Board of Health - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Littleton. This is the Littleton June 10th Board of Health meeting. This evening, I have myself as the chair, Matt Wason, Libby Donegan, Dan Cain, Francis Tangle, and Kevin Baker coming to you live-ish. Into your living rooms. Okay. The agenda has been posted. Let's start that again. Hi. Hi. Welcome to the 7 o'clock meeting of the Littleton Board of Health. This is Kevin Davis, your chair, bringing you the June 10th meeting. In the meeting, we have Kevin Davis, Matt Wason, Libby Donegan, Dan Cain, Francis Tangle, and Kevin Baker. In case you already saw us on the live, they just started the recording, so we needed to make sure that that was included in that. All right. Our first agenda item this evening is a discussion on the private will Well, regulations that was sent out in an email. So if everybody wants to pull up that document and somebody want to share that on the screen, that would be very helpful. Francis, if you wouldn't mind bringing us up to speed on where we left off, that would be wonderful since the last time we tackled this was a while ago. Thank you, Dan, for bringing it up. Much appreciated. Okay. Francis, if you wouldn't mind.

All right. So for this conversation, we're going to be looking at page 12 and on. for water quality. I don't know if it'd be a full discussion. It just seems it would be a good idea to at least somewhat discuss what we want to do for water quality, whether testing should be annually, whether it should be a certain number of years, also what we want the testing increments to require in terms of what it tests for, including PFAS.

Okey-dokey. So we got here, constructional well has been completed, disinfected prior to using it. These look like no changes have been made from the, okay, where we got this from to bring people up to speed, if I remember correctly, Francis, was these were a set of model requirements that we got from the DEP site. And so now we're reviewing those and making sure that they apply to Littleton appropriately and making enhancements as we went along. So scrolling down. Right. So we've gone through, we've specified out the specific PFAS. Does anybody have any comments on the first three there, first four? Yes, Libby.

Not necessarily on those, but I was wondering why VOCs wasn't included.

volatile organic chemicals, which specific volatile organic chemical would you like to have in the list?

Just like the chemicals that are in like gasoline and things like that.

Okay. So these are the specific tests that you're going to have. So you want people to test for those VOCs in the drinking water.

Yeah, I think if we're testing for PFAS, I don't know why we wouldn't necessarily test for that.

Okay. Francis, do we have any language where we can draw that from?

Yes. So I guess that's part of the larger conversation is how in-depth do you want to get for these testings?

And as we add tests, the expense of the test goes up. Correct. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. I did a little bit of poking and I saw that some of the tests, you can sort of bundle the PFAS and VOCs.

But the cost.

Yeah, it is an added cost if you were to do it as a separate item. According to one of my sources, it could be like $100 to $250 every three to five years.

With the PFAS, it goes up to over 1,000, though, I think.

Yeah, that was VOCs alone.

Yes, Dan.

Per the CDC website on their drinking water guides for testing well water, they do include VOCs as one of their recommendations.

Perfect.

So as far as a citation of a rationale, that is probably at least a reasonable starting point.

Sounds like an amazing starting point. And I would assume that the DEP also has language for that, Francis?

They probably have a guideline somewhere online I can pull language from.

Okay. It sounds very reasonable to have that there. Matt, comments? Kevin, comments?

No, yeah, just as long as it's easily obtainable through testing of all the other items, which I assume it is. Obviously, yes, it's a cost, but I assume anywhere you're going to go for all the other ones is going to be capable of testing for that as well.

Dan is being brave and editing live as we go.

Everybody can see how badly I spell.

Yeah, exactly. That is awesome.

As in compounds.

I have another question.

Yeah, go ahead, Libby.

Do we know how many people in Littleton have private wells?

We do not.

And would we, out of that number, how many of those people would be on fixed incomes?

That's something we're not able to find.

So we would have to work with the Water Department in order to try to get somewhat of a list going. That could take a while, but it's definitely possible. It doesn't mean we're going to catch all of them. And there's people who have secondary wells as well. But the number is not really large, but it's not just a handful, obviously.

So one of the things we had talked about earlier was going to the water department and saying, we obviously can get a list of every address in town, and then we can say, okay, water department, what are the addresses that you have that have... what is that called, water service to. And then we can say, oh, look, okay, we can do a quick exclusion and say, look, here's all the people that should have wells because you don't have water service and are down. So that should be an easy way to do that as well. I don't know if the water department has everybody in a well, but what the water department does have also is a list of people who water their lawn from a well so they don't get a ticket during um non-watering times and so they also have that because those are the people that have the secondary wells so i think if somebody wants to volunteer to go do that that would be a wonderful task to go off and do um but we could um i would say work through francis if possible to do that to correlate that stuff, uh, let Francis make the request to get, because that's the better route to kind of go off. Sounds like an intro project. Yeah. And that's the other thing. And that would be an amazing intern project. Cause I know we have an intern. Um, the other thing that has also come up is, uh, previous time is that we also wanted to do an intern project to, uh, create a geodetic, uh, layer for all of the wells in the well locations and um i have confirmed that some of my contacts at uh framingham state university are willing to work with our interns uh to go off and do that um so uh if we ever decide to go down that path they are more than willing to help out with the interns okay so what was there anything else we wanted to add to that list before we moved on

So for the VOC testing, do we want to make it regular as part of regular testing, maybe annually, or should it be under certain circumstances like sale of a home or?

The recommendations that I saw were like three to five years or if you're within 10 miles of something like an industrial facility. Okay. Or like a gas station, if you live near a gas station or something and you have a wall.

So my question, I'm not disagreeing with any of that. This is just going to, these are just the water quality requirements. We haven't gotten to how often they should be tested. Right?

Yeah.

Correct.

Okay.

