Sewer Commission - Regular Meeting

431.

All right. Welcome. This is the town of Darien. Sewer Commission regular meeting of Tuesday, July 7th. We're calling the meeting to order at 431 p.m. in person in town hall. All right. First item on the agenda is to review and approve the minutes from June 2nd. I have no problem. Uh-oh.

in here was talking about the problems with the rodent

It's on page four at the bottom.

Yes. N-O-R-T-O-N. Oh.

Oh, God. That's an important one. N-O-R-T-O-N. Yeah. F. Norton. Subject header.

Norton. Ed. Ed. Comma Ed. Well, who is Dyleen Bird?

Dyleen Bird.

I'm glad someone got it. That's it, right? She may not be from Darien.

She was the one who did the name.

Yes. She was the lady who, for a while, was actually present, taking minutes. That's the same lady.

Yeah.

No, that's it. That was it. All right. Peter makes the motion to approve the minutes with one edit.

I'll second.

I'll second from Susan. Any further discussion? All those in favor? The minutes of June 2nd are adopted. Do we want to do this one now or do you guys want to push it to the end of the meeting so I can leave? Either way, I'm happy to work out.

It's fine to push to the end.

Push to the end?

Yes.

It shouldn't take very long. Okay. We're going to take the agenda out of order, and we'll do three after new business and before adjournment. And we'll get going on discussing the sump pump removal policy and how things are going. And you know what? Yeah, let's just do that for now. Yeah. The floor is yours.

Okay, so I had a long list there, so it kept growing. So let's start with the changes that were made from the last meeting. Of course, as I usually do, I make the changes, highlight them in yellow for yourself so they're easy to find on page one of three. I didn't know if you folks had anything else you wanted me to fix. This is the final versions as they stand with me right now. Anything else you see that I may have missed? Things you wanted to talk about?

On page 4A, one of three.

I think the one change was to the interest rate.

That's adjusted, yeah.

I think we also moved the amount.

yes we did yeah it's just i think the last meeting we had the wrong we set the wrong interest rate for the end of the day i think it's good i think the numbers 75 is good we want it to be lenient we want it to yeah we want to get it done yeah i think i took better notes last time to be honest with you uh on page four a three of three yeah first highlighted bullet If applicant is currently B on, so maybe we just delete the word B.

Got it.

I think that's right. So that's okay. So that's 4A. All right. Commissioners have further comment on 4A. This is a good draft for now until we actually see somebody ask.

Sure.

And I, honestly, something like this, I don't know if I, I wouldn't ask you to vote without Reese here. Yeah. We could always get a meeting if we had to, but making sure that all five of the commissioners are on board is important to me. Okay. Especially with something this particular.

And it's not time critical.

No. No, it's not. So I just made some changes there in yellow that we had spoken about. So I want to make sure to keep you up to date on that.

Yeah. Oh, what's the reason for 3 1⁄2 by 8 1⁄2?

11 by 8 1⁄2 is a standard piece of paper. We're just going to print three of them. We're going to cut them and put them in.

Okay.

Just a little savings on money in simple format. So kind of change it up a little bit.

This looks different than the last thing.

Well, I was kind of thinking that when you pull something out of an envelope, if something is smaller and kind of loose, it may catch your attention. So that's where I was thinking. I didn't know. But then again, I've been called bizarre before.

Only when it makes sense.

The majority of the time.

So if there's no comments on that one, the 4C. I gave you three samples that Marley helped significantly with, to be honest with you. And I thought they were a really good start and they turned out to be even better. But we did some color changes to see if there's anything you folks caught your eye. And they're simple changes, but they're

I mean, I like the first one.

I will, to Marlee's defense, she liked the bluer ones, only because it wasn't as, you know, the hard red seemed a little abrupt.

Is that why she boxed it in blue on the second one?

Yeah, I put a little red around the blue. So maybe we can soften it that way. I personally like the red lettering, but that's just me.

I like just the plain red lettering.

Yep. Now, under step one, the VisitDairyNCT.gov, there's three hyphens. Is that the way that would read? How do I submit a sump pump compliance statement as three different hyphens, or is that a drafting issue?

I thought they were three separate bullet points there. Okay, they are.

I'll check that. I actually went to look for the letter, which I didn't find. Thank you for sending it. Then I found the one I got. But I did find the compliance statement on the main page under how do I.

Yes.

That just gave you the compliance state.

That's correct.

But is there another submit page?

There is.

So I think these are pages.

Okay, so there's three different pages. Okay, so that's correct. When you read it like this, it seems weird. But as long as that's true. Because it almost looks like a sentence. Yes, exactly. How do I submit something? It is a sentence.

It reads like a sentence.

It is a sentence. That's why you kind of wonder. But I know that I found it under how do I.

In terms of content, is everybody comfortable with the content? And, you know, you can continue to wiggle the graphics if you need to.

Is there a period after due?

Go past due, where is that? Top, right under reminder. Oh, that seems like a headline to me. Okay.

So we're going to send, how often will we be finding people if they don't return them? Is it biannually?

I'm sorry, I missed the last sentence. Is it by?

In here it says they will be sent biannually as compliance statements. But if they don't return the form and we do start to eventually find them, how often will we find them? Every month?

I think we talked about finding them per statement because we give them a time frame to return.

We give them 90 days. If they don't respond, we find them.

There's a fine. And the schedule I put together is we're going to send out two of them. And if you haven't responded by the 90 days of the second one, you're going to get fined for both of the statements you did not return.

And then when you haven't returned one, in what period of time? Six more months?

I think it would require us to send out another one. And I thought we talked about doing it biannually after that point.

We could always increase the frequency.

I think it should be more frequent than that. If people haven't responded and they're getting fined.

So I think we should get through the plan, right? Well, then let's not put down six months. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's just say compliance statements will be sent

Periodically.

Periodically. And that way we can determine the schedule as we go. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Sounds like 4C is all right. Any further discussion on 4C?

4D. I had a request, and this is where I wish Reese was here because he was aware of this too. We had a request from a town attorney that we establish. An attorney in town. Attorney in town. Thank you. If we could make the database available to everyone.

So it would be easy for people doing real estate transactions to check whether or not there was a compliant statement. Yeah. The ask is with good intent. It is.

Well, I think it came June. She actually sent, because Rhys from Turkey, he kept telling me about this Amy's Apothecus thing. And I was like, I haven't seen it, Rhys. It's not in our packet. I don't know what you're talking about. So he forwarded me the email. your response on the 29th. I believe on June 11th, Amy wrote an email to the members of the sewer commission. And it was because at that point in time, she couldn't find out. She had a closing, and she couldn't get the information. But it sounds like now you've got everything organized so that they can call in and find out.

What I was able to tell her was that we haven't logged them all in yet. We haven't gone through all of them, but as of this point in time, we do not have the one you're looking for. that's all I could tell her and I told her going forward right now until we decide if their database should or should not be available I said you can continue to do what you do with sewer laterals are you hooked up to the sewer they come to us or they call us even and we are quick to pull out the lateral file and see if it is or is not are they on sewer or are they not we will give her the same type of service now with the statement too because now that we're able to see it quickly and it's not a whole lot of people looking for that information, but there are.

I think this is a good seed to plant. Obviously, it's in a significant state of flux right now as we're kind of building. So this is not the right time to open it up until we've kind of got through a bunch of it and synthesized it and corrected it. And I like the simplicity of just calling and asking or showing up at the counter and asking. But over time... Town Hall tries to be more online and make it easier, and it might be something that we consider when we're ready to.

