Utilities Committee - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call the meeting to order at 7.02. And I'm going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. If you'd all stand. Yeah, I don't see any public with us tonight so. Well, I guess OK, John OK, I will. You can vote for Ray and who else is an alternate at this point.

John's a member Joe raise an alternate praise and alternate.

So and the number and the number also.

OK, you want to vote for him.

Yeah, she can go for and what about raise raise an alternate. Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay. So the one thing before we stop.

Yes. Kristen always reminds us, but we always forget. You need to definitely move these closer.

because I had a very difficult time even hearing me I got a big voice so go ahead okay with that I'll ask if we want to have a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting in May so moved thank you can I have a second second thank you you have a motion by Lynn and we have a second by Paul Okay, all in favor to approve the May minutes? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, I think that's 100%. Thank you. The minutes are approved. Thank you, John. okay with that I'm going to move to town staff and I I had wanted sort of a quick update on the various water projects that are happening and what stage they're at at the moment

I can certainly start with the High Range Road, St. Cobain portion and then I'll turn it over to James for the Woodmont sewer and the Old Derry Road. So High Range Road, as you know, should be starting back up any day in terms of the construction with American Excavating heading out there. Like last year, they'd like to finish up their small projects first so they can give their undivided attention and just work straight through. They have not started yet, though. No, they have not started yet. They've been coming out and doing small things like prepping. They've been doing prep site work, but they haven't actually started the paving yet. So the paving you'll see next and then it's going to then they'll start the construction heading north from Royal.

So all those trucks going up and down Hubby Road for what then?

Hubby Road?

Yeah. How the road is not that's that's not know that's that's the destination to go down the and they take a left to go where it's that's all blocked off and they're doing something.

They they did do a little course on high range road yesterday.

We're talking high range right now right now hubby is on the other side.

Well, that's the route the trucks take.

I'm saying they wouldn't have ease over by the highway.

Yeah. Yeah, so they would take high range and they would end up in Litchfield at the pit. Okay.

Yeah. So that's the, those are the one, if you see trucks on hubby, that's not related to the high range road project.

So where are they all going?

That might be for the water.

It might be for the, has to do with the, um, the pump station project. Yeah. So two separate, two separate projects. Um, so yeah, high range road is, The single Bain portion so if you're talking about the neighborhoods that portion is being done single Bain is going to complete that portion with kind of Chuck so that is not a project that we're going to be involved in the design engineering or. Money with so st. Cobain is working straight with Penachuk for that So sometime within the next few months Penachuk will be reaching out Start reaching out to homeowners particularly to get surveys of the property so they can do the engineering for the services and

Just in curiosity, do we have sort of an oversight, you know that looks right or anything?

No, we do not. Nope so on the They'll be working with the town on the mains Obviously the mains that go under the streets, but on the individual services they work directly with the homeowner.

Got it. Thank you.

Yep so this is about a four-year construction project right now to finish out all those neighborhoods to do all the homes in which water mains are going to be extended they don't have a fixed order yet that they have settled on in terms of what streets and what neighborhoods in that western side go first and so they're trying to finalize excuse me the draft time the timeline It won't be any longer than the one that they originally proposed, which is the 2027 through 2030. There's just simply only so many linear feet of pipe that can go in a year, and particularly when they're doing the services as well. So Penachuk is meeting with St. Cobain right now to finalize the details on that project and move forward with that, looking for shovels in the ground on that in construction season 2027. So that's when that will start. They still have to go through all the engineering. If you're talking about the St. Cobain portion of the high-range road main itself, we've already got that money in escrow. We've gotten St. Cobain's contribution. It's sitting in escrow with the rest of the funds for the project. Okay, so that we have an escrow. So we use that same escrow account for the ARPA funds. Um, and that's how we move. That's how we receive money from D. E. S. And then pass it, pay it back to Penachuk, who then pays American excavating. Okay, so we've already got that. So there's no waiting on that. That's done. All set. The money's done, but we're waiting for it to start. We're waiting for it to start. Yep. Last year we started the second week of July and still got through. So if you're thinking that it's behind schedule, it's not. It really is. We're in plenty of time to do this second piece. It's a little shorter. All the design engineering, all of that is done. It's just a matter of putting the shovels into the ground. Okay.

I don't have nearly the detail that Kirsten does, but. So Woodmont, the sewer project is actually going a little faster than I expected, at least on Harvey Road. Hardy, Hardy? Harvey.

Hardy. Hardy.