Okay. And the vials drilled into bedrock. The board of health requires an additional And then grow something right on. Yep. Got it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Perfect. Okay. All right. Are we good up to B? Everybody good? Going once. Going twice. Okay. All right. So then let's go to B. This is the maintenance and the monitoring of existing wells. This is where we had a discussion last time. It's recommended that every owner of the drinking well have the water tested annually. At least blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we get into the At least every 10 years, homeowners should test for all the parameters listed in three. We should probably, yeah, three of these results should be compared. Okay. So before we go any farther to subsection one there, how do people feel about that?

I'll just start talking. I appreciate the fact that we're not making it a requirement, but it is a recommendation. I think perhaps what we should do is in lieu of we were just talking about when to test things, because every 10 years doesn't feel right for some things and annually doesn't feel right for some things. So I think perhaps a table of recommended cycle for testing. for testing, but since it's a recommendation, this isn't a requirement, I think that would just be most helpful. And the language there says kind of if you don't have problems year to year, then you can probably stretch out your testing cycle on some compounds. So I think that's the only thing that would help is just kind of a table there for recommended time of testing of these items.

Okay. That sounds like a great idea. Does someone want to draft something like that in the document and put that there for our next meeting? That is definitely a board member thing. Good job, Libby. Libby's a volunteer. Awesome. Thank you. Much appreciated.

My only other thing is that that very last sentence does say the Board of Health may require More frequent testing. So I think that's the first time the require word showed up. And that's when I was like, well, wait a minute. All of it's a recommendation for homeowners to test. So is the Board of Health stepping in to require if there's something else going on? And if that's what we mean, then I understand it.

So I think what we need to do is, Dan, get ready for some suggestions on formatting. The at least every 10 years merge with the previous paragraph and separate the Board of Health may require more frequent testing into a new paragraph. So that's like calling it out so you see it more. Does that make sense? How does that feel? I like having that there, by the way, because I want to be able to basically what that's saying. This is the escape clause that even though we're only recommending it, the Board of Health, because of other issues that we may find coming from other things, may require you to test your well. Because, like, say, if there's upstream PFAS happening and we know that PFAS is most likely there. we would want you to get PFAS tested, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So that's what I'm asking what this sentence is about, because what it says is it may require more frequent testing, not may require testing. What you just described is you want an out to be able to say the Board of Health may require testing in areas where it deems that is appropriate. And I would say I appreciate, as the well owner in this group, I appreciate that you want an out, but you're giving yourself a blanket out with no definition.

So how do we want to bound that then? I'm asking. Libby has an idea. Go for it, Libby.

I don't know if I have an answer to that, but if somebody has like a leaking septic, then I feel like we would want to test the water sooner. Or, you know, if somebody's selling their home, we'd want to test the water. So we may require it.

Selling of the homes down farther. So that's real property transfer. That's a different thing. So good idea. Hold that thought.

This doesn't relate to that section then.

Nope. Okay. Right. This is just calling out the yes, like where other quality problems are known or suspected to exist. I'm just coming from the side of you like protective to say like, well, what is suspected to exist and what are you going to require of a homeowner out of that?

I hear what you're saying. I would like to leave it broad so that way if there is an issue, we can ask people to go do this testing. Okay. It's not asking, it's requiring. It's requiring. I caught myself. But I believe we need that in there. Kevin Baker, Dan Cain, opinion?

Two things. One, the recommendations are great. I have, I'll be honest, I have a little bit of a procedural challenge with recommendations in a regulation. Regulations are thou shall or thou shall not. This is a you should, which really in practice don't really have a place in regulation. Saying you should do something is not a regulation. It's advice, it's guidelines, it's lots of things. It is not a regulation. So I have a little bit of a concern with recommendations, at least structured as this, in a regulation. That being said... I agree that I think we'll get there with rentals, leases, non-owner-occupied places, as well as on transfers, like we do Title V. We'll get there. I agree we need some kind of language. that we can require, but we need to, rather than broad, I think we need to be pretty specific if we're going to issue an order to a homeowner to, we are ordering you to conduct $1,000 of water testing, we better have a pretty darn good rationale or we better be supplying the testing. One, there's certainly plenty of folks here in town who it's, you know, bothersome, but not a problem, but for many people, a thousand dollars or fifteen hundred dollars worth of water testing because we have a feeling it is not an adequate response and i think anybody pushing back on that would have a right to a reasonable argument to push back on that i'm not sure that being said i'm not sure the best way of making it more specific what that trigger is we say it needs to be tested again you have an 18-wheeler full of gasoline dumped in your front yard, that's easy. It's, well, there was a PFAS bloom at Russell Street School, and you're downriver. Well, okay, how far downriver will we go? Like, there's so many, like, where's that line? And the regulations that are just kind of, eh, are hard to support.

Okay, so if we found it, Kevin, I see your hand. Do you want to go now, or can I make a quick statement? OK, so if there's like if we bounded it by saying there's an actual emergency or something like that, we could say, you know, additional testing may be required. All right. I hear what you're saying. Yes, Kevin.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's public knowledge that there are levels of PFAS in our groundwater exceeding federal levels and that we should require people with private wells to be testing.

Understood. We had... Go ahead, Dan.

I was just concerned about the whole unfunded mandate kind of thing, is that we're requiring it. I agree how important it is, and I'm not trying to minimize... I think you guys all know I'm all for safety and all for making sure it's right. I'm just concerned about a blanket requirement for either sections of town or... Without, it's just the cost. I'm concerned about making that happen and tracking it and all those other pieces. I'm just, I'm worried for pushback, rightfully so. But I'm also just, you know, kind of cost benefit analysis that we could very easily have half a million dollars worth of testing done here in town. And If we catch three wells and have a problem, that's important, but I'm not sure if that's necessarily worth that investment across our residents. Again, I'm not sure how to balance it. Okay. Libby?

Do we have another way to measure this in the ground if people aren't testing their wells? Is there another way to measure this so that we know for the future for baseline stuff?

