereby we will be focusing on what I call the commercial corridor, which is route 27 westerly to really it's the Alta Oxbow, uh, complex where the transfer station access road is. So that's the, the limits of the work. Um, it is a project whereby we will be rehabilitating, reconstructing sidewalks, everything in the right of way. Um, and although it's, it's a, um, it's a state road, uh, we are intending to get on the state's tip program. Tip means transportation improvement program. So a year ago, um, we, uh, have a $250,000 was appropriated really for seed money to get us started. We have, um, solicited qualifications, uh, from a number of firms. We had two submittals, which we currently have a project such as this. And I I've done these in, in other communities is that, um, there is a tremendous value in having, um, members of different stakeholders be part of this whole process from the conceptual design throughout the design. Um, and then, you know, really is part of like acting as liaisons during the construction. So we have established, um, or establishing a working group. Uh, we've got a couple of staff, myself and Abby Charest are the staffers. We have a member of the economic development board. We have a member of the select board and, uh, we have a member of the land use department. And I thought it would be practical to have a member of the board of public works. And this group will, um, meet periodically. Um, um, whoever would like to sign up, uh, would, uh, have to make themselves be available for daytime meetings. That's when this group will meet. Um, we'll meet with the designers. We'll be meeting at some point with the abutters, each of the abutters, uh, the property owners, uh, there's a fair amount of engagement that goes on with them. Um, so we are going to be, uh, starting off very soon. Uh, the first order of business for the working group is to evaluate the two proposals that we have, and we will likely have interviews with these two firms. So if there is somebody from the board of public works that would, uh, like to be a representative for the board, they would be a practical, you know, component of this, uh, of this working group. Tom, you mentioned daytime meetings. Is that virtual or in person or either? It would, it would be hybrid. Yeah. It certainly would be a virtual, uh, availability. Yes. Zoom meetings. Okay. Yeah. And it's one of those things where, you know, I would say at the beginning, you know, it's your meeting periodically. You would not have to make every single meeting. Uh, you know, if there was some major decisions being made, we would like the full membership, but, um, you know, there are, sometimes it's just like an update or whatever. So I'm just trying to offer up a level of effort, you know, uh, that type of a thing, but obviously the more somebody can participate, the better.
Yeah. If someone has an interest, please raise your hand. Um, I'd be willing to attend if, uh, if no one else has an interest, um, and, or maybe we could, uh, I don't know how this would work, but if I couldn't make a meeting, maybe someone else could jump in or if, if someone wants to take the lead, maybe I could jump in. Um, how often do you expect to have meetings? I would say on average, probably once every couple of months for an hour, hour and a half. I could do that. Great. Thank you, John.
Yeah. Good. That's great. So, uh, I'll take a motion to appoint John Storer as our liaison, uh, to the capital, I'm sorry, the root 20 rehabilitation project. So moved. Second. Mike's Mike raised his hand. Um, all in favor. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. Ed. Do I see Ed? Ed, uh, you approved John to represent us? Okay. Thanks. And Mike. Yes. Okay. Thank you, John. That's great. Yeah, that's excellent. So I, just so you know, John, probably in the coming week or so, I will be sending out the working group, uh, the two proposals, um, and kind of instructions on, you know, a timeline to, to review them as a score sheet and evaluation sheet that you can go through. And, uh, and then at some point in time, we'll, we'll schedule some interviews. Great. All right. I think there's a couple items I'd like to get to while we're all here. Uh, these are discussions. One is, uh, the, the, uh, credit card fees for water payments. And the second is the municipal rates discussion. Um, uh, which one is easiest Tom, do you think? Uh, probably the credit card. Uh, okay. Yeah. I don't know if I have, you know, a tremendous amount of news, but what I did is I did speak with the treasurer. So background on this is that, uh, uh, we were contacted, uh, somebody