And the Bancroft segment is done. It's in gravel currently, and they're not going to pave it until after the settling period happens so they can do their final round of testing. And then from there, they'll be able to pave out Bancroft, and then it'll sit for a year, and then they'll get in and do all the final restorations and overlays and whatnot. Getting over to Hardy. They are. The blasters are, I think, most of the way up the road getting ready to hopscotch with the pipe crew and get over onto Pillsbury nearby the pump station itself. And then the pipe crew, they're working along at a reasonably okay pace. I think they... ARE ON THE ORDER OF ABOUT 1500 FEET A WEEK OR AT LEAST THAT'S KIND OF WHAT THEY'RE PROJECTING SOME OF THE SEWER IS REALLY DEEP IT'S YOU KNOW 15 18 FEET DEEP AND AND IT IS A FORCE MAIN WHICH IS KIND OF COUNTERINTUITIVE TO WHAT A FORCE MAIN IS AND THEN I THINK THEY HAVE ROUGHLY 7000 FEET ON HARDY ROAD TO DO SO YOU CAN KIND OF EXTRAPOLATE THE MATH YOU KNOW 1500 FEET A WEEK DIVIDED BY 7000 You know, theoretically, we're four or five weeks out by the time they finish up the force main on Hardy. Then it just becomes a function of restoration on that road. That's not subject to the same testing parameters because it's not a gravity line, so that one should get paved relatively quick. And then getting over to the Pillsbury pump station, I think all the ledge for the pump station itself has been blasted. And then I don't know what their actual excavation intent is, but they're moving along in a pretty good clip. Next one up is old dairy. Sure.

This is my neighborhood. I had two people come to me with questions. The first was, are they opening up Hardy on weekends for non-abutter traffic?

Hardy should be open at the end of every day.

It was open last weekend. I drove down there last weekend.

If we could publicize that, I think it would be to your benefit, even if you want to make it conditional. Unless there's a guy standing there that's telling you don't go or

Yeah, it's, yeah, so the way the contract is structured, the road is generally fully open at the end of every day, including the weekends. So, you know, on Friday when they leave, they're not coming back till Monday and the road is in fact open. I have received a variety of questions, complaints, one saying the detour route stays posted almost the entire time so people don't know if they can go that way or not. So that was something that needs to be addressed. And then the level of communication, not everybody goes to Facebook and not everybody goes to the website. Some people rely on old-fashioned mail. So we're stepping up our communications efforts, particularly in the people that directly about the project. And then everybody else, you know, there's a rather large area that's impacted outside in all the side neighborhoods. So... That level of communication is pretty much isolated to the Facebook and the website and however else we can get the electronic communication out there.

So that's been publicized about weekends and after 5 at night?

It's been, yeah, for quite some time. Both the website and the Facebook pages have the detour routes. They have the working days. I want to say they even have the approximate duration identified, but I'm not certain on that one.

The DPW Facebook page is always the most up-to-date place for that information, though. They do a really excellent job, so if they're looking for up-to-date, of-the-moment information, even if you don't have a Facebook account, you can still go to the Lendary DPW Facebook page. You don't have to have a Facebook account to view it. You have to have a Facebook account to interact with it, but to view it, you don't. So I highly suggest looking at that page.

And then the second question, somebody wanted a definition of abutters because the detour sign says abutters may go, and I said, not you.

So abutting generally means on Hardy Road and on the road where they're actually working. The abutting neighborhoods I don't think qualify as abutters. Enough said.

Is it possible to use that electronic signage that's there right now? It just says detour, follow the signs, and it's all the time. Then people learn that, well, actually, you can get through there at night and on the weekends. So now they come in Wednesday midday, and I wonder if it's open. I mean, if we could have something, I don't know if the sign has the capability of... switching twice a day?

It has the capability of multiple flashes, but I don't think you can have it with multiple programs. I'll have to look at that.

Or maybe just a thing that says party road closed 7 p.m. to empty out.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so it should have three flashes, you know, Highry Road closed, work hours 7 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., you know, CD tour, you know.

Yeah, that'd be good.

You generally want to try and get all of your information in as much as possible down to two flashes because no one's standing there for all three flashes because it's a couple seconds apiece. And by the time that second flash happens, you're done and gone and you're past the signs. You don't even know what the third one says.

Actually, it's that interesting. People have a lot of time. Fair, if any of them, yeah.

So we try and get all the information in two flashes. But, yeah, I'll look at that. Message boards are an interesting animal in that people who drive the road all the time, as soon as the message board is there for longer than, say, a week, they blend into the landscape, and people don't see them. It's just an everyday thing. They don't even pay attention to it, and off they go. So one of the tactics that I've used in the past is I move the message board around. The message board shows up in different places. People pay attention to it, at least for a week. Then you've got to move it again, maybe back to the first spot. So it's just one of those things that get people to actually interact with the sign.

Yeah. Is that true about Bancroft, too, that it's open at night and on weekends?

There's no work going on in Bancroft. It's fully open.

Okay. It's fully open.

It's fully open but in gravel for another couple of weeks until the settling period of the trench is done and they can do their final round of testing.

Okay.

They're going to fix all the potholes on Bancroft when they do the redecking. I mean, is it going to be nice and smooth?

Yeah, so they'll get, it'll be just like the water project where they get the trench paved, it'll sit for a year, and then they'll, and then next year they'll go in and they'll do that final layer of pavement on the full width of the road.