I think there is another way. And it might be one of these things where we have to actually ask for a budget to go randomly sample a certain number of wells for like PFAS, DOCs, whatever it is that we want to go off and do. I mean, the town just put in a water treatment facility that not only removes the manganese and the iron, but also takes out the PFAS. So that, that was that. And I think it also takes up nitrogen nitrates. I think so. Anyway, um, Yeah, it does. There's a list of things it takes out. Squirrel moment. But I think we have to kind of figure out, like, So basically in these three paragraphs, before we get to the next one, Dan made a point about recommendations that should be shells in those kinds of things. Get it, got it. We have to figure out a way of doing that. Kevin, you had your hand raised. And then also the testing may require we need to be a little more specific. That's what I'm hearing. And yes, ma'am.

On the easy one, to Dan's point, should the recommendations be pulled out and effectively be like a cover letter to this regulation to say, this is the regulation that states some requirements. Single family or private homeowners who have a well, there are some recommendations. Here are some recommendations. Should we separate it out so it's actually not in the reg?

That's actually an interesting idea, Dan.

Because I would love if it was still attached to the reg.

Yeah, I just don't, from a, like, because our regulations become town bylaw. So, again, it's the level of bylaw. And I'm just, it's, I'm just not quite sure. I'd have to go back and look and see if we have anything other town bylaws that have suggestions. Should versus shall. I just don't, I don't know what our town format is with all of our bylaws. I'm just kind of thinking, you know. in big picture kind of stuff. I definitely agree. We need to put, we need to communicate the importance, the significance, you know, the dangers of not all those things out there. I'm just not sure.

Well, maybe what we, maybe what we do is Dan, could you scroll up a little bit to the previous section? Here's the list. Yeah, right here. Here's the list. Maybe what we do as a, footnote or a parenthetical or something we say oh and this is the recommended list that you should do every like following the chart included and you know whatever the table that has the recommends how often you should do it something like that I hear what you're saying but it's kind of like the footnote to stuff does that make more sense it's included but not part of the requirement I don't know I'm vamping

Well, no matter what, I think it needs to be a one-pager that we can have separate from this document that is, people at the well should be doing this. And pretty please, if you do get testing, would you submit your test results to town for record-keeping so that we can help identify potential issues?

And I think, is there a way that we can say if you get that testing done that it would be a zero-cost item for you to have that entered into the town's database. Is that a cool thing to say? Is that something we can say?

I think if somebody voluntarily supplies their well results, I don't think we should make them pay for the right to submit the results. Yeah, agreed. So I'm not sure if that needs to be there. I think we can make the request. I think we can make the requirement for the... If we choose to make requirements, for example, property transfer, then we can make that as a requirement as well that needs to be submitted as demonstrating meeting that requirement. But for voluntary, again, I think it's back to... out of the regulation and in the kind of the information outreach, whatever tool we're using. If you do, please, if you'd be willing to, please, you know, share it with the department so that we can monitor water quality across our town, outside of our, you know, Littleton Electric Light and Water Department testing.

I like that.

Okay. We'll put that in there somewhere.

All right, let's go back down to where we were. I will take it on myself to try to wordsmith some of that. Libby, you want to put a table together? That would be awesome. I'll see if I can wordsmith something there for our next meeting.

Then the wrench I'll throw that you want to try to figure out how you can phrase in here is, like I've brought up previously, is if a house has treatment, what do you care about testing? So I have multiple things of treatment in my house and depending on where you're looking at the water, it's gonna look different. And so if you want to test what's coming out of the ground, it's got all sorts of bad things in it. That's why I have remediation. So if something like, even if it's in an area where there's a known problem or suspect to exist, are you gonna say, well, we would want to test what's consumed. We want to test what's used. You know what I mean? So you phrase it, but you've got to be careful to say, well, what am I going to require testing? Because if somebody has remediation, it's working.

So I hear what you're saying. Water samples usually are collected from a faucet, usually the kitchen faucet. since that's where most of the water is obtained from um i would say that it would but the requirement would be if you have remediation in on your property it would be post remediation would be where the water is collected so that would be a requirement right that makes sense to me and that's an easy sentence and that's an easy sentence to include so i have an ro unit

Because I drink water out of the RO unit, I cook out of the RO unit, but I don't shower out of an RO unit.

I hear you.

So do you start to consider like, well, what is it all about? Just ingestion. I just want to make sure you think about it. You're like, okay, then what is right thing? So if you just want to say you're testing at post-remediation, then it's you're testing at post-maximal remediation. And just so people understand that there will be other sources of water in the house that won't be meeting that remediation. And you can't solve everything. I get it, right? Nothing could stop somebody from going down to the well pump and drinking right off of that faucet at the end of the remediation ring. But we ideally are not going to have that happen. But when you talk about testing and what the Board of Health would test, I think that's what you want to make sure you understand to say we would typically be testing for post-maximal remediation. Or do you figure out like we have to evaluate what the safety hazard is and where it might be a problem? I don't know if there's a problem if you have some compound in the water. Is it bad to shower for half an hour or take a bath in it? You know, those kinds of considerations. It gets messy really fast.

VOCs would be interesting to have in your water and you're taking a bath in them. That would be bad. Okay, so maybe that's part of the table.

Or you have a toddler and you take baths and they are slurping up the bath water a little, right? Like, I mean, it's like, there's so many different ways to do it. And you don't want to try to define every single possible scenario in the reg. You'll go crazy. But I would say like, what do you kind of, and maybe you don't have to say anything at all, but that's the thing that you're going to run into is that when there is a, when you find yourself faced with, okay, we need to require testing, right? what exactly and where exactly do we want that test to occur?

Hey, Francis, do we want to leave this up to the professional and say that as determined by the Board of Health for locations or as generally practiced or?