Oh, I think that, yeah, we can have the lateral files just like you can look at it. I mean, I think that should be a long-term goal. Absolutely.

There's certain information I hold near and dear to my heart. Underground utilities that services private properties are one of them. And I don't know why I feel that way. All I know is that it's... As a property owner, I take personal property very, very seriously. So that's the only reason I try to be very... selective on who gets certain information like if you came in and asked for an overall map of the sewer the town of darien you better have a really good reason for asking me for that because we have locations for pump stations on there we have manholes connections connections to schools critical facilities all those things are on there i'm very skeptical unless you really need that and why are you trying to protect might want to cause it ill well that's what we told the um freedom of information commission when we met with them on that one example where there was a resident asking just for that so i'm just you know that's just me you're a bit conservative on i am i am there's not a whole lot of people that need sewer information well again i don't think the question needs to be answered now no i think it's a worthy question to have out there and as long as you're willing to We do it now, but I do like the fact that some things you can look up online and not have to bother people. That would be great for me. If it was 25 of them a day, it's more like 25 of them a year. So the magnitude of where our impact is, can you weigh that against the privacy that I'd like to keep for our sewers? Just my spiel. That's it.

Well, as of June 23, there were 80 meaningful property changes. So there might be 160 or 200 a year?

Yeah.

Well, I don't know, 80 since May 11th.

Since May? Really?

Well, actually, Kathy Larkins was the one who pointed this out to me. She pulled the data sometime at the end of April. So she gave me the ones from April to May 11th. And then from May 11th on, the tax collector, no, the town clerk has been sending me property transfers. So I've just been entering them in in case we ever want to know who actually got the affidavit because you're going to lose that information if you're working off of the tax collector's database.

It is an interesting question because ultimately, and Reese talks about this a lot, that's a great place for there to be a check when the property is transferred. If the local attorneys are trying to do right by their clients and protecting them in that regard, that's helpful. We would want someone calling 600 times to check.

Right, and kudos to Reese and to Amy for advancing this as quickly as they did.

But can there just be a simple database that says whether or not there is a compliance statement? You don't get to see it, just is there one or not.

Three columns we need, address and yes or no.

Because that's what they need to know. I don't know if they need to know. If they need to know the details, they can come in and show face.

Well, I suppose they might need the details if someone had something connected to the sanitary sewer as they tried to sell their property and they said, yes, no, we filed one. Okay.

So let's put it under the, it's a good idea. Yeah, it is. Not right now, because we're in flux, but it's a good idea, and we should talk about it when we're ready to talk about it. Thank you. Anything else on 4D? No. 4E?

4E. So as we're getting through these forms, compliance statements, and putting them in the database, so I'll tell you that we've received 2,800-ish responses.

So another 800 since our last meeting?

We have 25% in the database now. And now that we're updated as far as we can with it, I will get Susan now the data. Actually, while I was on vacation a week and a half ago, they had finished putting everything in. I wanted to check it. So I will get you the data on a thumb drive, and you can input data to your heart's content and take a look at what we've found. Now, the reason I put item E on here is you're going to see things on these compliance statements. you're going to not see things on this compliance statements. And let's start with signatures. And some of them didn't come with photos. But we're logging them in. We also have part of the database that says, okay, what didn't you do for us? So that it falls into a follow-up and we can pull those things out. Give us the ones that didn't have a signature. Okay. Darren, take these 30 now and call these people back. Email them back because we have email. We need signatures now. And the part, what I'm asking is, Is it important as far as compliance go to have a signature on this statement? I know what my opinion is. I'm asking the sewer commissioners what their thought is.

Yes, it's important. It's an affidavit. You can't have an affidavit without a signature and a date.

We all kind of felt the same way.

We have a lawyer here.

That's a follow-up item. And I think, and I'm asking this because I know we talked about it. Okay, now we're finding it.

And 30 to 40 of them I think we have so far.

Some of them just sent back the front page, but not the back side when they sent it.

It's not complete without a signature.

Having it on one page is very nice.

Photos?

Again, if there is a sump pump and you're trying to show us where the discharge is, I would say yes. It's not complete without the photos.

And would you substitute an as-built plan from a recently built home instead of the photos?

Well, who's certifying the as-built?

The engineer and the surveyor.

the ones who would have put in, connected it to the sanitary sewer?

No, that would have been the plumber, most likely. I don't want to quote that, but what generally happens with some of these, there's a couple, one guy brought in, his sump pump was actually outside. And the as-built showed the sump pump outside and a set of drywalls in the back specifically for the sump pump. And that's what was connected. That's where it went.

And so you had a sump pit and you had a little pipe going below grade out of the sump pit. You don't know where that's going. And then maybe you have a little inspection for it at a drywall. How are you going to take pictures of that in the first place?

Yeah. And those are few and far between the as-built part of it. I think it's more signatures and photos. And we're shy on a lot with photos.

I mean, I would say it's not complete without a signature. To me, the photo thing was trying to make it super easy, right? Even if you have an as-built, if it's obvious and you can see it, take some pictures of it. I think then you get into the edge cases. Well, it's not really visible, but here's an as-built that shows where it's connected. Okay.

And we have some that we're getting from the sump pit. It comes up out of there and goes right out the foundation wall outside.

That's okay.

And I've told them, give me a picture of the pipe going outside, because I'd say 95 out of 100 times, if that pipe goes outside that foundation, it's very rare that it's going to be connected to the sanitary sump. Because as I sell to most plumbers, go the quickest and easiest route, which is the sewer right over here.

So I would say signature is 100%.

Yeah.

Pictures are, we'd like pictures of, if it's observable and visible, we'd like pictures. And use your judgment for the edge cases.

All right. Thanks, everybody.

Nothing.

Just some reaffirmation on what compliance is in your eyes as we're getting more of these in right now?

The photos make the consumer or the user be more educated to their system, which I think is a good thing. Okay.

Thank you. All right. And the last one was a... Something that came to me in the middle of the night, and I say this because when you start thinking about all the stuff that we're doing right now, and I'm not 100% for this, it's just a thought, as we go through with this disconnect piece, people are telling us, we've gotten people to say that they are connected to the sanitary sewer. As I've told a couple of you folks, they say... I am connected to it. I'm going to have it disconnected and then send in the form. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Send me the form so I know. We're just tracking it. We're trying to see what the impact is on our sanitary sewer. And please, go right ahead and disconnect. And let us know when you're done so I can do that. Some of the folks we're coming across that have some other issues or outstanding issues, some of them may not return this down until the end of the 90 days or maybe close to the second end of the 90 days. Is it, because of the amount of work we have to do to now follow up on some of these, is it really six months enough time? Or not just for them, but for us? Or is a year more appropriate? Now, I can see both sides of this, and to kind of throw this at you folks, a year seems like a long time to me. It really does.

My initial reaction is... So I would hesitate before changing it from get it done in six months. But there is an option, I think, in the language, if I am recalling, if they have disclosed that it exists and they write us a letter and say, I know it exists, I know it's connected, I am going to work diligently on getting it disconnected, but I've got a XYZ in design and plumber and, you know... So I need a little more time. Can I have 12 months? I mean, make them write the letter.

Okay. Well, I can't split the difference. I think a year is way too long.

Oh, whatever. I'm just saying we shouldn't change six months. If they want more than six months, they should send us a letter and say, I need a little more time.