Thank you. So think about Parmenter between Old Nashua, between 102 and Old Nashua, that stretch of Parmenter, that stretch is done and paved.

Got it.

That wasn't able to sit last year because we had to use the ARPA funds for that. So that's why that part of the high-range road water main is paved. Okay. Because that one particular section, the ARPA funds couldn't apply. We couldn't use.

Couldn't delay. Okay.

We couldn't use state funds for it, so we had to use ARPA funds for it. So that was a different format. So if you want to see what that end of the pavement looks like, that's what it'll look like.

And that normally would happen about a year after part of completion?

paving it's just a season so it goes through the winter and the largest majority of settling that's going to happen happens over the course of the winter and then you come back in the spring water table through the course of the winter into the spring comes up goes back down everything that's settled has settled and and then they can get in there and do that that final that final paving job so you know high range road this over this last winter time if you had been down there you you might have noticed a handful of irregularities you know a couple of bumps here and there that kind of stuff and that's just some of the you know expected normal settlement in a trench and then they come back you should probably advertise that otherwise we'll get that barrage of facebook oh my god what a terrible job they did even though they're not we actually have had that

And we have responded accordingly and there is really there is something about How much information you can put out when right because like James said people only digest so much and so We're constantly in a what's the most important key thing like this road is going to be closed. Please go away You know that that's important, right? Like don't go there. Yeah things like the payment settling, sometimes it's actually better to wait until somebody asks the question or even complains because then you can say, that's a great question. This is actually going to plan and here's why. And then it kind of breaks it up into what people are interested in when in the project and it kind of, you know, as long as you have the answer and you provide the answer, some people will read an entire 30-page document And so you have that available for somebody who wants to get the whole thing, right? That's the contract. But when you're parsing it out, you kind of want to go with what people are most interested in in the moment to make sure that you're addressing that need. Because if you tell them at the beginning of the project, they're probably going to forget by the end.

We have not been used to this much commotion.

It has been an exciting time in town. This is good, though. I mean, it means things are getting fixed.

Yeah, it does. Yeah.

So next up is old dairy. I believe they're in their left final stages of that because they were finishing up that project before they came down the high range. I actually haven't even been up to that project and a little bit so I in truth don't even know how close to finish they are.

Can I just ask a question on that one? Because I live right off Old Derry. It's pretty much done. It's all paved over. The question I have is that it appears that the water main is going to provide water to the new developments. As you go up Old Derry Road, there are a few new developments on the right-hand side. And there's only one row... which is right on the line between Derry and London Derry. And that's the Partridge Hill Estates in there. And there are a bunch of houses in there actually, which are all on private wells. But there are a few houses in there, I know of at least three to five that have received letters from DES for water contamination. So The question is, why isn't there a way to connect from that main old dairy water main into, if we've already done it for the new developments, and these people who are off on old dairy have actually been there longer. So years or so. So they've been drinking contaminated water longer than the new.

So we aren't actually the only main that's going in is on old Derry Road. Right. So we're not currently building mains down the side streets in order for anybody down a side street to tap in. They have to attach to a main. Now, there is already a main running by that neighborhood. It comes from Derry it there's a main that runs down old Derry Road as far as clover So there's already a main there where and that the water already exists for three-quarters of Lord and Commons That already is there that's not being put in the developer put it in for three-quarters of Lord and Commons when it was built and The first phase of Lord and Commons is on well water. So right now, there's no side streets right now, no neighborhoods as of this minute getting a main. Then why did we put a main down old theory if we're not gonna put it into so people it's actually part of we didn't do it it's part of the southern New Hampshire water system and it's meant to Increase connectivity and redundancy to bring water elsewhere in the state So the homes along Old Derry Road, they're putting curb stops so those homes can get service, the ones right on Old Derry Road that didn't have it before. But it's part of a state project, not our project. And that's also what the pump station that's going to go on at Auburn Road is part of as well. So that's the state connectivity project, the Southern New Hampshire Water System project.

Is there any way for us in London, Derek, to encourage, since they've already got the water main down on Old Derry Road, there aren't that many houses on Old Derry Road itself. Whereas in those developments, there are quite a few houses.

Yes, so this isn't, but the point of this main is, TO IS FOR THE WHOLE STATEWIDE SYSTEM. RIGHT. THE POINT WASN'T THIS ISN'T A PROJECT THAT'S ADDRESSING CONTAMINATION. THAT'S NOT THE THAT ISN'T THE POINT OF THE SOUTHERN HAMPSHIRE WATER SYSTEM PROJECT. IT ISN'T TO EXTEND WATER TO ADDITIONAL RESIDENCES ON OLD DERRY ROAD WITH PFAS. IT'S GOOD IF IT DOES BUT THAT Kill the point.

Sorry. Oh, yeah.