General practice sounds good. We'll look at what other towns are doing and give an option. Okay.

Okay. Cool. All right. Let's move on. Are we done with that section? I feel good about the comments we received. Now we just need to turn that into action. Okay. Section one, the owner of a property is required to drink, to test drinking water wells annually and shall make the results of all water quality tests available to all tenants of the property and the board about period occupants upon lease have the right to request water quality results, which are less than 24 months, which are less than 24 months old. That doesn't seem right. Our occupants upon lease have the right to request water quality results, which are, what are we trying to get out there?

It sounds like trying to make it available, not testing on demand, but results on demand. So if I'm testing annually, if I test every January 1st and I have a new resident come in June 1st, those new residents can request basically the most recent water quality results. I'm not going to make the... property owner retest the water. It's six months because I have a new rental coming in. I, I would say that is the intent is that new, new renters, new occupants can request the most recent. Although if we're requiring it annually, it should never be more than perhaps 13 or 14 months, depending on turnaround times old.

So request all water quality results. So it should be two. You would get two tests.

The two most recent?

I would say, yeah, have them write your request the two most recent water quality results, which are less than 14 months old.

If you just say request water quality results, which are less than 24 months old, you'll get the entire history of water over for that two-year period. So I would leave it exactly as it was. Okay. Why not? It was in there. That language came from somewhere. I don't disagree with it. So that allows somebody to say, like, show me all the tests you've done for the past few years, and they would provide it to you, period.

Okay.

So this is where I go back to the same thing I was talking about is, is the owner testing the drinking water that they're providing, such as a drinking water spout, or are they testing the well water?

This is specific to drinking water wells.

But is it that whole pre or post remediation question?

So this one, I get what Matt's saying. I'm just saying what it said in the words. Yeah, we're going to need that language here as well.

That's the problem. We didn't make this language. The DEP doesn't have better language about this. They don't? They avoid it the same way. They just say test. It's like, well, but... So, I mean, in my opinion, if I was the owner, like every time you want to test a new source, you're doubling my costs. And so that gets out of hand. So I would say that because, as you pointed out, because this says drinking water wells, then I would say the testing should be post-remediation. And if it's good, you're fine. And if a tenant says, well, why do you have remediation to begin with? It doesn't really matter until we go back to those other sources because not a lot of houses have full RO units, for example. And so if you're a tenant, you're going to say, you're going to be told, okay, drink out of this special drinking water tap next to the sink and don't drink the tap water. How do you feel as a tenant? Yes, Libby.

I mean, if I were renting and I had kids and I was renting from a landlord that owned a big unit, didn't maintain their septic system, and there was, you know, septic sludge leaking into the water, I wouldn't want to bathe my kids in that. So I'm not sure. Okay.

Let's put a comment in there and pin that one as well, because that seems like we're going to have to have a general conversation about that. Prior to selling, conveying, or transferring, are we good with that? Is there any other comments on that section before I say next section? I don't want to end discussion unless there's valid discussion. Hearing none. Oh, Dan's still changing. Sorry. No, you're fine. The Board of Health may require the property owner to treat the water or remediate.

Treat the water? What does that mean?

Yeah, remediate. To remediate or provide an alternative approved source of drinking water for the tenants. Yeah. Are we worried about drinking water or just water? Okay. Okay. Prior to selling conveying a trend. Are we good with that? Are we good to move on? Sorry. Keep losing my train of thought. I'm also trying to get through the section. So at least we have one more thing through and I know we're running long. So do we want to keep going for a little bit? I also recognize we're kind of vamping on this. We don't have any attendees. So are you guys good with continuing on for a little bit or everybody's nodding?

Dan, we, we don't have our seven Oh five.

No, no, no one showed up. No one showed up.

Okay. Just making sure that we had it. Was it? Okay.

Yeah. The agenda was updated. We're not, the seven or five has been removed. Okay. Um, let's go. How many more are we got here? Just scroll down real quick. Oh boy. Okay. And let's try to make it through these 10 and then let's, let's call it a pause. How's that? Are we good with that? Everybody? Yeah, okay. Prior to selling, conveying, or transferring title of real property to real property, the owner shall have tested the water of every private drinking well servicing that property. A water sample from each well was submitted to a master's degree for the retesting. The water testing shall be performed not more than one year prior to transferring the property, which also 30 days prior to the property transfer. That seems pretty straightforward. It's not apostrophe S, it's just S. We don't own the day. Any comments on that? All right. So earlier, Libby, you had talked about property transfer, treating, all that kind of good stuff, doing acquired tests. Are you good with what was there? Does that capture what you were going after? Okay. All right. Item three, in addition, the owner, any other comments on that?

It's assumed that whenever we're saying testing or water quality, it's assumed it's referring back to the start of those things, right?

Yes. Okay. Three, in addition, the owner shall give copies of all available water quality test results of which he or she, can we just say the owner? has knowledge regardless of age results for private well in question to any buyer and or broker involved in the transfer in the event that there are no that there is no buyer at the time the water is tested a copy of the religion must be given by the owner to the buyer before the property is put under agreement okay

uh mr baker you are a real estate a licensed real estate agent does this make sense putting you on the spot bud sorry uh you know if they have to provide the test results by the closing i don't know why uh this would be mandated for the purchase and sale agreement

This is saying all copies, not just the most recent one copy, one year copy. This is saying all copies.

I mean, I think that's like overstepping a little bit. You know, the buyer can do their due diligence and their broker can request the documents and the buyer, the seller can be required to provide them because They have to by a certain date, but that's up to the board. Okay.

Matt? I agree with Kevin. This seems extreme. The scenario that you can run into is that if you have E. coli, you can go ahead and try to shock it, and you might be able to get a clean result. and a clean test, but that doesn't really mean it's taken care of. So I don't mind a thing saying you have to give some, but maybe it's 12 months or 24 months reflected in the rental unit. To say all that you have knowledge of seems a bit extreme, but it's also I like something that's not just the most recent one you just did. So I think finding something between those two ends would be nice.