was, uh, concerned, displeased, uh, that the, uh, the fee that, that they had to pay to make payment on their water bill using the town's online services, which is city hall systems. And, um, so the DPW has no control over that. Um, but I did have a conversation, uh, at the counter with, uh, our, our town treasurer. And in essence with city hall systems, when you pay by credit card, there's a 2.95, uh, of the, the value of the bill that you're going to pay that is charged, um, as a convenience charge or whatever to use your credit card. Um, it's told to you when you're working your way through the system and you put that bill into your cart, it identifies and says, this is the, this is the percentage, this is the cost. And then you acknowledge that you pay it. And then you get, you get, you know, charge that additional fee on top of whatever your bill happens to be. There is a way to pay by e-check. I don't know what that really is. Uh, it costs 50 cents. So it's a lot less money. Um, so that is an alternative, or you can do it the old fashioned way and either mail in a check or come into town building, bring it to the, you know, the counter, or there's a drop box on the outside of town building. So those are, those are your options, but I think there was some thought that DPW or this board would have an impact or an influence on, on that fee. And I'm not certain that's the case. Well, uh, okay. I understood. I might take exception to that if, if it's charging charges related to the water enterprise fund and water fees, but, um, that, I don't think we have to tackle that right here. 2.95% doesn't sound outrageous. Um, I, so we had faced similar high charges or, or we had faced high charges with the transfer station credit card system or payment systems. Um, and we made a change, um, to sportsman at the transfer station and the, the change was for the much better. Um, so those, uh, those fees went down quite a bit. Um, so I was just wondering if we could look into that. I asked Tom to look into these to see if these were, um, in a similar situation. Um, so this isn't a flat fee of, I think it was $10 or $20 like the transfer station was. Yeah. The transfer station, it was a very high percentage. And I remember it being a culmination of three percentages. It was like two points, something, two points, something, two points, something. They were three. It wound up being nearly 10%. Um, and I, I'm not sure exactly why that was. I think it was just the credit card. I'm not sure if it was called, um, world bank. I think that might've been world bank at that point in time that we were, that was servicing our credit card processing at the transfer station. Okay. Um, so we were to your point correctly, we converted to sportsman and, um, the fees are much, much lower. Okay. So this is, this is city hall systems. This is a, you know, uh, something that we don't, we don't operate. We don't have any, we don't touch that. I understand, but wouldn't we be able to engage with, uh, another payment system if we don't like the one that's, uh, that we're using that's that if it's overcharging and gouging. So you could, um, I, you know, I think what I would do is I would advise the board to reach out to the treasurer slash collector because they're, they collect, we don't collect. Um, so they are the ones that manage that and would make any decisions, you know, and it's the finance director that, uh, that that department, uh, uh, uh, is under as well. So it would wind up being, and it's not only water, it's the, you know, excise tax property tax, all of that goes through city hall systems. So it's, it's all under one umbrella. Okay. But transfer station is not transfer station. Those are, that's called a point of sale, uh, system. So those people are standing in front of you, um, and, um, you know, making payment, although we do have a, we do have a, the DPW, you online store that people can do it online, but that's through sportsman, but, um, it's, it's different from then the collections. It's, it's just, uh, it's a different level of collections. Okay. Okay. Well, again, I don't think 2.95% is outrageous. Uh, it doesn't sound like the near 10% we had at transfer station before. Um, then maybe it was just the size of the, of the invoice, um, which, which, uh, accounted for a large charge. Yeah. They could have been paying water excise property lumping a couple of them all together and putting it into their cart and then, you know, getting that, that fee is attached to it. Okay. So if anyone ends up paying through the, um, new system, let us know your thoughts, you know, your experience, any other questions on that?