No, it's just extending or extending a water main down a road is a million dollar project minimum. Right. So that's the that's the catch. Right. Right. We did put in an application with Senator Shaheen's office for that last quarter of Lord and Commons. the one that was initially built. And we can go into this more at a later date. It was moved on to Congress. And the reason that we prioritized that area based on the criteria that all of you developed It's one of the worst, one of the highest levels of contamination outside the consent decree. We're talking levels of PFOA in the 50 and 60 range. So it's extraordinarily, those wells are extraordinarily contaminated. And so that, and it's also the densest neighborhood on that list of 12. So for the least amount of money, the most number of families can get clean water. So that's why that one Went on this first round of applications because of the the extreme contamination the number of potentially affected people and The number the basically the bang for the buck for lack of a better term coming to my mind But yeah, that's that's entirely separate. So the reason we could put in for that was because of the old Dairy Road water project and but it's entirely separate from that. Old Dairy Road Water Project is just about creating that redundant water system with better movement into the rest of the state.

so yeah i definitely understand yeah it's odd because a lot of those houses have been up there and people have been there and there are a lot of kids and older folks in some of those neighborhoods so that you have vulnerable populations and they've actually been drinking the water even longer than the new people in the new developments because the people in the new developments more recently moved into those houses. So you have people who are in some of those older neighborhoods who have been drinking the water for a long period of time.

Absolutely. I definitely understand that it would be lovely if we could do every neighborhood. Sure. And there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of people in a lot of these neighborhoods that we would love to get to right away. This particular one is, you know, that's part of the reason why that criteria was developed and approved by the council was to make sure that just like the state has to make those excruciatingly painful decisions about what order you they where they give the money around the state you know when you're putting in for these funds you have to make those decisions as well and that's why that criteria that you all worked really really hard on was was really important in doing that at this point in time and as we move through those you know we are hoping the faster we get through these projects the faster the more support that we can get for these projects the faster we can get to the other neighborhoods and that is the hope That we all have.

Do you have an idea when you might hear back from your application?

So we've heard back on both the one we put into Congressman Pappas's and Senator Sheen's offices. Both of them moved to congressional review. So that happens in the summer. Usually they'll decide we won't hear back to late summer, early fall about the success of those two applications. But we will.

So it's still out there as a possible.

It is. They're both they both made it to the next step. I will say like I mean, James and I worked hard on these, but it wasn't like 70 to 80% of them make it to the next step. And then I'm not sure how many make it through Congress. We've had success in the past. I think we have two very compelling, very tight applications for these two projects that we put in. So I think we have an excellent chance. But it's up to it's it's up to Congress now and it's up to the subcommittee that deals with that Wait to hear so these are earmarks is what we're talking about, right?

Yes. Yep.

So the congressionally directed spending is what they developed I want to say they started it in fiscal year 2221 to kind of pull earmarks out of other bills and just lay them out so Congress can just Ask for the money for their districts for these major projects without having to work them in elsewhere and so that's what We've had success THREE OF THE FOUR YEARS WE PUT THINGS IN.

HOW MUCH WERE YOU GETTING THESE THREE YEARS? ABOUT?

$4 MILLION ONE YEAR.

SO MATERIAL FOR SURE.

YEP. $4 MILLION FOR THE PILLSBURY PUMP STATION. $1.67 MILLION FOR BRINGING WATER UNDER 4A WHICH IS A PROJECT THAT'S IN PROCESS OR WILL BE IN PROCESS AT SOME POINT. And then 2 million or 1.5 million, I'd have to double check because we haven't gotten the paperwork from it. That was awarded last year. That was from the Department of Transportation for Pettengill Road. But we're waiting, that one we're waiting to work its way down from D.O.T., from U.S. D.O.T. to New Hampshire D.O.T., and then it comes to us. So that's a trickle down. That one takes a little longer. But yeah, and that one's roads, that's not utilities, that's roads. But so we've gotten, we've had success on those three projects. There's a project that was put in in fiscal year 22 that did not get funded. We learned a lot from the applications from all those processes, so.

Who controlled the southern New Hampshire water plan? State.

Do you know?

The state of New Hampshire did. Okay. Yep.

So that's all from them. Okay. Just two quick updates on other. South Road, they're trucking along. They're down almost to, from South School down to the 40s, like the high 40s on South Road, and they're going down as far as 32 before it cuts through the woods, so... They're doing a great job down there. They've hit some ledge, so they're slowing down a little bit now, but they're still doing. I know you're going to get really sick of that phrase over your terms of service. They're hitting some ledge. Just get used to it now.

Call the grant estate for a reason.

For a reason, yep. And then the other one is the old Nashua Road project. They did finish the directional drill by the power lines. So they're finishing up that project. They're back working on that and they're making good progress there. The directional drill by the power lines was the hardest part.

Okay. Very good. Anything else? None on that.

I don't know if this is the right time to be asking the question, but I'm looking for an update on the strategic plan. And in particular, I know we got one more hearing.