Right, exactly. Come and request it. We're pretty easygoing.

And I'm leaning towards if you ask me for more time so not every single one has to come in front of you, and I think you allowed me to do this, was, okay, I'm going to give you three more months, and if I need to hear from you, either you're done or you've run into a problem and I want to know what it is, but it can't go on forever.

So why don't we empower you? when requested, with a reasonable request, to give them another three months if you think it's reasonable. If you don't think it's reasonable, you can have them come to us. And if they can't do it within the six plus three and they need more time, then they gotta come to us. Does that sound like it makes sense?

I just see as we get to the six months and I pull that list of, give me all the people that are connected. Okay, I've heard from two out of the 200 OK, folks, where are you? Those type of things. And that's what's in my head right now. But let me get a better handle on what the numbers are looking like.

So this is a little bit like you're kind of flagging this. This could be tough.

Yep, or not. You want to move on to the superintendent's report?

Are you ready?

I'm ready. Let's do it. 56. All right, so phase three rehab. They started doing, this week they started doing.

I'm sorry. I'm actually going to interrupt. version of the cover letter and . You first. I made a motion. Who's second?

Bob's second.

Bob's second. All those in favor? All right, we are in new business to discuss this.

What prompted this? That's my question. What prompted Jen to rewrite this?

I think they just like, you know, communications to look and be consistent with some.

I think this is the first time I've heard of them interjecting themselves into any commission's business.

Who did this?

The town administrator, right?

yeah um i will go back in time i think i when i got the email from jen um i did let craig see it to see how we should proceed but i it's been it was a while ago she had gotten a lot of phone calls that's what i'm asking yeah they got a lot of phone calls at the selectman's office regarding questions about the statement how do we fill it out and i think um at that point in time and they did forward their calls to us and we were handling them they had an opportunity to take a look at the statement They are looking at making all of our documents look the same, if you will.

The sewer commission documents or all commission documents?

Town documents.

So every commission's documents will now be running through administrators?

No, no, no.

I'm just curious. No, no.

I think in general, they do have an initiative that if there is official communication the other official communication from the town now this is not an edict saying no one can send a piece of paper out without us having the graphic design on it it's a you know general goal to make things look consistent not just with the sewer commission they're going to be going to planning they're already doing this oh it's planning and zoning i'm not saying they're going anywhere and making people do things i'm saying that this is but they're reviewing they're they're missives

Is that what you're saying?

No. Like the building department, they're going to send something out? Literally the way it looks, the font, the header.

I'm simply asking, are they doing this with the building department? Are they doing this with the tax collective?

They did it with every department, right down to our emails on how they want our names. I'm asking.

It seems kind of intrusive.

they call i think it's good i think they called it branding which is the brand for the town should be should look the same from everyone's from their perspective that is controversial okay i but i i i consider again us a semi-autonomous part of the town so i don't i don't agree with it don't agree with like that that we should look exactly the same as anything else okay

we're supposed are there are times where we're not in lockstep with with the town okay so i understand i have to fix this one this should have been like that when i when ed asked me about her email i said hey we've had a lot of eyes look at this i thought it was a done deal i'm happy to have someone else's eyes look at it give us any suggestions they want that was as complicated as it was for me

had some suggestions about helping us put together the fillable form online would it be easier how is this changed how is this changed from the other one i mean in the text what did you change yeah a red line version would be helpful yeah it would have helped me too yeah i had to go back and read and to be honest with you was just it more of language And it went from one page to two.

That's the letter. And I'm not happy about the letter being two pages.

That's crazy. I did express the idea to try to keep it to one page. The only reason the form was on two pages is because of the way our signature rolled out.

I love their new form being one page on the front, signature right below. I like that. The two page letter where now they're getting into all of this explanation that we decided not to put into the letter. because we've been telling them for five years they've all gotten this information over five years i don't know if that's necessary yeah yeah that's what we're talking about well that's the old one and that's what we're yeah i will kind of shape it as helpful suggestions

I don't think they were trying to be intrusive. I really don't. I think they are trying to try to make the documentation that comes from the town, and it does come from the town, sewer commission part of the town, generally to look the same.

I mean, graphically, I like the way this looks.

Me too.

I did not go through it word by word to determine if it was exactly what we wanted.

I really haven't given it a hard time. Other than to look at it and say there's no date on it for documentation purposes. I sent them out with the dates printed on them. When I sent out the letters, yeah. So you knew which one it was? I knew when I sent it out, so I knew when your 90 days are. You can't tell me you didn't get it.

That was going to be my next point. The compliancy schedule is 90 days, but 90 days from...

Wow.

And it can't be ongoing every time you send this out. It's 90 days.

The same thing with the letter. I put the date right at the top, nice and bold, so we all see when it went. There are things that need to be looked at.

We don't have to send out another one of these until November, October, whenever it is. But I am all for making things look better, making things read clearer. So let's take the next...

weeks and carefully look at these so are you changing all because basically with the letter you're just talking about stationary so is all your stationary being changed to be a standard format for the town everybody's stationary is now going to instead of having even our details and stuff on this in the middle and like that it's going to now look like this they wanted to take they took our letterhead and moved it and put our names on the other yeah they

They wanted it all to kind of look at the top, look the same.

And every department's going to be the same. Every department, now their letters are going to not look like this.

I will not speak for every department. My department will last.

So I can follow up then with them.

There's no reason not to. Sure, why not?

Great.

What are you concerned about? Do you think they're singling us out or something?

I don't. There's some stuff that's happening that I'm not on board with in town government. So I'm not going to get into specifics here. I'm just saying. This makes me nervous. Now all of a sudden we're being boiler plated to... To me it's a... And especially since the sewer commission is completely separate.

Just to be annoying, I think they ought to reduce the printing. Yeah, we want this on one page.

And people will never read it for sure.

Yes, absolutely.

I agree completely with that sentiment that this needs to be one page.

I just think our letter was fine and if they want to move if they want instead of have action required be larger font with an underline and asterisks on either side they want it to just be plain and they want to change the letterhead for the town I get that but I don't understand why they have to rewrite our letter completely well look it again if they got a number of phone calls Well, that's what I asked.

And they thought, hey, I think maybe we could say this better. Sure, give us suggestions. We'll consider the suggestions.

But they need to come in and explain to me what were the problems that people have.

But they're not. We're the deciders. We get to look at this.

But I might decide, yes, you're right. We should give them more information. You need to come and tell me.

Okay. I mean.

Do you know what I'm saying?

No, I feel like my impression is that you're being defensive, and maybe you have good reason, as you've described. I just thought, yeah, give us your suggestions, and we'll take a look. To me, it's as complicated as that. Like, it's anybody, any other editor reading a document saying...

So you don't care why they decided to add all this extra verbiage in? To me, it's important.

Well, I would like a red line version. I don't know what they added or didn't add. I haven't compared them word for word with the other.

Okay.

Oh. A comment that I have, I wonder, how many we send out, 5,000? 526. And I wonder, how many squawks did they get compared to how many they didn't get? I mean, were there three people that called and said, oh, well, now we've got to do something?

I'm all for making it better. They had a lot of people calling in and saying, oh my God, why are we doing this? We have no clue. What's the problem? Why can't you just keep doing what you're doing? Meaning that they never read anything that we sent them to date.

There's always new people moving to town. There's people that didn't pay attention before that are paying attention.

I have a different perspective. There was a problem with our letter if they called the first electors office. There you go.