Okay. Um, municipal, municipal rates. We were, we were talking about municipal rates, uh, at our water hearing. And when we voted the water rates, uh, we talked about increasing the municipal rate. Um, we decided at the time not to do that because the respective departments did not have that increase in their budgets. Um, uh, uh, before folks start building their budgets, Judy rightly said, why don't we come back to that topic and let's, let's start to at least give folks a sense of where we'll be, um, next year on municipal water rates. So Judy, it summarizes it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I had something from October, 2025 that listed out households versus, uh, businesses versus municipal. And I, I did share that online. I didn't know if we had any more up to date numbers and Tom said not, not right now. Um, but now I was thinking about this over our break, uh, over the summer and I was thinking, well, you know, municipal, uh, entity really is not a household, you know, like you could say to someone as a household, you have the choice to water your lawn or not the municipal. If you're watering a lawn so people can play soccer on it, I guess you don't really have a choice, you know? So that's, that's in my mind, trying to be fair to the, uh, spirit of the entity. Um, does it really make sense to say, oh, you know, you just pay like anybody else. So we have four rates and you get up the fourth rate, then, you know, that's life. Uh, or do we say, uh, what we're doing currently is we're, we're charging the lowest rate, uh, which is actually below our cost of doing business, which again, that does that make sense? Because in my mind we should, I think if we charge municipal, uh, rates at whatever our break even is Tom, is it like 10 bucks or 11 bucks or something like that? Yeah, I, I would not categorize tier one as less than cost. I don't, I don't think any of the, I don't think that's the case. Tier one, uh, is not less than cost. It just, it's, it's the least, um, price per unit in trying to build a tiered system that allows for kind of water conservation. But so I, I don't know that the breakdown sitting here, uh, tonight, what that cost is, but, um, you know, the cost of doing business, um, is not less than that. That's good to know. Um, I think part of the reason we were looking at increasing the municipal rate was because the water enterprise fund was being asked to fund the entire dual source system, both the happy hollow construction, as well as the MWRA connection. We had recommended, I think finance committee recommended and requested that we split those. And I think this was one way of, okay, let's move some of that back to the tax side, um, through the municipal water rates. Now, I don't know based on that there, the municipal usage, how much that will really affect things. Uh, but I think that was, that was kind of where the, where this came up. Uh, I hear you, Mike. And the reason why I thought it was less than cost of doing business is that's my recollection of the discussion when George was bringing it up. So, you know, I'm happy to be wrong. I'm not saying that my recollection is correct. It would be good to get what is the cost of doing business. Um, I do, I, I hear you, Mike. And if we walk through the process of moving some of the costs onto the municipalities, which at least based in the 2025 numbers are fairly low. Um, and I remember us being really surprised at that point in time at whether or not that number was correct. And that's another reason why it would be great. If we could get an updated, uh, number for that particular spreadsheet, Tom, um, so that we could see if we did increase the rates, uh, obviously it just goes to taxpayers as, as part of your, you know, taxes later on. Um, but how does that help us to pay for whatever the cost of the dual source will be? Um, it's hard to do this without any real numbers. Um, yeah, real data. Yeah. But that's, that's sort of the thinking and I wanted to bring it up and we don't have to make any decisions right now, but at least we, uh, should start thinking about it. I don't think, uh, as you mentioned, I don't think the, um, the usage of levels, um, are really going to make too much difference. And, um, but I think maybe if we, if we let folks know that there's a sense that we're going to charge tier two rates, um, then at least that they can have an idea of for what, what to expect or what they might expect when they're putting together their budgets. And I, I, we could probably pretty easily calculate that percent increase because we have the tier one rate and the tier two rates. So we could say, you can expect, um, the tier one rate from last year to the tier two rate this year, um, and give them an idea of their percentage that the water bill might increase for each department. Would you cap it at tier two or would you let it roll as, you know, some of these accounts are quite large, so they would likely go into tier three and perhaps even tier four. Mm. Okay. So for example, the Wayland, um, pool, which I, I understand is public private. What do you guys, what is this structure? It's sort of, uh, it's, it is private. The select board lease the property to the, uh, private entity. So it, it is a, their own, it is a private entity. It's not that different than a restaurant, but I guess what I'm trying to say, um, or is there like they're a charity or something? I don't know. Is there any kind of distinction about the, uh, way it's set up that makes it a, whatever, you know, like, uh, it's a 501, it's, it's a 501, 501, three C nonprofit. Right. Wayland community pool and they lease it from the town. So for example, that's the one thing I can think of that would use a lot of water because it's a pool. Right. So, and they have no real way to use less water because it's a pool. You need the water, but do we really need to be, uh, subsidizing them? Uh, what would happen if we charged them all the way up to, you know, tier four, for example, if we did that, I think we do right now, actually the pool, we actually do. Yeah. Okay. So that's the wrong example. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about, uh, parks department, uh, schools, right. Town building schools, public safety building library. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we don't have a municipal, uh, tier. We just, uh, we charge municipal, um, the same way we charge individuals or households.