Okay. Get rid of all. In addition, the owner shall provide copies of... Hold on one sec. We can just say of the available water quality test results, which the owner has knowledge for the private well in question to any buyer or broker involved in the transfer.

That still could be 40 years worth. Yeah. Yeah.

okay let's uh put that as a thing to talk about i need i need i'm like i don't i know we need to make a decision that's our job to make decisions get it got it but we need to put something there and i just don't know if everybody's kind of thought on that one unless we're just ready to say get rid of it or something like that get it got it last 10 years What was the recommendation? Wasn't there a recommendation of doing it at least every 10 years?

Wasn't that what we said about?

OK, we'll just keep going.

Sure. Yes. Sorry about that. That point, if the last sentence was struck.

Straight through. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. Any other comments before we move to number four? No, no, no. Okay. Number four, for irrigation wells, the board requires annual E. coli bacteria and nitrate nitrate as external consumption could result in acute exposure. I have no problem with that.

We're not requiring drinking water wells to be tested annually, but we're going to require irrigation wells to be tested annually?

This gets to crops. If this is an agricultural well, which is, I guess, an irrigation well, yes, no? We did just split out the two, didn't we? Didn't we split out agricultural from irrigation wells?

Could my secondary well in my yard to do my lawn be considered an irrigation well?

I think we have a test. I think we have a definition that's taught. Can I read it for you? Yes.

Irrigation well. A well used for the sole purpose of watering. The well shall not be connected at any time to a dwelling or a building unless it meets private drinking water. Yeah.

Yes, Libby.

But that could be, like you said, that could be used on crops, like food that people are eating, or that could be used to feed animals, right?

It can be. It's a very valid point. I'm not upset. What's the cost of the two tests? Do we know? And is this the language that came from the DEP, Francis? It is? Okay. All right. Let's put that in there as a pin. I'm not against it. They seem to be pretty easy tests to do.

But if I'm watering my lawn, don't eat my grass.

Yeah, I hear you. I understand.

Yeah, but I water my lawn with the same hoses that I use to water my gardens and play with my dog. Yeah.

And I use rainwater to wash my car, so.

Okay, so I'd- It's a dance point.

We're not requiring the drinking water, so how do you require the irrigation water?

So I'm going to play devil's advocate then. So if I have two wells, I have a drinking well and I have an irrigation well. We're not testing my drinking well, but we're testing my irrigation because my dog could get in it, or my plants, or my zucchini, or whatever. If I only have a single drinking water well, and that supplies my outdoor hose, I'm not testing that for E. coli, and yet I have the same dogs, vegetables, everything else. So I'm just trying to... There's an internal face validity challenge there if I'm... I'm testing the non-potable water well as if it was potable, and I am not testing or mandating testing for the water that's supposed to be potable. I just, internal face validity there is a little bit challenging for, that would be a hard one to argue. I'm just not sure how we could really justify that one. If someone says, why are you making me test my, I water my lawn, why do I have to test? That doesn't make any sense.

If I may, I think this should turn into a homeowner recommendation unless it's for commercial purposes and that it's required.

I think that difference is perfectly reasonable because a commercial product is a lot different than my hose in my backyard for my dog. Not that I want my dog getting into it. But does...

But then, yes, yes. But then does the Department of Agriculture already require irrigation or agriculture wells to be tested annually? I'm pretty sure the answer to that is yes. Francis, do we remember? I think so. Because I asked a couple of farmers in town and they said they had to do those testing for that.

I do not know. I can add it to the list and ask.

Sure. Okay. Sorry, I keep adding to your list of stuff.

That may be a disclaimer that nothing in this regulation, you know, precludes residents, businesses, any agents, any person or organization from following any other state or federal regulation. They all know that, yes, because Littleton said, you don't have to. Oh, no, we don't have to. No, you still have to because the state says you do. We could put that in. Nothing here gets you out of other requirements at state or federal level.

Yeah, I actually think that should be part of that. Okay. All right. You went too far.

Sorry.

Okay. Unless we're good. Everybody good on that one? Because actually, thank you for playing devil's advocate. That actually makes sense. The alternative response to that is, well, maybe we should require yearly E. coli and nitrate-nitrate testing to personal wells. So, okay. The board reserves the right to require retesting of the above parameters or testing for additional when the option of the board is necessary to local conditions. Gee, this is our get out of jail free clause. This is our escape clause that already we talked about above. So do we need to have it in two places? Okay. Who's applying? I'm saying leave this one. Remove the one up top. What was that? I'm sorry.

I said, who's applying? It says at the end, the responsibility of the applicant.

Of the owner?

Is this referring to something different?

I don't know. Where did it come from?

Like a new well application?

I don't know. I'm asking the question, where did it come from? This isn't in a new well application. This isn't a general testing application, so... To go back and look. Okay. Seems a little out of place, but maybe we can... Yeah. Of the well owner. That's fine. Okay. Nice catch. Thank you, Matt. Anybody else? Still have no attendees. All right. Following the receipt of water quality tests, the well owner shall submit a water quality report to the board, which includes those are actually those seven, eight, nine should be A, B, and C, not cross out, but yeah, you get it. A copy of the certified list results, the name and contact information who performed the sampling just need to indent them. It'll automatically do it. So close. How many people does it take to work on the name and contacting information and where the system order was obtained. Do we have, this is an interesting thought and maybe this is something we can carry on once we get all the wells into a GIS database is where the system water was sample was obtained and the representative well Because I think we need to say, yeah, we obtained this water here, but this is from the well that's over here. Does that make sense? We're assuming that the well that we're testing is on the same property, whereas we could have a generic well that's being tested that serves five households or something like that.

Shared well language. Yeah.