There you go. Yes. So what's the problem?

So we need to differentiate ourselves from the first selectman's office. That's what I'm saying. They shouldn't be calling them for an answer about the sewer department.

Oh, I think people do. The header says Town of Darien Sewer Commission. It has the sewer commissioner's names on it. And it has the phone number and email address for the sewer commission of the Department of Public Works. Okay. What else can we do? Well, I just want it to be one page.

So I think some of this verbiage has to go.

commission as appointed by the Board of Select.

But then if we're worried about the few people who are calling the Board of Select and changing it for that.

I totally don't understand this. And hey, I'll give up. Fine. Let's not change a thing. I don't care either. I'm just saying, like, if some of this language helps us read it better and others read it better, we should adopt it.

Where did they get this information from? I love a red line version.

This came in two days ago. I got a note.

That's what I'm saying. Where did they get this from? Is this because they had 500 people call and say, we have no clue what you're talking about? Why in the world would the Sewer Commission need to do this? What is the problem? What are they doing over there? If they haven't gotten those calls, then I'm not sure I want to make it two pages.

I don't want to make it two pages. I think we vote two pages down. Thumbs down.

I mean, it's probably six people who are friends of...

Whoever.

Whatever. Whatever. I couldn't believe you got a number of calls, and then they decided to read it, and maybe they were confused when they read it, and they thought, huh, maybe this could be explained better. And I don't take offense to that.

So did they get the information from you about all the INI and all that stuff? Did they come to you for that?

If we want to be truthful... then they should the people should watch our meeting to help them and that means it needs to be included in the selectmen's letter on friday for at least the second time we were omitted that is true well so don't we don't want to play tit for tat but i do want to amend our letter if we need to look guys i i see this as we are all on the same team we are all trying to provide a service to our

the town. This is not territorial and I will not get any wrinkles anywhere if I'm in a letter or not in a letter or remembered or not remembered.

So I have direction? Yes.

I'm going to review the documents. Redline version. Prefer one page. Prefer one page. Review for content. Review for consistency across the two. Thank you, Ed. I will take care of that. Great.

I have just one last thing.

So Peter would like this to be.

Could we find out what they changed and why?

That was my question.

Probably the cover letter more than the form.

I love their new affidavit. Now it is one page. I love one page.

They've got to find out what's not there.

But don't put the letter on the other side. Two pages. Send them the letter and the compliance statement. Don't try and save money by printing the letter here and the compliance statement.

I would never want to save money. I would never do that.

Okay, fine. I would always want to save money, but that's not where you want to save it.

No, I'm only kidding. I hear what you're saying. It's better to have the two separate.

Okay, we have two pieces of paper here.

Not a problem.

Because if somebody's not going to turn it over, they're not going to turn it over. Okay, so we'll revisit this.

Is that right? Okay.

So do you need a motion to go out of new business?

Do we? Yeah.

All right, make a motion. Please. To close new business, I would think. Make a motion to close new business.

And I'll second.

All those in favor? Aye. All right, back into the superintendent's report, item number five.

Did you vote on it? 4-0, was it?

Yeah. Everybody, yeah.

Okay. Good to know. We all wanted to get out of that. We all wanted to get out of this. All right, let's do some good stuff because this is getting good. Facey Rehab, they started this week with the lateral CCTV work and cleaning. That was this week. Next week, they are starting the main line lining. That will start on Monday. They have completed all the manhole frames and covers with the exception of one location, and we're working on that one. That is phase three. Any questions on that?

I got a question. I have a manhole in my driveway in Naropa Bay. Is that scheduled to be done something to it?

I could find out. I'll let you know. I just wondered. We have over 90 of them, so I'd have to look at the plans.

That's not in the Stony Brook sewer shed, so I don't think it would be in Phase 2 or 3.

It shouldn't be, but we are... Actually, it could be part of the Phase 2 engineering. Oh, the I-9? We just started doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You may need access to it.

It's partially covered with mud. Oh. Because it's... I don't know. When they did it, they put it at the low point, and... Well, it just is. It is what it is.

The manhole doesn't bother you in your driveway, does it?

Pardon me?

The manhole doesn't bother you. I asked that for a specific reason because we have one manhole left to get access to. having a little discussion with the property owner right now.

I mean, it doesn't bother me really. That's good to know.

I can actually say there's a sewer commissioner that has one also, but he understands completely why it's accessible. But I can understand people not seeing it for 25 years and all of a sudden it pops to the surface.

That manhole is the end of the line. That's an important one to us to have.

Phase 2 I&I, we pulled all the meters. We are looking at all that. We got the data from flow assessment, so we are looking at the I&I data. In about two or three weeks, we're going to have it completed, the analyzation of that completed, at which time I was thinking about August, having at the August meeting, where we generally do the rate comparison. I'd also ask if we don't have any... And we shouldn't have any appeals. Lindsay would like to come in and kind of update you on where we are in the phase two engineering, if you'd like. Up to you, folks. We did it last time for phase one.

Yeah, when she's ready to talk about the results of the INI and what some of the findings were, I'd love to hear that.

Okay.

Yeah.

That would be a good time.

That sets up the, you know, where are our hot spots looking forward and where our next improvement phase, rehab phase is going to be.

I think it would be something I'd like to hear and kind of guide us to the next.

Because that also sets out when they're going to start doing more on-the-ground testing in terms of flow visualization and flow tests and things like that.

Yep, that's exactly what she has planned right after. She'll be able to talk to that and tell us what's going to be next. Good update.

All right.

I will have item C on the rest of our agendas until we get to September for the public hearing, so I do not forget. Okay.

We need to have a public hearing for that?

It should probably be a reg change.

Oh, okay. It's part of the appeal process. If we have an appeal process in our regulations and we want to make a change to it, I think it has to go. And public pool locations and discharges. I have an active list of about... I have, right now, nine locations that we have to look into. Right now, actively, three or four of them I do have information on. The metering for those happens to go through Joanne. Joanne has been out of work.

I just checked. She's still not back.

Yeah, six weeks. She's coming back on Monday.

Well, how many of those do we meet her?

That's what I want to get. I want to get you some accurate counts on what we do on each one of them, whether they are allowed to discharge like the YMCA is allowed to discharge to the Holly Pond. We all know they have a pool. We know where it goes. We also have a meter on their discharge pipe to ours, but they don't discharge that way. They are allowed to discharge that way. So Bob was nice enough to give us a list. Darren had provided me some background on some of these, so I have some locations to look up, but I do have to do a little bit more homework.

How do we do this on the existing pools?

Sure.

And nine public pools. Wow. Yeah. That's a surprise.

Public meaning that whatever the number is, more than 30 people have access to them or something like that, whatever the definition of public is.

So that's where I am with that. I know you had brought that up. I just wanted to mention that, too. I'm still working on that a little bit. That's it.

Can I just jump us back to F, which is the disconnection in one year versus six months for a minute? If there are areas where we're going to need to put in new stormwater piping, we should be taking that into account and not holding them liable if they're waiting on us to do some work.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that'll be, when I find those, that'll be a discussion we have at a meeting. I'll bring you up to speed on where we are, what we're doing, and what we're bringing to the table as far as design services, construction services, anything like that. Where I came across a neighborhood that actually has houses on both sides and I have no storm drainage at all. And this is just something. I think we'll find a couple of those.