The public hearing on the strategic plan is scheduled for June 15th, the next council meeting.

So shortly after that, some kind of wheels go into motion, right?

Yes.

I'm trying to understand how that process is going to work. We've got our utility committee name against a bunch of those tasks. So when do we sit down as a committee and say, here's how we're going to tackle this?

It's funny you ask that. I actually gave an update on that at the last department head meeting. So James has already heard this. So what happens next? What happens next is that when the strategic plan gets approved, whatever gets approved in it, we then will take those action items and KPIs and basically list next to them who's going to be involved in them. and who's going to be the lead organization on them and we'll sort it out. We're going to create a document that will let us sort by both who's involved and by timeline. So we can sort by when we said each one of them should be done and then when, who's responsible. So at that point, Tanya and I will start meeting with people about their particular their particular action items and coming up with plans on how to execute them like individual board or department business plans if you will and we'll do regular check-ins with the meetings and everything and start coming up with how we're going to work on those things We're going to ask for quarterly reports so that we want to update this quarterly for the public. We want to be consistent about updating it quarterly so that people don't have to check back and be like, oh, this got updated this month. This got updated that month. This hasn't been updated in six months or a year. So we're going to do, and you'll get reminders from Tanya when it's that time. And we're not talking about like massive paragraphs. We're talking about like in progress, stalled, WHAT'S GOING ON HERE. SO WE PLAN ON DOING THAT OVER THE COURSE OF THE PLAN AND THEN WE'LL START THINKING ABOUT ONCE WE GET THAT UNDERWAY WHAT HAS TO CHANGE AND WHAT HAS TO BE REVISED FOR NEXT YEAR'S VERSION. SO WHEN IT GOES FROM THE 27 TO 29, WHEN IT GOES TO THE 28 THROUGH 30, WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE.

SO IS IT SAFE TO SAY THAT This summer, this process you just outlined is probably going to occur too late to influence the capital improvement plan.

Yes. So the things that would come out of this year's strategic plan would likely be things that would be entered into the capital improvements plan next spring. because Capital Improvements Committee meets for the first time next week. So they're already underway. We've already submitted the projects for this year.

What I'm thinking about specifically is we had an energy efficiency study done and some of the town buildings and we've got a list of recommendations. So are we then going to have to wait until a year from now, basically, to put those projects forward for funding?

Let me get an answer for you on that, if that works. Let me look into that. Can you make a note on that one? So thank you. Yeah, we talked about it. We'll get an answer from you for you on that one. Thank you. You're welcome.

All right. Then I'm going to go into our subcommittee discussions.

Real quick on one of the things. So this Thursday, Hardy, Gordon, Holmes, that cell section, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., there's going to be a water shutoff.

Yes.

Just let everybody know.

We put that out, again, DPW Facebook page, and that was on the town Facebook page, too. Excellent source for that yes, there's going to be a water shut off on the 4th overnight and in the select area and it was again hardy hubby and was hardy of the Gordon homes that section and it's it's scheduled to be overnight to create the least amount of disruption. So it's just hobby and the whole section.

So what they're doing hot and going to tie it all in which includes all the way from the old connection with the wells where the hobby road all the way up through Gordon homes in there by your place, you'll get it to you should have noticed a site right now connected to the one on the website to you know, yeah, that's right. So yeah, but they all things as please, please, please collect water for your use. Okay.

can't see it under the news feed section of the website there you go yeah that's exactly it all right yeah those roads okay very good okay anything else before we get into subcommittees no okay let's start with um our energy did you have your meeting beforehand we did good we did

uh... but we'll talk about so uh... we had a meeting subcommittee meeting starting at six this evening and uh... just basically one of the same topics that we'll talk about right now uh... update on the community aggregation plan uh... we're entering our third month of the program uh... had a phone call with freedom energy logistics uh... last week uh... just to kind of get an update we're starting to look at pricing for our next contract But I asked a question about customer service and what are they getting now for calls into their call center and things like that. And they're going to put together some data for us, so I should have that at our next facilities committee meeting. And if I get it early, I'll send it out. Okay.

But the number of calls they're saying have just dropped dramatically.

So, you know, we're into the program. I haven't received any positive or negative feedback. I wouldn't expect too much positive feedback. And if it was negative, I think we would have all heard about it. So I think as of right now, the program is running, it's running smoothly. And I think the next steps for the Energy Subcommittee is to start looking for pricing for our next contract. This particular contract expires at the end of October. PS, Eversource is going in with their requested rates. to the PUC next week, week after?

Any week now.

Any week now. And they're looking for the rates for the period of August 1st through January 31st. So for the next six month period for them. We're in a really good position, I think, because our contract is through the end of October. Our aggregation program contract is through the end of October. And so we'll have some time to digest Eversource's rates and start doing some rate shopping on our own.