Yeah. They're in the tiered system. So they would, they would just be put into the tiered system. Yep. Yep. I think that would be, that would be fair. Um, it would just move some of the cost of water into the tax side for the town. Uh, that means the people who are watering the fields with, again, do they have an option to use less water? That's my question. That happens to be us. Um, I know, I know. Yeah. Recreation actually pays those bills. Okay. Yeah. But then they, if their costs go up, then their user fees go up, you know? So that's, that's how they, they run themselves almost as a business or whatever. So that's how they'll, that's how they'll account for that. Account for that. But the schools, you know, town building, library, public safety building, you know, those are, they don't, they don't have fees like recreation. So it would be, their budgets would go up. And so then there, that would impact the tax revenue required to, to, to sustain that. Right. Yep. So I can, you know, for our next meeting, I can have, that analysis done. Um, I can have a comparison of what those municipal accounts currently pay tier one, and then what they would likely pay. Um, should we release that into a fully tiered billing program? Sounds good. And then if the board was prepared to, to vote on that, because these departments will need to, uh, I know you, you were sensitive to, to being able to notify departments, uh, of that increase. They'll need to know that relatively soon. We'll be getting our directions for the operating budget preparation soon. Yep. I don't know if we can vote on the water rates without having a hearing. I guess we wouldn't be voting water rates, but kind of a policy. No, you just, you would just be removing what you call the municipal rates, which I don't think you have to have a hearing for that. Okay. Yeah. I can check into it, but I don't think so. Okay. My thought is, if you really want to be safe, you charge for the use with a client rate,
so we come out. Some of the time you're part of the charge, the water charge, depending on what's your building assessment, which is not quite right. You know, like, uh, I just use myself as an example. We have a larger house. Originally, when I built it, I'm hoping one of my kids will move back, living with us, but they are doing fine. They don't want to get there. Where is the assessment? We're high. Large pool. Look at the water. We totally use it. Most of the people, because only two of us, you know, there must be lots of older age people, there's only one or two living in a house. So if you, if you charge them water, based on what their house works, which are not, to me, it's not fair. You know, I think if we charge, okay, if you use 10 gallon, we charge you 10 gallon. What's the total budget for the year and divided by the total gallon we use, then you're coming out with what we should charge people. Yeah. And that's, that's how we're doing it. That we're just talking about the like town buildings. We gave them a break with a single tier one rate. And we're, we're talking about no longer giving that break and just having them pay the same that you and I would pay, you know, just for the water we use. Okay. Just myself. I, I really don't care how much I pay because the water is still the cheapest of the ecology anyway. Yes. Cheaper than gas for sure. Um, okay. Uh, I, I'll give one real quick update on the transfer station evaluation update. We are meeting, I already mentioned this, we're meeting next week, um, as follow up to an earlier meeting where we narrowed down some, some of our, um, choices to, uh, like, I think it's three cart sizes and having a transfer station with two or three days a week or a recycling center two to three days a week, or we're doing these comparisons. So we asked our consultant to hone in on certain items, uh, certain options, um, instead of, we had a lot of options before. So we've, we've asked them to kind of narrow in and focus on these and get us more concrete numbers. And we're going to be looking at those next week. So we're continuing to go through that process. Um, Tom, do you have anything to add or Joe that? Yeah, I think that sums it up. We, we've, we have, uh, since our last meeting, there were a number of questions that were raised. Uh, we did meet with the, uh, the consultant, uh, we're able to fill in some of the, the information that she needs. So she's, she's working on, uh, updating all of that again, like I mentioned before, narrowing down the number of options. And so I think, you know, we're getting, getting close to a, uh, a better understanding of what some of these, these couple of options, what the financial and logistical impacts are. Any questions on that? You have a date for a meeting set up yet? Yes, it is the 30th. I believe that's what I have 2 PM. Yes. The 30th at 2 PM. Okay. All right. So I think we can jump back now, Tom to your, your, uh, bullets here. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I know there was, uh, there was an inquiry as to probably, I don't know, a year, 18 months ago, time goes by so fast is that, uh, you know, we were considering the option of having solar, uh, a solar array on, uh, the landfill at the transfer station. And I think the facilities department had engaged tie and bond. Uh, they were looking at, you know, some of the options, some options, you know, townwide. And it was my recollection that there was a very small portion of the, the landfill that was actually, uh, capable of, of hosting because of the slopes and all of that. And I think that a recent question was posed. Is there any activity? And so I did reach out to the, uh, the facilities director and there really hasn't been any recent, um, you know, attention given to that. They've had some, um, staffing transitions. They're fully staffed. Now, um, Mike fair, the facilities director said that this is on their radar screen. Uh, they know that the board of public works is interested in, in being part of that conversation and assured me that, uh, once they, they get themselves squared away, that, uh, that this is a topic that will then get closer to the center of their radar screen and they'll reach out to us. Okay. Yeah. In, in the ask, uh, simply was following up on Judy's ask about a year and a half ago, um, where there, there were issues with the slope and most of the landfill. Uh, so equipment couldn't go on there. Um, just the question is, is there new technology, um, that may facilitate now utilizing, uh, those sloped areas? Um, so yeah, if there is that, that might be interesting. Yeah. That continues to evolve and change regularly. Thanks Tom. Sure. Sure. Uh, Hudson transfer station. So there was mention of, um, the facility that's in Hudson it's owned and operated by BP trucking. Uh, it's a transfer station. Uh, it's a transfer station. It's privately owned, but there was an article about, um, the town of Hudson and some of the financial, uh, things that they were working with BP to, uh, uh, to try to, you know, contract with them. They are, they have a host agreement between BP trucking and Hudson, which makes things, um, a little different than what, you know, we don't currently have that type of a situation. And I was asked, you know, could we, is, is that, would that be an option? And so I actually, I went to the site, visited it and, uh, wrote in the dilapidated roll off truck, uh, was that's where that goes a couple of times a week. And, um, so there, there are some, certainly some challenges just to identify the way that that property operates is, um, they are contracted with a number of towns, you know, 30 or 40 towns, private vendors that come onto the property. They go on a scale. They're weighed when they come in full. And then that truck is weighed when they're emptied. Um, you pay by weight, uh, those trucks then, uh, tip onto a tipping floor. And then that trash is then, um, loaded into vehicles, uh, other, um, you know, uh, dump body trucks that haul it off site to a whole host of, you know, rail stations, to, uh, burn facilities. That's where Wayland strategy goes down to, uh, a group, uh, down near the Cape called sea mass. And, um, you know, so there's a lot of activity, a lot of trucks coming in, a lot of trucks coming out, a lot of queuing. So, you know, they have a scale. Go ahead, Mike. Uh, if I could just provide some context, John had mentioned that, um, uh, the town, um, the town, not only, uh, the town, the folks in town get to use the transfer station free of charge. The town receives a fee to utilize that land. Um, and he said, why don't we look into that? That might be interesting. Um, it's actually a small fee to tip your own trash there. Oh, is it? Okay. So yeah, it sounded very financially, uh, interesting. Um, and so I, I, Tom, Tom gave me his opinion right away saying, I think that's way too large a facility, a much larger facility. And there's a lot going on there. It really wouldn't fit, uh, in Wayland, but, um, uh, he went and checked it out and that's, that's the information he's providing on, um, you know, would, you know, even if this was financially feasible, um, would this be something we want in Wayland? And, and I'll, that's the context I just wanted to provide Tom. Yeah. Yeah. So I think just the, the challenge is, um, you know, I think that there's upwards of 800 truck trips per day on that property, you know, so for Wayland to accommodate that, that would be very unpopular. Uh, so I, I think it was my observations. That was a, a nice thought. Uh, but I don't think what they have there and their operation would even in part would not be applicable to what we're able to do at our property. I appreciate you checking that out though. Yep. Yep. No worries. John, any other questions on that or? Nope. I just, I, I go there, um, and, and get rid of stuff with my, my dump trailer and it's a pretty neat, neat setup. And, um, I, uh, you know, I wonder, um, there's a lot of people that enjoy going to the dump and it would be a shame if it's, um, if it's closed and we've got to use, everyone's going to use private refuse haulers. Yep. Agreed. All right. I'm going to jump off. Thanks, Mike. Thank you, everybody. All right. I'll chat with