Yeah. anecdotally uh order of magnitude how many uh folks are reporting that they're connected tens singles no they're the tens that i'd say if i had to take a while because i knew what it was about two or three weeks ago before i went away um

Maybe 15, 20 of the people have reported them. I've come across and discussed with other people on the phone or via email that they were connected. They wanted to know what to do. That was the, no, no, send us the statement. So I can track that as, yes, it was, now it isn't type of thing. So I think we're less than 50 right now. We got the easy half first.

And we have half of the people responded so far.

How many? How many responded?

About half, 2,800.

50 so far? Less than. Probably the ones who haven't responded yet. Oh, yeah.

It would have an increased index in the back half, I would say.

I'm getting that. Yeah, the easy ones. I'm getting that impression. But then again, we all thought we would get the low-hanging fruit rather quickly.

That's what we're prepared for. We're chipping away. We've already cut the problem in half, right? We've already... It's cut in half again. Keep cutting in half. What did we figure? 10%?

What did we figure? What was our estimate?

Some pumps we were higher, but connected to the sanitary sewer, if you had to throw a number, I'd say 250-ish, whatever that is. All those? You know, I'm not thinking that we're going to have 1,000 connected to the sanitary sewer.

We're not going to hear about them. Is that what you're saying? Or you don't think we really have?

Let's say everyone was to respond. My gut is telling me now, looking at some of the responses, and even the conversations, and people finding that, oh yeah, it really does go outside. I think our number is gonna be maybe closer to the 250 to 500 range, or in that category. Five or 10%. Yeah.

And all of that is producing all the water that's going to Stanford?

I don't wanna quote Rhys, but he says, four sump pumps create blah, blah, blah amount of water.

Let's remember, right? There's a lot of pieces. Some homes is a piece. The lateral from the house to the street is a piece that could have little cracks and leaks and things like that. Our system is a piece, right? We only addressed the hot spots in one sewer shed. Now we're looking at some of the other sewer sheds. So it's not just one thing.

But didn't we pick the sewer sheds that we expected to have the most leaks in?

We focused on the Stony Brook because that was the genesis of the threatened lawsuit because that was the force made that had the problem. So we focused on the Stony Brook. We did the I&I within the Stony Brook. And then we focused on the hotspots that the I&I said we should focus on. You get bang for your buck, right? There's, quote, clean sections or tight sections of the Stony Brook. They're still leaking a little bit, but they're pretty good. They're not bad enough to go line pipes and things. Water is always coming in.

How much water do you think we're going to be spending just because of leaking in our own system once we get all the sump pumps removed? What's that percentage? It's double now.

If right now we're sending 2x water to Stanford, if we get rid of all the sump pumps, What's left over? What's my guess?

Yeah, I'm just curious.

I don't think sump pumps are more than 25% of it. Okay. Of the line. Okay. They're less than that.

So we have some real problems in our system.

Oh, yeah, yeah. We've been spending millions of dollars. No, I get that.

But I thought we were going to see a bigger improvement.

Answer that question. Spotlight and everything. I was able to give Craig some numbers. I just started putting together the rate comparison for this year. So I'm pulling numbers. I went to pull the overall flows to the city of Stanford and had to project June, but it was pretty consistent with the last couple of Junes. So we're down about 15% again. That's two years running. That's two years running. That's terrific. So then I call Steve Toscano, who is our supervisor in the field. I go, can you, because he fills in these numbers, can you fill it in so I have the numbers? And he goes, yeah. He goes, let me tell you about the storm. We just had two and a half inches of rain and what Stony Brook is doing. We generally run at 0.8, 0.9, or 1.0 million gallons per day. It's running at 1.1 right now. And we just had a two and a half inch storm. He goes, normally, it would be closer to 2. 1.8, 1.75, 2, depending on the intensity of the storm. This one stretched out a little bit. So he says, I'm seeing a lot of really good results as far as our pumps now.

That's terrific.

It's not a specific result, but it is an indication that we are seeing a positive result.

But it was an indicator that there was a problem, too. So now it's an indicator that... We haven't even finished phase three yet.

So I think we're going to see something. It's good evidence that what we've done so far is producing results for us.

Oh, that's good, because... I don't know if we'll get all of some of them.

I just think going to the table with the city of Sanford next and negotiating our contract, I think showing evidence that we've invested almost $6.5 million, $7 million into our sewer system, and we have a small system in comparison to theirs, should gain us some traction with reducing that percentage of what we pay.

The other people that you were speaking to when you were at the water conference, was Lindsay there with you? Are they in a similar position, do you think, to needing to get their own infrastructure fixed?

I think every town that presents usually presents on some type of, there's quite a few I&I studies or infiltration studies or how do they fix the horse mane study. So there are a lot of smaller towns, coastal towns with older systems that have the same problems we do. What they don't have, though, is the funds to do it, to really go in there and repair it. But when they do, they do see significant results in the work that they're doing. So obviously, you have to find the money or you're just going to spend cleaning water for however long. So I think what this commission did in 2019 was project for 10 years a way to manage and address our system. And in 2029... I think we're going to be in a better place than we thought we were going to be, to be honest with you.

Well, my hope is we can be a model for other communities to show this is what we put together. This is how we went to the town. This is the message that we sent to everybody.

And we didn't just handle the easy stuff. We handled some of the hard ones, too, as we've seen in the last nine months. So we'll just keep pushing ahead. I am determined when I leave here to make sure that percentage is lower than when I started here to the city of Stanford.

Well, Reese is determined for you to get some kind of an award.

What's that?

Reese is determined that you'll receive some kind of an award.

No accolades. No, no. I want to see it in numbers. He's got a costume in mind. That's what I want to see.

To wear to the awards ceremony.

No. I have a couple of koozies ideas.

I'm good with koozies. All right. So that's where we are. All right. So let the minutes show that I am leaving the meeting. I have one quick question.

I have one quick question for the superintendent. I don't believe you've ever mentioned if Anthony's position has ever been filled.

Mention what? I thought I did. Yeah, I thought you replaced it. Two months ago.

Yeah. I thought I did. But I won't mention it again. I'm sorry. Maybe I did and you... Maybe you weren't here for that part of it. I don't know. I know I did, but we did fill Tony's position, I think, to Cohen's position, engineering aid. We hired Alan Hyatt III.

Oh, you did mention it, because I know Alan Hyatt.

He comes with a background in construction management with AP Construction. He went to Eastern Carolina, and he's working on it quite well. Great. We put him through the... test and where he's learning on the run but he's been a great addition to the department as much as he's learned so far he still has got a lot to learn and we'll teach him as much as we can as fast as we can.

Institutional knowledge is like gold around here.

It definitely is. You have to show him where everything is hidden. All those notes. But yes I'm sorry if I did not mention that but I thought I had. That's great.

uh we good with superintendent's report yep okay so uh we're gonna head back to item number three on the agenda uh and i am refused from any discussion or action on that matter uh so i'm going to depart the meeting

Mr. Hill is in charge. Mr. Hill is in charge. We will adjourn the meeting once we're done with the topic. I'll come back. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Okay. So the answers that were on page section 3-1-1 The ones from Redness and B. I don't agree with them. Especially number three. The one about using the circulation pump for lowering the pool. We were speaking of 365 days of lowering the pool. And there, having been a pool professional that held an SP1, which SP is swimming pool, 1 is you're basically a mechanic, and SP2 is the contractor. You're not going to use the existing pump in freezing conditions. You're not going to energize it, use it, rewinterize it. So his answer is, I'll be nice, say incorrect. 60 gallons a minute, it seems a bit low for a pump, but I haven't looked at the pump curve. That only comes out to 28,800 gallons in eight hours. And in eight hours, they need to turn the pool over. In other words, they need to filter all the water that's in the pool. That's a state reg. It's an eight hour turnover on a commercial pool. So I don't know the depth, so I don't know the total gallons of it. It's neither here nor there to me, but I'm just saying it seems like it's kind of small. So do you think that 60 gallons a minute would cause any issues? No. Okay. But if they are going to be sending the water through a meter and they're doing it during the off-season, I don't know exactly how, even if they were to put a submersible, I guess you could put a submersible pump, a flexible hose, and somehow connect to the meter piping, it would be an interesting, I could picture it in my head, it would be kind of, jury rigging it, but there's a possible way to do it.