And I think right now my

My feeling, I think Paul mirrors my feeling, is we're gonna try to see if we can get a longer term contract for the next round, a year or even perhaps two years. We have seen some indicative pricing come through and the short term contracts, future contracts for power are high and a lot of that's attributable just to the current political situation. and the fact that it was a cold winter and they're recouping some of the costs from the cold winter. But from what we're seeing right now, I think we should be in a good position to sign a year or perhaps even a two-year long-term contract for our next contract. And lock into a price. Lock into a price for a long time. Give all the customers price stability. And I just think it's the right thing to do. Reading between the lines at Eversource, I think Eversource is going to be in a position for the next, certainly the next six months, maybe the next 12 to 18 months where they're going to have some high rates. And I think we'll be very competitive against the rates that they're going to come through.

So I'm very happy with that.

Very happy with that. I am too. So as soon as we understand Eversource's rates, Paul and I will start watching the open market with Freedom Energy, and I think when we feel it's getting close to signing a contract with Sean Mulholland, we'll go forward at that point in time. But certainly keeping everybody in the loop here in the Utilities Committee. That sounds good. I think it's working as we thought it would, and it's good.

Yeah. One of the comments is if the market is very volatile, we may come to the committee and ask you to approve a range. Okay, so that when, if we have to lock in a contract within 24 to 48 hours, as long as it's within that range, we would have approval to do so.

Okay, that sounds reasonable.

We'll give you more information as time goes on. Okay.

Yeah, the way it worked last time generally is we had a rate given to us at 10 o'clock in the morning and we had to sign the contract that day.

Yeah.

And that's the way it'll be this time around as well. Right. Futures is up and down. It's interesting to watch.

Yeah. Interesting to watch. Yeah.

Solar progress, so I'm going to kind of couch this in a bigger just energy topic. In terms of specific solar, we did have a resident bring up the Auburn Road landfill discussion again, and I know we haven't looked at it in a couple years, and I said, you know, we'd start opening up that discussion to see what was going on there. I don't think there's been much change. with the availability of three-phase power being kind of the biggest roadblock to getting something there. But Paul and I went to, we took a tour of the Amos Cade Dam a couple weeks ago, a month ago maybe now, and came across an organization there called Clean Energy New Hampshire. And Clean Energy New Hampshire, it's a non-profit statewide organization. become a member of the organization. They have municipal memberships available. But it's really a nonpartisan organization with expertise in local legislative and regulatory energy policies. And I think given the complexity of policy at this point in time, I think it makes sense for Londonderry to approach joining an organization like that. municipal membership they have a couple levels but the best levels 500 bucks a year i mean it's it's it's basically really cheap money best as cheapest or best at most in depth most services services okay thank you Yeah, and they talk about providing expertise in local policy development, energy efficiency project support, renewable energy project support, helping to identify funding sources, analysis of various procurement models, purchase power agreements, other types of models like that, and to help us with public outreach programs, too, and that type of thing. I think for 500 bucks, it's just money well spent. And I would like to throw that out. And I don't know if a motion is appropriate to authorize the energy subcommittee to have a conversation with Sean about spending the money. I don't know if we have to go to the council for that.

Can we ask a question? Sure. Do we know how Clean Energy is funded? Who funds them?

So they're funded through their membership program. They have business memberships, municipal memberships, private memberships. I can give you some specific, I'll send out some specific information, Ann. I'll send it to Martha and she can send it out to the committee, just to answer your question.

Yeah, they're pretty easy to look up online. Sure.

I think for the money, and you know, I applaud the dedication and the talent that the members of this committee bring to the table. But I really think sometimes it really, a lot of these policy decisions, even engineering decisions, when we start talking about, you know, or citing decisions, it's beyond our realm of expertise. And I think then we stop because we don't know how to go forward. And I think joining hands with an organization like this will help us move a lot of these projects forward.

Having a resource like that, I think it's a good idea. I think it does deserve a motion. So I'm going to ask for a motion to have somebody from the energy committee. Could be you, Lynn, because you seem to know the most about this approach. our town manager about Expenditure of five hundred dollars to for us to join this as a municipality and have that resource to turn to So I'll ask for that motion so moved. So, thank you Jeff and Okay, we have a motion by Jeff and a second by John So all in favors I Is everyone

Okay. I guess I'm not voting because I would like more information on the group. Well, you can... Pardon me?

You can abstain if you don't want to vote. Yeah, if you don't... That's right.

Okay.

Okay, so we have... How many of us are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6?

And with Ann here, I don't vote.

By the way, excuse me, I didn't vote either. Right, you're an alternate.

So it would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

All right, so everybody, let's have a roll call vote. Joy?

I'm alternate, so I don't get a vote.

Okay, Paul? Ann's abstaining? Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Alternate now Dan back. Oh, all right.

Yes, and then John yes, okay All right So I should state that we have one, two, three, four.

So Martha, your vote is 6-0 with Ann Fenn abstaining. Thank you. 6-0 with Ann Fenn abstaining.