Okay. This regulation requires... Oh, hold on there, please.

I'm sorry. Point number six, following a receipt of the water quality test results, the well owner shall. That says that any well owner that gets a water quality test is required to submit it to the board.

That is what that says.

Could we change the language to say when testing is required, it should be submitted to the board? I don't know. Or am I required to give you my report that I have done every year at my house?

Yes, Libby.

I like what you're saying, like when it's requested, and then could we also say it's recommended that you share it with the Board of Health?

But maybe not require it if you just... Again, we're getting back to the shall, should language that Dan brought up earlier about that. But following the... receipt of a required water quality test so get rid of results water quality test the well owner shall submit the water a water quality report to the to the board of health which yeah there you go Does that make more sense, Matt? In other words, we've required you to do a test, therefore you shall give us the results. Matt felt bad that he's subjecting his family to only brushing their teeth with... I'm not saying you do that. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay, Dan. Matt likes that. Thank you, Dan, for that. Are we good? Yes, not not not good. Number seven, this regulation requires that a private drinking well meets all current Massachusetts primary and secondary drinking water standards and guidelines adopted. In any case where a private drinking well does not meet substandard guidance as deemed necessary for protection of public health, safety or welfare, the board may take action, but not limit to grant the property to treat the water or provide. OK.

Yeah, I think you swapped out treat with remediation earlier, so I just, yeah, there you go. Strong work.

Yeah, better word. What did you say? Are you going to say just remediate? I actually like remediate. I don't think we should have an or. I think it's just remediate.

And get rid of alternative source of water?

i know i actually that's fine too i mean if you want to provide 10 gallons of water a day to a person that's i think we need to get is remediate and treat the same thing i don't think it is legally

I'd have to look at my Funk and Wagnalls, but treat always to me suggests adding something to or doing something to rather than potentially removing something. Remediate kind of covers. I'm fixing the problem, whether that is adding, subtracting, or something else. Yeah, so. That's just me, not necessarily my dictionary answer, but treat to me always implies doing something to it rather than, I don't know.

Treat to me is mitigation. Remediation is removing.

Google says they're two different things.

Perfect. Thank you, the Googles. I'm sure we should run this through Claude to see how it makes it better.

So Libby, then, which one is it? Do we want treat, do we want remediate, or do we want some third option that we haven't considered yet?

It says water treatment is the routine process of making water safe for a specific use, like drinking, while water remediation is the reactive cleanup of polluted water or contaminated water to restore its baseline quality.

Okay, do we want to go back to treat then?

Ooh, that means we should go handle the one that was above.

We can fix that, but okay, we'll leave it as treat.

Yep.

Nice job. Watch your eyes when you scroll.

I go too far. I don't remember. You can go search for it. It's right there. Number one. Right there. Yep, you're welcome. Okay. We've run over our time on that, so let's put a pin in it and say we had our discussion and we'll continue our discussion. Everybody good? Hearing no objections. Thank you, Dan, for sharing your screen and diligently editing as everyone looked over your shoulder.

That's all right. I will save a copy and I will share it with Francis to disseminate to the group.

Oh, I faked. All righty. Our seven, that concludes our seven o'clock hearing. Unless, Francis, you had something else you wanted to add to the discussion, I think you were all good. Hearing nothing. Okay. Our next agenda item is the 705 continued public hearing for Zero Elm Street. Francis, I think that was withdrawn. Is that correct?

That was removed from the agenda for now.

Okay, it was removed from the agenda. Do we want to continue it to the next meeting?

It was already continued, so we don't need to. There's an updated agenda that was posted, so we can just skip the item.

Perfect, thank you. 710 ID decision support tool.

So before we get to that, the posted agenda has a 705 item on discussion and voter reorganization of the board. before it gets the ID decision support tool.

Oh, then I'm reading the wrong one. That's what I'm saying.

The posted agenda to the website is different than our email one. So that's the only difference. That public is banished, so we don't do anything. So now it's actually time to vote and reorg the board.

Real of the board as the, uh, as the, it is, uh, after we have our election and when we have all board members, which we do here have tonight, it is, and welcoming Libby again, I'm sorry, I wasn't there last meeting to welcome you. Uh, let's go ahead and do the reorg of the board. So do we have any motions, uh, to change the chair?

I would like to make a motion to name Kevin Baker the chair for the next year.

I need a second. 10 seconds. We have a motion. Any discussion? Does he accept the nomination? I was just getting to that next. I accept the nomination.

I heard it. He said it.

Okay, I have a first, I have a second, and I have an acceptance of the nomination. Let's take a roll call vote. Matt Wason. Matt Wason, yes. Libby Donegan.

Libby Donegan, yes.

Dan Cain. Dan Cain votes yes. Kevin Baker. Kevin Baker votes yes. And Kevin Davis votes yes.

Yay! Woohoo!

Okay. You've done a great job. Kevin.

Thank you. You're welcome. Anytime. I'll do it anytime. Okay.

So now do I ask for a motion for a vote on the vice chair?

Since I'm no longer the chair, I think that would be the appropriate... Is there a motion? I nominate Matt Wason as the vice chair.

Kevin Davis wants to be the vice chair.

Oh, Kevin Davis wants to be the vice chair.

Oh, we're hearing this. I second a motion for Matt Wason.

Does Dan Cain want to be vice chair?

I serve at the pleasure of the board.

okay, which way do we want to go?

Well, we have a motion and a second, but I'm happy to do it, folks. I like the continuity, but Kevin Davis said that he would also be happy to do it. So I've done it a few times. I'm also happy to defer to him. So I will let Kevin Davis make the choice. If he liked it, great, take it. If he really doesn't, then I will pick it up.

Dan, would you like to do it?

I am happy to serve.

Well, then in that case, I withdraw my motion. And I will make a motion that Dan Kane serve as vice chair.