you later this week, Mike. Sounds good. Take care and thank you for everybody's time. Good night. You got it. Good night. Um, and Sherman's bridge, uh, just a little update on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so we are pressing on, um, all the, uh, the permitting is complete. There was significant amount of permitting that was involved with this. Uh, the bridge materials have been ordered and this is being done in conjunction with, uh, MassDOT. They hold the contract, uh, to do the work. They hold the contract with the materials company, um, us and, and Sudbury, um, are players in this, uh, such that, uh, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's in our towns and we have to accommodate all of this, but much of the, much of the scheduling, uh, and contracted is, is all done by MassDOT. We just met with them, all of us together, the contractor, MassDOT, Sudbury and Wayland staff, met last week. And, uh, we're expecting delivery of the materials, um, first part of November. The MassDOT contractor is prepared to mobilize and begin their work beginning of December. They assure us that, um, weather is not a problem, that they are, uh, equipped, you know, to do this work, uh, in winter months. The, the, the material itself, it really, weather has no bearing on it. Um, we have,
uh, developed a traffic management plan that will be advertised, uh, as we get closer to the, uh, commencement of the project, uh, probably a couple of weeks in advance, uh, between Sudbury and Wayland, we will be providing message boards, detour signs, all of that, uh, you know, project fencing and those types of things will be provided by the towns. It is anticipated that this is going to be a three to four month duration. So the bridge will be closed for that time. Uh, we had hoped to have done this during summer months only so that the Lincoln Sudbury school district, uh, would not be as inconvenienced. Uh, you know, their buses, um, are a primary user of that bridge. So when that's closed, all of those buses will be going elsewhere. Um, but, um, the schedule is what it is. And, uh, so we, yeah, we're, we're prepared to begin beginning of December. It's great. Yeah. Other than the three to four months. Yeah. It's just, uh, yeah. I mean, I, I think, you know, I think that they want to cover themselves. Um, you know, it may be, it may be towards the earlier part of that than the latter, but, uh, they just, they don't want to promise something and then have to go back on that. Cool. Yeah. So we're, we're in a good place. It's gonna, it's gonna, you know, I'm confident that the, uh, the design is, uh, is good. And I think the amenities that are going to be provided and the materials, I think it's gonna, when it's complete, I think we'll all be very pleased with it. It's great. Yeah.
Any questions on that? Okay. We'll move on to Hazelbrook Lincoln road. I'm going to defer to, to Joe only because he's got more of a direct involvement with this. So, uh, Joe, if you want to provide an update to that. Um, a few weeks ago, I think it was two or three weeks ago. We had our subcontractor, uh, remove the top material, uh, Lincoln road from Concord road to Hazelbrook and then Hazelbrook full length. Uh, we replaced it with the spec that TEC and the mass dot had given us, we went through a different vendor. We went through Kimball sand and gravel. Uh, that material went down. They put down a mag chloride on top. It seems to be, uh, working very well. As a matter of fact, while I was, uh, during the meeting, you might've seen me on the phone. I was actually on the phone with one of the residents from Hazelbrook. And I asked him, well, I had him on the phone. It was, it was not related to the road, but I said, how was the road? And he said it was a 10 out of 10. So he says it's exactly what they expected. Um, it's, it's, we've done an excellent job with it. So I give our contractor and everyone involved an A plus on that. That's awesome. That's great to hear. Yeah. That's, that's great news. Oh, Joe, I don't know if you're the person in charge of the fences that went up on Concord road. Uh, they look great. Good. Yeah. We, we looked at that actually, it was probably about nine months ago and I spoke with the resident that brought it to our attention. Um, it was a little bit too much work for us to tackle. So, um, we waited for the fence company to slow down and, and give us a better price and finally got it taken care of. Great. Thank you. Great. Uh, now I think we can move to the review and approval of minutes from our July 28th meeting. Did anyone have any updates for that? For those hearing none? I would accept a motion to approve. No move. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor. Judy. Yes. Thank you. John. Yes. Ed. Yes. Thank you. And Mike. Yes. Okay. Um, no,