I can just explain that having worked for tons of different public interest groups and environmental groups, national level, state level, That's why I asked who they're funded by and who the members are, because lots of times the names of certain organizations can be deceptive.

I'll get that information to you. Okay.

But no. I think we have enough for you to go ahead and pose a question. Okay, thank you.

Going along the same line of discussion.

So going along the same line of discussion in terms more specifically of solar, solar opportunity, solar siting, what policy is at the state level policy at the national level on solar and renewable energy. I think we're having the same type of stumbling blocks, maybe a little bit more complex when we start talking the different things with solar, when we start talking infrastructure issues and things like that. And our aggregation partner, Freedom Energy Logistics, has an organization in that organization that deals with providing solar consulting services. And right now, I have a phone call scheduled with them for next Friday or for this coming Friday to get a better idea in what they do, the services they provide, what their fee structure would be helping us to move some of these projects forward. I think we're at a point in time where we could use some third-party expertise in looking at these projects. We've talked on and off. I know I've talked on and off about going out to the suppliers, to the primary suppliers in the state and working with them, but I think they're going to be approaching it from their business perspective, their business model perspective, as opposed to maybe what's best for the town's perspective.

Mm-hmm.

And if it makes sense to move forward with a consulting service, we'll talk about that at the next meeting, but right now I'm just gathering some more information. I think, seat of my pants says it would be a benefit to us to have a non, or a disinterested party looking out for our town's best interests instead of working directly with these people who do this work for a living.

Well, I think it would be interesting to get the information, so I'll let you take charge of that and bring it to the next meeting. So I'll just let you know that that's happening as well.

Okay. And that's about all I have for the Energy Subcommittee meeting.

Can I ask a question?

No.

A lot of this, wait a minute, I'm not an expert on energy, by the way, but I think a lot of this that we could learn from other towns that are dealing with the same issues, we are. meaning either looking to get into solar or have chosen like dairy, for instance, that you folks did go over and view that. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah. I just think we could learn a lot from... how many towns that have already put in solar either on their municipal buildings schools and and so forth and how that has worked out for them um so you know fine if you you want to go to consultants and and get their opinion too that's fine too but um it doesn't it doesn't cost anything to talk to other towns correct

Go ahead. I would say that that's correct. And right now, what we're doing is just investigating to see how much the consulting fees would be to go into.

Yeah, we spoke of one, which would be a small amount of $500, which- It's not much.

Right. And that's more of a resource, that company. New Hampshire Clean Energy is more of a resource for us to go to. Consulting would be looking, actually looking into spots for the town. So I think that we have to investigate how much that will cost. I had a conversation with the guy over in Derry as well who was very involved in their solar project. I called him because of that gentleman that talked to us about the three-phase power and so I decided to see if we could get a confirmation on that and yes it does require that three-phase power and that they're more than willing to work with us they were the guy was very generous so he's very willing to work with us to connect with us tell us everything that they had to go through it's a it's a very arduous process to go through these these big projects like this so you know obviously before we jump into it we're going to be doing that yeah I mean we I think we've had Jerry here before have we not

we had dare here a long time ago when it was in very conceptual yeah conceptual and so um when you spoke to him recently uh what did you learn it's not even um plugged in yet it's not even i mean it's well they've been working on this for years correct correct yes so it would be good to be good to have them back tell us what happened right yeah that's what we're trying to avoid right so you know What were the stumbling blocks?

So what we found is many of these towns that have successful projects have hired the expertise to do so. And that's the direction Lynn is talking about.

It's worth noting that once we get into New Hampshire energy, clean energy New Hampshire, and That's our conduit to answer your question because all of these towns are working with Clean Energy New Hampshire. I mean, it'll be to the point where this is what we're up against. Oh, you need to talk to this town for this problem. So I think we're going to do exactly what you have in mind. by working with Clean Energy New Hampshire.

And one of the big differences, Ray, between us and dairy, so the two gentlemen I think you're talking about in dairy were both experts in the field. So they had experience in the solar industry. They were electrical engineer.

They also had experience with their previous small solar at the DPW that they had used for years.

So Doug, let me clarify that. So they had the technical expertise. Like I say, I applaud everybody on this committee, but nobody on this committee has expertise in installing a solar array, right? We're not solar engineers, and I think that's where... And Derry did have that. Yeah. The two people who pushed that project forward were both electrical engineers with experience in the field. Very good. Thank you. So that's where I, you know, I'm trying to figure out ways to get projects going. I don't want to talk anymore about projects. I want projects to happen, right? You've got to have a site, though. So that's exactly what I'm talking about. I don't want to talk anymore about sites. I want to go find a site and let's make it happen, right? And I think this is a great way to make it happen.

Thank you. I think it's definitely worth the investigation. So we'll look forward to hearing that at the next meeting. Cool. Thank you.