If the commissioners would like us to direct them so that we are capturing that water properly, then he would have to make a connection for us.

But this is the way they want to do it. We proposed a flat fee for the entire year and they basically flat out denied it. So they want to go through the rigmarole and the thing is they need to make their service company aware of this. Because having done service for 18 years, I wouldn't be, it wouldn't, you would incur an extra expense because it's gonna make them seriously take a longer time to do service on the pool. Especially when you're completely draining it to use the system. I mean, I don't know how many of you are familiar with what happened in New Canaan. When Tesla went in the pool. I saw the pictures. Well, they emptied the entire pool by tanker.

Yes.

That pool, I calculated out of my head, it was 630,000 gallons. Online it says it's 660,000 gallons. So divide 660,000 by 5,500. They took it out tanker truck by tanker truck, did whatever they had to do, and then filled it the same way. So I wouldn't want to pay that bill. It's got to be $400 a load each way. So that's quite.

So could we, in number three, could we just say rather than using their circulation pump, they must bring in a pump? Because you say they're going to bring in a pump. So we just say the pump you bring in has to be whatever you think is good. 40 GPM?

No, no, 60. Oh, 60 is fine. I got a question. Yes.

With what they want to do, is it illegal, it won't work, or what? In other words, I mean, I presume they're running a business. I mean, whoever.

The condo association, or the apartment association, or the pool company, who are you speaking of?

I'm speaking about the person who's responsible for emptying the pool or filling the pool.

Well, let's go back to who's responsible for the pool is. I got to believe the association and the owner of the property are the responsible parties to handle and hire responsible companies to do the work.

And that's a business.

That would be a business. But right now, Peter, we're dealing with the owners of the property and who are responsible, quote-unquote, for the pool and the discharge to our system.

All right, so what I'm trying to understand is, from what they propose to do, is there anything that they propose to do that is... detrimental to our system? Maybe not most efficient, but is it detrimental in any way to our system?

Okay, the way they proposed it, no. But is the way they proposed it the way it's going to happen? I can tell you with absolute certainty no.

Well, who would be responsible for inspecting that, you?

We would go out and- A pool company wouldn't do it like this. No, I understand what you're saying. The problem that I have with it, I mean, if it's a business, and they're going to say this, that they're going to do ABC, then it seems to me they have to do ABC. I mean, now, Bob thinks they're going to do AB and one-half C or something like that. You know, I don't know how we can impose, you know, as long as they do what they say they're going to do, I don't see how we can impose something on them to do something else because, you know, they're running a business.

Wait a minute, are you saying you don't see how we can enforce?

Oh, yeah, you can enforce ABC.

Okay. That's what they say. Okay, that's what I'm asking, so that was my question.

But we cannot say to them and force them to do A, B, C, and D. No.

I think Bob is looking for A, B, C. He's just worried that the pool company, that these people are not going to be there at the time when they're going to be emptying the pool. It's going to be two entities beyond this.

I mean, if they propose to do A, B, and C, and that does the job, then... we have to have a mechanism to make sure they're doing A, B, and C. What is that mechanism?

I agree with you, and I agree with Bob, too. I mean, if you don't have communication from the owner who's agreeing to work with us and do what we're asking him to do so we're collecting the information and billing him properly for the use, the fear of it not getting to the worker bees on the ground, I can see that. It happens a lot. So how do we tighten this up So that the owner knows he's going to be held responsible, so is the contractor, and this is how we are going to set you up to succeed. How do we do that? And I think, to your point, Bob, how do we give them enough safeguards so that they don't mislead us or they are not informed or so you're you are the expert if you say that you don't think they can use a circulation pump they think they can okay let them think they can but give us a secondary place for them to run that pump that they would drop in the pool to pump out Okay, and I think you know that the size of those are pumped. That's not going to hurt our sanitary sewer one bit. We've talked about that at the last meeting. So if you say, yes, you can lose circulation pump, and oh, by the way, you need to provide a secondary connection. that they can tie into that circulation pump, and it's before the meter. That has to be in place before we'll allow you to tie into our sewer. And I'm just thinking out of my head, I don't know plumbing or I don't know pools like you do, but I'm just trying to think, how do I capture everything and give them different solutions to whatever their problem may be when they go to empty that pump. And we still capture that water. They don't bypass us. They don't open a manhole downstream and they dump it in. We can't have that happening. And if that means I've got to lock that manhole, then we'll put a locking manhole on it. But those are the things I have in my head. How do I get them to be able to do two different types of pumping out of there, and we still capture it, and still your concerns are addressed also at the same time.

Do they have to make a report?

We have to go. All we have to do is we have to go out and we have to read the meter. Now, if that meter comes back, it's zero. Then there's something wrong. Right. I mean, they've got to be using they've got to be discharging something through here.

They have to. Well, I mean, could we require them to make a report?

Keep a log. We made. I don't remember which group I was with, but we had the Country Club of Darien keep a log on when they lowered their ponds before a rain event. They had to keep logs. I don't know if we can do that.

At Woodway, we go and read the meter. If the meter is not working or you haven't kept it up, we charge you for the whole water bill for their pool, their water meter bill. I go, you gave us no choice. If you don't keep your meter functioning properly where we can make the subtraction for you, then we have no choice than to charge you for the full.

This is like the grease pits, right? Like the grease traps. Yeah, you have to keep records along.

I mean, what I'm...

uh what what i'm concerned about as long as they're not violating the law and they're doing what they said they can do we really can't interfere with that business unless they start not to do what they said they were going to do and the way we're going to know that is from your meter that's the only way i see it doing now peter violating the law is putting water into our sewer system

And bypassing the meter? Well, that's violating the law. You're stealing services, basically. Yeah, right. Which is why I suggested, hey, any other connection you may want to use because you can't use your filter system to do the discharge, that has to be before the meter, and that's something we have to tell them they have to do. We have to go and inspect it and make sure it's there.

Well, if that is the measure of their compliance... And, you know, then that's fine. You know, what more could we ask?

I don't, I don't, I think that's, me personally, I don't think there's anything else we have to ask.

If they wanted to have a large funnel that runs down there and they take a book and do that for two million hours, I mean, that's a business decision.

As long as it's going to the sewer system, aren't they required to pump it to the sewer system?

Yes.

They can't pump it to the stream.

Not anymore, no.

If they hooked up to the sewer system and they choose to do it with a teaspoon, it would never get done.

But they better put it in before the meter because we need to track that as it goes through.

But what I'm saying is, You're saying teaspoon facetiously. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. To me, them saying they're going to use this circulation pump as a former swimming pool professional, that is as facetious as you saying a teaspoon. It doesn't make sense to me.

Okay. But what makes sense to the commission is reading that meter.