let me see. Did we have a concern? Yep. Board member concerns. Do we have any concerns that anyone would like to raise? I had the same concern that, uh, Dave Bernstein had. It was kind of interesting. Um, but I, I would expect if there was any kind of a cyber attack, it would be more for MWRA than us. But as you said, we should discuss that in an executive session. Hmm. Yeah. I'm not sure if I see Don muted and video off, but, uh, uh, um, I mean, I can say that Don is working with our IT director. You're back. Yeah. Sorry. We actually, we are, we are actually actively engaged in ensuring, uh, you know, cyber protection at, uh, for the water, you know, uh, facilities, Don, do you want to add anything to that? Yeah. I mean, I'm, I obviously will not get into any deep stuff, but, um, we, we have gone through a, a cybersecurity review with, um, with EPA. Um, and we are also working with Nick from IT, uh, on a, a, um, a vulnerability scan. And it's really all I can really go into right now, but, um, yes, we are well aware we get the updates from, um, MIMA, um, pretty much daily these days. So we are well aware we are on top of it and doing everything we can, uh, to prevent it. Thank you, Don. No problem. Thank you. Any others, John, Ed? All right. And I think we can set dates for upcoming meetings. Um, Joe, are, are we intending to have a fall tree hearing? No, I spoke with Robert, um, from planning. They have Wednesday, October 21st open and Wednesday, November 4th open. Um, we would have to do like a six or six 30 because their regular meeting starts at seven. So usually it takes us about, uh, between both, uh, groups, you know, no more than I would say a half an hour. So we could probably do a six 30 maybe, uh, you're, I don't, I think the number will be under 50 on the trees. Um, and primarily now it's, you know, I've been working with the, uh, the fire chief police chief and with our arborist, uh, it's mostly dead trees. So I don't think there's any real controversial ones right now anyways. Okay. Um, are we, are we doing any, anything related to the tragedy that happened nearby in Wayland, uh, in terms of checking trees on, um, our parks and that type of thing? So we were already in the midst of doing that prior to school starting. Um, I will say the fire chief took a, an interest in this as well. So we actually toured some of the facilities with him. Um, we had some trees removed, not only internally, but, um, we had stumpies come in and remove some trees on tree on the school grounds. We're still in the process. We've, uh, we've tackled the elementary schools. Um, our crew actually right now, when we worked in conjunction with conservation, we got approval from them to take down quite a few dead trees at the high school, which are, you know, these aren't required for hearing because they're actually just on public grounds, not right away. So we're actually, uh, working on that currently. That's great to hear. Um, one other question, Don, uh, are you familiar with what's going on with MWRA and Weston? I am not. Oh, okay. Yeah. They're, they're doing a ton of work up, um, up off Loring Road, uh, the, the facility there, if you're familiar with it. Oh, yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's the big cover reservoir, I believe. Right. Yeah. Yes. Yep. They have a couple of large fields and yeah. Um, yeah. So I don't, I just thought, uh, I wonder if we should be aware of that or understand what's going on there and, and how that might affect our plans. I will find out. Okay. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Sure. Um, okay. So, uh, October 21st or November 4th, these are both Wednesdays. We usually start at six, so we could do six, 615 or 630 at, you know, just as long as we have enough time before they, they get their meeting started. Um, do either of those dates work better or are either not feasible for folks. Can you say it again? October what? October 21st or November 4th. The 4th would give us just a little bit more time to get all the information out. Um, but I mean, I could squeeze in the 21st if we had to. Um, I mean, I'll get you the tree information prior to that so you can see them where there's still leaves on. I'm assuming the nor'easter doesn't take them all down this weekend. Uh, so I prefer the 4th, but I'll let you guys make the decision. Both days work for me. Yeah. And the 4th works fine for me too. So yeah, you're good. Okay. Why don't we shoot for the 4th for that one? Uh, November 4th. Does that work? I'll reach out to planning tomorrow. Okay. All right. And then our next, uh, standard date is the 20th. Um, for our next regular board meeting is, does that work for everyone still? Yes. Excellent. So anyone else have anything else they'd like to, I have a conflict for November 17th. Okay. Um, but a next time.
Yeah. Should we do, would you want to move it to the 10th or the 24th? Well, probably the 10th right away from Thanksgiving. Uh, I have a conflict. Okay. All right. Yeah. Let's talk about that next time. Yeah. All right. Um, cool. All right. I will, does anyone else have anything else? Are we good?
Hearing none. Um, why don't we take a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Thank you, Ed. Um, Ed, your vote. Yes. To adjourn. John? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ed. Judy? Yes. Mike? Yes. All right. Thank you, everyone. All right. Very good. Thank you.