I'll second that.

Mr. Chairman? Well, do I have to withdraw my second? Yes. For Matt Wason? Okay, I withdraw my second for Matt Wason. We'll have a roll call vote on Dan Koehn as the vice chair. Kevin Davis? Kevin Davis votes yes. Libby Donegan?

Libby Donegan votes yes.

Matt Wason?

Matt Wason, yes.

And Dan Koehn?

Dan Cain votes yes.

And Kevin Baker votes yes. Congratulations. Thank you. Next, we will need a motion for Secretary. I motion to have Libby Donegan become Secretary. Second. I'll second. Motion to second. Roll call vote. Dan Cain.

Dan Cain votes yes.

Matt Wason? Matt Wason, yes. Kevin Davis? Kevin Davis votes yes. Libby Donegan?

Libby Donegan votes yes.

And Kevin Baker votes yes. Congratulations. Next, we have the ID Decision Support Tool. Dr. Wason, do you mind presenting?

Here it is. Right here. Okay. Nothing's going on. They're just starting to test for mosquitoes. We have low risk, so nothing's popped up for arboviruses. So that's it. It's the lull in the season. And we will reiterate that none of the scary international diseases you've seen popping up are any threat to our community at this time. Go ahead, Dan.

I did see that actually the state DPH is actually now starting to track AlphaGal. That's actually a pretty big cluster, Cape and Islands, because that's where all such tick-borne things start, either on the islands or the Cape. But the DPH is now starting to actually track so they can coordinate with other state agencies. external to Massachusetts state agencies and the feds. So while we are a distance away, certainly it's something that is in the state and it's moving fast. As data gets more robust and the DPA kind of builds out their reporting model, we may just want to keep an eye on that as well.

And I was going to suggest that there was just a report to follow up with that for tick-borne illnesses are going to be the highest in the New England area. So we should probably start to report them.

Thank you. So moving on for our 715 administrative matters, Francis, do you have an update for us?

Dates, so the administrative assistant position is posted. We have received a good amount of resumes so far. It has closed, so we just have to start going through them. We are waiting, obviously, until a new person is in position to assist with that process though.

Makes sense. Does anyone have any other administrative matters?

any other department information that we may want to share in an open meeting i'll go ahead and do it uh our health director position has been posted as of friday um it's a planned uh expected two-week window for applicants i think there are five applicants at this time um so myself and mr baker have started interviews and I assume we'll continue doing that next week and keep you posted. And then the other piece is we met with town administration and some other folks just to talk about coverage for when Francis has departed, how we're gonna cover. So that's, I don't have a ton of details, work in progress, people are identified, multiple layers of solutions that we're just kind of saying, this is what's gonna happen. So I think the coverage plan is gonna be okay and we'll hope the recruitment process does not take too long. I think that would be the kind of the worst case scenario is if for some reason we can't get new director in, then we would probably just have to start looking at more and more expensive options to consider providing for the public health needs of the town so cross our fingers there looks like there's some good applicants so we'll hopefully get a new director on board sooner rather than later.

Go ahead, Libby.

Is this where I can bring up a public concern? Is that okay?

That would be, I think, at the end, comments and correspondence, comments and correspondence at the end.

Okay, thanks. I just want to make sure I'm doing it right.

You got it. Okay, so next we will have our 725 meeting minute approval. All the stars are aligned. Everyone's here. Very exciting. Did not have a packet, so I don't know if everybody... They were in the May 27th packet. Does everybody still have that? That was a big packet. Yeah. Let's see. It looks like... Did everyone have a chance to go over them? Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes of 5-27-2026? I haven't seen them.

Were they posted somewhere? 5-27-2026.

The most recent one for the May 27th packet was April 22. It looks like that was the most recent. And we're looking at meeting minutes for May 27.

That was on the agenda, but it doesn't look like they were in the packet last week.

It wasn't in the last packet. So it gets us to 4-8, which is in the previous packet for May 27th.

So did everyone have a chance to review the April 8th meeting minutes? It looks like myself, Dan.

There's a typo in the first paragraph.

Health Department needs a T. I'm going to abstain from these meetings because I wasn't part of them.

Yep. Otherwise, I would make a motion to approve April 8th.

Second that. Roll call vote. Matt Davis. Sorry, Matt Waysen.

Matt Waysen, yes.

Kevin Davis.

Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Matt Waysen was absent on the April 8th.

Oh, sorry. I abstain.

I will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes of April 8th. Second. We'll call vote. Kevin Davis. Kevin Davis votes yes. Libby Donegan.

Libby Donegan abstains.

Dan Kain. Dan Kain votes yes as amended. Matt Wason.

Matt Wason abstain.

And Kevin Baker votes yes as amended. Moving on, we have the meeting minutes for April 22nd. Board of Health members present, Matt Wason, Kevin Baker, and Daniel Kain.

Those have already been approved.

Okay.

March 2nd. Meeting minutes from March 2nd. Members present, Kevin Davis, Matt Wiesen, and Kevin Baker.

There's a modification. We called the meeting to order at 7 p.m., not 6 p.m. Okay.

It's on my calendar at six.

Oh, I'm sorry. This was the joint meeting. You're right. It was at six. I'm sorry. Remove said comment. Oh, I remember that. Okay. Okay. I make a motion to approve the minutes.

Second. Roll call vote. Matt Wiesen.

Matt Wiesen, yes.

Kevin Davis. Kevin Davis, yes. Libby Donegan.

Libby Donegan abstains.

Dan Cain. Dan Cain abstains. Kevin Baker votes yes. We have March 25th. Meeting minutes on March 25th. Board of Health members present. Kevin Davis, Matt Wason, and Daniel Cain.

I'll make a motion that we accept the minutes of March 25, 2026.

Second. Motion and a second. Roll call vote. Kevin Davis. Kevin Davis votes yes. Libby Donegan.