Well, now that we know that that's how we're going to be able to judge it.

Yes, that's what they want. That's the way they want to do. We proposed a flat fee with safeguards about GPM and... I see. they instead have said that our rate is obviously too high that they want to put a meter in and that they're going to do it with the circulation pump to keep underneath the flow.

I forgot or didn't know they were

Wanted a fixed rate We propose that was it 225 or 250 I 250 a year a year Yeah, I think that they're pumping is going to be less than 250 you really interesting to see if that's true I think we're gonna find out we will because you're gonna have I mean, I think we have to find out It's a good.

It's a good chess case Okay, 250 what?

$250 for the year to use the sanitary sewer, which they have to. To empty their pool. And they're objecting to that. To backwash their filter and to lower their pool when they winterize it and all during the off season.

that's a word it seems like a bargain if you're not happy with the letter that that in there what would you like me to take back to them to to finish this i'd like to wrap this up i really didn't expect this but i was when i opened this and saw this response i was well i think we have you need to go back and say i don't need a secondary literally i think you have to say there um

course of action is unplausible because to use the circulation pump during the off season, which we've looked at this paperwork, it's the discharge. Once rainwater goes in the pool, it becomes pool discharge. So it's the water from all year long has to be directed into the sanitary sewer.

So, Bob, whether they said they want to use the circulation pump or the widget pump or the teaspoons, do we care how it gets into the sewer as long as we capture it? As long as they're doing it legally, I think, to Peter's point.

We don't care, but we cannot accept an unattainable plan.

An unattainable plan is one with a meter.

No. To do it the way they want to do it. literally you would have to set up the pump in the spring use the pump use it for the season at the end of the season you're going to winterize it so it won't freeze then each time the water level comes up during the winter you're going to reactivate that pump you're going to use it and you're going to re-winterize it the cost associated with that is far past the $250.

So what you want to ask them is for an alternate plan, because the sense of the meeting is that this won't work, to re-energize your circulation pump.

It'll work, but it's not economically feasible. They're not going to abide by this after the pool company sees it, because the pool company's not going to do this.

So, Bob, would it work during...

regular warmer days like during the summer yes spring summer and fall and it would work when the pool is in operation what they're proposing will work during the winter time what is their plan to address the water even when they're just going to winterize it in the fall because in the in the fall when when i was doing swimming pools you would come up to the pool We would put a, we had a trash pump, gas powered trash pump. You'd put it into the pool. It would start drawing water out. You would now go over to the filter system, start draining the filter system and start blowing it out. And you had a number of operations going at the same time while the water was being lowered. Just for absolutely for the sake of time, doing it the way they propose, If the water level is three inches onto the tile, it would take, I wanna say, it would take 30 minutes just to lower the water down to the bottom of the tile. Now you have to get it below the skimmers at the very least to be able to winterize the pool. You cannot winterize the skimmers with water continuing to go into them. So that means that you'd be using a half an hour know kind of standing around doing nothing you're gonna be you as a pool company are gonna charge out for two people more than more than what they're gonna save from what we propose the 250 225 or 250 thing so i just don't see this as being A realistic plan.

That they'll be able to follow in the winter.

Well, you could follow it, but it's just not going to be economically feasible. The pool company is not going to do this.

For whom? For whom? Who is not going to be economical?

The pool company would have to charge a much higher amount of money than they normally would. To whom? to the property owner. Then it's gonna, I just don't see the, it's gonna continue. I see shortcuts happening because of that. So I cannot in good faith. What's the effect of those shortcuts?

Yeah.

When they stick the three inch pump in there and they turn it all the way up, that's 330 gallons a minute for a three inch trash pump.

Oh.

That's what we want to avoid.

Okay. Do you think it's possible that Redness and Meat doesn't have a clue about how swimming pool maintenance really happens?

How about this?

They don't realize the unique set of skills I have.

How about setting a maximum?

Discharge rate. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with, I'm trying to stay away with and Bob, you're there because you've done this, but I'm trying to stay away from means and methods for these guys, but putting limits on things. Peter, that's a great idea. You can't discharge more than 100 gallons a minute. out of this any one pump i don't care what you put in there but it can't be any more that or you could possibly have an impact on our sewer system number one or the meter that we have in there number two but um if it's i don't care how you get that water out of there and as long as it's not faster than whatever we tell them the limit is um and it has to be before the meter i don't i don't care if you use a teaspoon i don't care if you use a bucket i don't care can you put an alarm on that meter an alarm that if they go over Well, I think we have to stipulate pump side or pump discharge limits. I think that's a way to handle some of that.

Yeah, I mean, but if you said, just to name a number, you said 250 gallons a minute and they go to 300, how do you know? I mean, aside from reading it, because after the water goes over the dam, I mean, well, look, Florida's over the dam. So is there any way to, you know, you meter other things from a distance.

i know maybe it's probably not worth it to do no you're not going to be able to do that but you need to you need to be able to know that you're going to you're not going to pull in there and they're going to have two three inch trash pumps running at full bore doing 320 gallons a minute each because they want to be out of the sanitary sewer because they want to get out of there in an hour and a half how big a pipe would you need where are you going to discharge those three inch Pumps too.

They're going to pop a mantle. I could cure that. I'm just telling you what they're going to do. I guess if we have to be specific about that, we could do a ton of different things. They could discharge it to the creek until someone complains they have pool water coming down there too.

They could, but then they've got to deal with DEEP. And if they're discharging it into our manhole, they've got to deal with us. But I'm just saying... As someone who did this, it's not, this plan is not realistic. I mean, I, I, I mean, I could deal with it this way, but you would need to, I would have to set up the pump and then go do something else and come back. I'm not going to stand there and wait for the thing to pump. So, I mean, there are ways, but you're not going to do with the circulation pump. Because at some point in time, that's going to start to suck air and you're not going to be there.

We have to, it seems to me, our job is to say, okay, you can discharge up to 250 gallons a minute.

And if they... And it has to go in before the meter so that we can read the meter once a year and charge you appropriately.

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, if you read the meter here... and they discharge more than 250 gallons a minute, and you read it there, you'll know it, right? Over time?

They're not, as soon as they find out what, you'd have to put a, what, four inch, five inch meter to have two, three inch pumps pumping into it at the same time? As soon as they find out the cost of that, they're not gonna do that.

Yeah, but if you use a meter for 250 gallons, they couldn't put 350 gallons through it.

I don't know the size of the pipe coming from the filter system to our sanitary sewer system. We'd want to use that pipe to make the connections because it's right next to the pool.

If we were to charge some $250 and they agreed to $250, how would that impact how they were draining it?

There were still gallons per minute because we don't want it to disrupt the process in our pipes.

No, I get that part, but they still need to...

They would not have to do the meter.

Oh, I see. They don't need to do a meter. Oh, okay.

But the gallons, the flow that they're putting into our system is still a major concern of ours.

Right.

And what... Literally what I would see happening, the pool company come up and do it as quick as possible. Get it in there, close up the evidence and hope that the town didn't show up in time.

Yeah, I can see that.

I will tell you what in my younger days I would have done because you had things to do. You didn't have time to do this pie in the sky plan.

And you only give the swimming pool workers so many hours in the winter anyway, if you're a swimming pool company, because that's what I did.

Yeah, I'm more thinking of when you're in the fall, when you're winterizing it, and you have more work than you can do that you're given when you leave in the morning, or I was. So I just don't see this as a plausible plan. Does the plan break any rules in its presentation? No. But is it a plausible plan? No. So how do we accept an unplausible plan?

Well, I ask once again, can you size the pipe going into a meter? So it will not accept more than, sure.

Yeah, you put the meter, it only handles X flow, that's all. Right.

What would happen if you tried to put more?

It backs up.

It backs up, okay.

It backs up. Creates pressure. And then they say, we can't do that. Now, then as Bob says, maybe they go out and put it down a man floor. or put it down the storm sewer or but i mean you think but if they do that look both of those things we've agreed to that they're breaking the law yes and somewhere along the line uh uh but we can't allow them

We can't allow them to set them up for failure, though.

Well, I'd like to go back to them with some comments so that we can help them succeed so that we can all move on to another topic here.

Well, is sizing the pipe properly a solution? Peter's suggestion?

I think, yeah, no, we tell them that the size of the pipe, no, the size of the meter.

Meters are designed for certain flows and they're designed for certain pipe sizes. The other thing is, just so you know, you're going to have a pipe, a meter, and then they have to have an air gap going into another pipe. You have to have it, yeah, you have to have an air gap because you're not going to have a back, that's going to be your... You won't be able to measure the flow without it. the meter but you have to have an air gap in the in your discharge it's i'm almost positive it's the code just i'm just mentioning it you're talking about so the sewer doesn't back up into the pool yes

Oh, is that like a check valve, like we all have in our houses now?

Yes, but it's more foolproof. If you've ever seen a water spigot on a pool, you know, the ones under the diving board that go like this, the reason for that is it's a built-in air gap.

Oh, okay.

But yes, you can size meters, but as you get bigger and bigger meters, they're also a lot more expensive.

Well, what size meter would you propose? Do meters match up to 16?

I don't know. The odds are the normal discharge from a pool is either inch and a half or two inch. So I don't know the gallons that those would accommodate. But all you have to do is you have the pool pump, You have a valve, you have a port that they could put a submersible pump to discharge into there. Then you have the meter, then you have the air gap going into the pipe that goes to the sanitary sewer.

So you would like more detail specific to what you just said?

Yes, because that is a way that I could see the plan succeeding. The way they're proposing, I can't see succeeding because I can't see them energizing the circulation pump during the off-season to pump the pool down, which will gain water because of rain and snow.

So I'm going to take it up to 30,000. You're down at 2,500 feet. At 30,000 feet... You're looking at their plan, and it is good for eight months out of the year, nine months out of the year, and you feel that you'd like a little bit more detail.

It's good for four.

Four months?

That's all the pools open.

Well, that's true. They close usually, yeah.

June, July, August, and maybe a little bit more May and a little bit of September, four months.

Yeah.

The other times where the pool is not open and you would believe that it would be winterized, you'd like to hear what their plan is. so that we can be a little bit more informed about the discharging of the pool water when this filter system is not functioning.

Correct? Yes.

Okay. And I can guide them a little bit with that from what you just described of having a secondary connection for a submersible pump before the meter, and I can guide them with direction also with the flow max that those pumps can do. That's it. Okay. Because I'd like to give them to, I want to keep pushing them to the end because whatever we do here, I may want to use at other locations. And I'm trying to get a better understanding of what those things are.

That was going to be my next question. So of these other nine pools, what kind of systems do they have?

Some of them have been in place since before 1990. I believe it says 98. 98. So they may be grandfathered into certain discharges.

Oh, okay.

I don't know it to be true, but he had mentioned that, and I need to look into it.

I could have swore it said it in here. All right. It says right here, for any public swimming pool constructed after July 1st, 1998. And I know I can't – was it the one that – Across the, there's two condos. There's the condo that used to be where Wagner Pool is. That is one of the pools. There's the one that's diagonally across the street. It's something with a, I don't remember the name of it.

Villager Pond?

Villager Pond. Those two were both before 1998. Okay. Middlesex Common, next to where the old library is, was before 1998. Okay. country clubs were probably the country clubs were were i don't know if they've done sufficient enough work since then to consider them to have been built after 1998. that would be my only consideration with the country clubs um kensit is newer yes this pool would be newer the y would be older

Well, they've put in a new pool.

Avalon is right in that neighborhood, 98, aren't they? It was 97. Ooh, 98. No. I should remember because the company I work for built it, but I can't.

I think it was after 2000. Darren was around as they were putting that in.

I think it was after 2000, only because we saw it on EPC, and I didn't start it.

Okay. So I need to do some homework on the other pools. What I'm trying to get to is I want to give them direction. And I want to keep pushing this to the finish line. So I will give them that direction to come back with another.

A plan for the off-season.

I think that's appropriate.

Maybe just mention to them that this might not work.

And some reassurance that we're not impacting our sewer downstream by putting a limit on what the pumps can discharge. And you're right. They may show up with a three-inch pump and throw it in there and discharge it wherever you think. And I will do my best to make sure that there is no manhole anywhere near there that they can get into it.

Would it be acceptable that the first time they do it, that they have someone from staff be there to observe how they're doing it?

I think when they go to get their CO for that clubhouse and stuff like that, I'm going to want to see that the meter is in place. Yeah, go ahead and run it because I want to see it move.

I want to see the meter, you know.

It's not a whole lot. I'm not saying pump the pool down. I'm saying show me that it's working properly. Show me the secondary connection for your submersible if you have to use one. And show me that it's accessible to the normal person. Don't make him climb down under the thing and underneath the clubhouse and crawl on his belly underneath. Make sure it's accessible. And then Darren and I will make sure that there's... So any sanitary sewer mantles that are in there are not easily accessible to have somebody that is not knowledgeable of this agreement go and use it inappropriately. I think that's a lot.

How do you lock one? Do you have an actual lock?

There's four bolts in them, and you screw them in. It takes a while to get them undone.

Okay.

All right. Now there's one other caveat that I will tell you about. In the skimmer. Do I need to know this? Yeah, you do need to know it because it's kind of a way that they could skip doing the winter draining. Okay. And what they would do is have in the bottom of the skimmer, there's the suction hole and then there's a secondary hole that's molded into it. They could have a plug there that they take out so the water drains into the ground. that is not legal according to this they can't do that absolutely cannot percolate into the ground but if we don't see anything on a meter we're going to know they're doing that Here's the thing. But I'm just giving him the heads up. I'm giving him my inside knowledge that they're going to not know that he would know.

If, of course, the town staff has ever come across or does come across situations where we believe that there is something nefarious going on with regards to any type of regulatory body, federal, state, or local, we, of course, let those folks know. And that's what we would do if we thought something like that was going on and we either had evidence of some kind that we could bring to those regulatory bodies. We would do that. It's not like we haven't done it before.

I'm just giving you some of my pearls of wisdom.

I appreciate that insight. I'm just thinking, they think that number is so small, 250 was too much, that why would you risk getting yourself in trouble by doing something like that? But obviously you've seen people do things like that. We know that now. It's because it's time.

is what it is. It's time and money. The pool company wants to get in there, get it done. Literally, I could have went in there and in an hour pumped the pool down, blew it out, and put the cover on. And using the system to do that, it's not going to happen.

Okay. I have my marching orders.

It's not meant to be rude or condescending or anything else. It's just the plan won't work.

You have the gavel.

Yes. Oh. So moving to item seven?

Moving to item seven. Peter? Yeah.

I move that we adjourn the meeting.

Do we have a second? I'll second that. All those in favor?

Aye. Okay.