Libby Donegan abstains.

Dan Cain. Dan Cain votes yes. Matt Wason?

Matt Wason, yes.

Kevin Baker abstains. And that looks like that'll do it. So next we have 745 correspondence, board member updates, comments for discussion and public input. Libby Donegan, why don't you start us off? Mike. You're muted, you're muted.

Sorry, I think we should talk as a board about the proposed liquid natural gas facility for Kimball's that was brought up during a planning board meeting on May 14th. So it's supposed to be a temporary facility used for peak demands, and it would only be in use between November and April. They were looking for a 27 to 28 start on this facility. The other months of the year, natural gas wouldn't be stored there, but the purpose is that This is pushed when it's really cold and would be pushed to 19 different communities around us. And the facility is where the liquid natural gas is vaporized, which would make noise. But the representatives weren't able to, for national grid, weren't able to say what the decibels would be on this. the noise and there's already a location at 550 king street that was used for at least two or three years which was a little concerning to me that our health department wasn't aware of that um so i i just wanted to sort of see if we could get that on the agenda it's a great idea yeah we'll add it to the agenda for the next meeting uh mr chair

So we were in a meeting this week, and I actually asked Francis to be brought forward, and we got some information. the one of the letter everybody know that to the I asked the our select board representative um and to his knowledge the select board also did not have any prior knowledge of this coming into town as well so there's gonna there's some interesting issues uh with that surrounding that uh the other thing um town council said that um the board of health, uh, didn't have any responsibility when it comes to the LNG specifics. And I pushed back and said, actually, the noise is something we do have to worry about. Um, so that, that from that perspective, uh, and it looks like I just froze. So I, okay, I'm still talking. Okay. And okay. And, um, uh there was one other thing that i brought up that we still have oversight over um on that and um but that's i pushed back on that one because they initially said you had nothing it's like no i disagree with that we have things to do with that so francis looks like your hand is up and ready to do something yeah uh it's a larger discussion with dep and legal

this this does ring that something i brought up a couple months ago and about you know there are a couple things that we get involved in only when they become complaints and because the other one is odor and i was trying to figure out if as a board is there some way that we help ourselves out in the future and we try to figure out something that we can put together that says that We need to have a little more early oversight over both, I guess, auditory and olfactory potential nuisances so that we can have promises up front. Because I think, I mean, if that resolves it and that is our sphere of influence, then I don't think it would be that hard. But we don't have that framework.

Like a Noisome Treg regulation might be a solution to that.

Okay, yeah, let's please add this as a discussion to our next meeting.

I should add that there's a public hearing with the planning board scheduled for July 9th.

Okay, our next meeting is on June 24th. How's the agenda for that one, Francis? Do you have anything lined up yet?

We have no public hearings yet, so. They're probably due in 14 days. So it's unlikely if it hasn't come through the pipeline in some way yet.

Does anyone else have any questions, comments, concerns, board member updates? Dan King.

I think this is going to be our last meeting before Francis departs. I just want to take a moment on behalf of all of us to thank him for being the inaugural health director for the town of Littleton, at least in anybody's memory. And we were starting to build the department out and being really effective with, you know, grants and getting interns in and doing a lot of great work, getting it off the ground, despite obviously challenges and growing pains with any new department in a tight physical environment in a small community. we appreciate the work that's been done and you'll be missed and we appreciate it. All the other things I have is certainly is sounds like there's been some discussion already about just making sure that we work on a transition plan. I'm hoping that you'll be willing to be available after the end to answer questions and provide perhaps a little bit of Our short institutional memory, but the institutional memory that we have to our next director is, again, you've done some great work. We just want to make sure that things don't fall out. And again, you're kind of a department of one so that we... there's no one else in the department who kind of knows what's going on or has had exposure so i just don't want to lose the great the steps we move forward we're certainly going to lose a couple steps but i just don't want to lose any more than we have to so um yeah i'm hoping we can ask you to to as you can to to be proactive and make lots of notes in the next week or two of what statuses of things and contacts and all that goodness um

So just to comment on that, once the person's within the transition period, I'll still be around kind of helping guide them as a roadmap, and they'll learn the institutional knowledge that's already there.

Okay, no, that's really appreciated. No, I think that's all I have for the big bad stuff, and I have to have something. So it is National Men's Health Week. Now, we certainly all know, and as a healthcare provider, that All of health care is really built around men and then women and kids are the secondary thought. But this is, in fact, National Men's Health Week. And I bring it up only because for those folks who might be movie fans, Tyler Maine, who was played Sabretooth in X-Men, not a particularly big actor, but came out this week actually with a diagnosis of breast cancer. Breast cancer happens in men. It's about 1% of the diagnosed population. And unfortunately, the mortality rate for male breast cancer is enormous because it's usually not identified until it's stage four and it's really past treatment. So for all of us, it's Men's Health Week, but for all of us, be aware, early signs of everything, preventative care, see your PCPs, get your screenings. For those of us who are a little bit older, get all the other screenings. Vaccinations are a great thing. be aware, take good care of yourself, practice all the good habits that you can, and yeah, identify issues and have them assessed early. Don't wait until it's too late.

Thank you. If no one has anything else, we'll take a motion to adjourn. Yes, Francis.

This is our last meeting. I just want to thank the board for all their support over the past couple of years and help with everything along the way. been a great team effort and I really appreciate it.

Thank you. You've been great to work with and we appreciate all your help and good luck. And I'm sure we won't. This is the last we'll see of you.

Yeah, I'll be kicking around for a while.

I think that's it. If anyone has a motion.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. All vote. Matt Wason.

Matt Wason, yes.

Kevin Davis? Kevin Davis, yes. Libby Donegan?

Libby Donegan, yes.

And Dan Cain? Dan Cain votes yes. And Kevin Baker votes yes.

Thank you very much.