And that's what I have. Anybody else? Paul? Just the other thing.

I talked previously about this app called Solar App Plus, which is a permitting tool to take a load off of our staff and put it onto basically a piece of software. The next step in doing that is to have a Zoom call. I attended a... Like a 101 class. But the next step is to have actually a Zoom call with the people that run this and explain what we do here, what they do, and see how much of a matchup there is. So what that involves is, number one, commitment of some staff time. people like James and probably Dave, some of the DPW people. And the question is, well, does the town manager wanna allocate additional staff time from this overworked staff that he's already got? So when Lynn goes to meet with him, one of the things they're gonna talk about is you see if he has an interest in supporting, investigating SolarAPP+.

Okay, and what exactly does that piece of software do?

It's a way of getting, it's for homeowners, basically. Okay. And you can get on their website and within about 24 hours have a permit. So you obviously have to collect some information for that. But that's the idea. Instead of having people over, James' staff, going through all this stuff, the permit is complete because the software won't let you do it without providing all the information. And it knows what our zoning ordinance provides for in terms of requirements. It knows where it is, and so it can do all this work. And the really nice thing about it is it's free. It's run by a nonprofit that is just dedicated to providing this application. The fees, I'll anticipate to answer the question, where does the money come from? The money in this case comes from the solar developers. So if the project goes forward, that the solar developer pays a fee into SolarAPP+. And they're more than happy to do it, because they've saved days and days of work.

OK, well, that sounds that sounds interesting, too. I mean, we've all expressed an interest in solar and in trying to expand in that direction. So I think that that also sounds positive. So that will be part of your discussion. Great. OK. Anything else for energy? OK. Well, then we'll move on to water and some some of i'm going to let you take water but before we start before we start um kirsten has handed out tonight the um information that went to residents in londonderry that are would be part of the water assessment district And she's handed out a list of names of people that that it's gone to do not have it right now you do it's in front of you right right right there.

Requested that we review these names and if any name on this list is familiar to you is somebody that you know in town well enough to email or call speak to

to tell them simply all this is asking for is for them to sign a petition that says that they support the creation of this district that they happen to be in. It does not in any way initiate anything with the town for money or or anything like that it just says that if anybody in your district wants to sign up and and get water connected to their home uh do would you support that and so i want everybody to take this home and look at these names and see if you know anybody so i know a couple of people but don't i have to put in like a preamble um for people who don't maybe don't understand what this whole thing is about

So that's this website right here has all the documents that went out to people with the exception of the petition card. So let me explain. Everybody on this list got a letter mailed to them. That letter had this sample letter in it, which explained why the letter was going to them. So this is on the website again. Now, part of the reason is I will say I messed up the dates on the letter. It says the public information sessions were Fridays and Mondays. The dates are right. The days of the week, that's what day of week it was in 2005. Sorry, 2025. So thanks, ChatGP, for organizing that for me poorly. My fault for not checking. But there is one more on Saturday, June 6th. so they can come in and sit down and talk. So everybody got this letter from me. And it has the link to this page, which there's a nice shortcut. It's londonderrynh.gov slash WSAD, Water Special Assessment District. So just like we did one for CCA, so we didn't have to have the whole long thing, we put a redirect. So if you type that in, londondarianh.gov slash WSAD, you get to this page. So everybody got this letter, and everybody got the FAQs. What is a special assessment district? What would the proposed district do? Am I required to connect to public water? No. And signing this card does not commit you to or even say you're interested in connecting to public water. If I don't connect to public water, will I be charged anything? Nope. Does signing the petition mean I'm agreeing to participate? Also, no. This is like... I feel like you can tell a parent wrote this. Denise Minella worked on this. So she did the first draft of this. Why should I participate if I don't plan to participate? Why should I sign? Honestly, to be a good neighbor and help the people in the district, to help your community. How do I apply for funding? What costs would be eligible? What costs are not covered? How much funding could a property owner receive? Would interest be charged? How long would repayment last? How would repayment work? What happens if assessments aren't paid? What happens if I sell my property? Do I have to apply in 2026? Do I have to use the district financing if I connect to public water? And can I sign the petition if I'm not the owner of record? There's a lot of no's on this, like a lot, a lot of no's. But the point of that is that signing this petition card only lets this move forward to the council and says they're OK if it forms. Nobody will be charged anything. And actually, that's written into the plan Nobody will be charged anything over the life of the district if they do not sign up for the assessment for the connection. So everybody on this list already got this as well in the mail. I'm not saying they didn't throw it away, but if they'd like to go to the WSAD webpage, all of this is there. there's also the full plan the full legal approved plan which is 16 pages of lots of legalese like but if somebody wants to read it all they're welcome to do that do you have any data on traffic to the uh wasd i haven't looked at it yet to be honest with you um exhibit a is the map of the district it just basically outlines the properties that would be part of the district um And then exhibit B is the list of properties in the district. So and it's actually color coded by the project. So you can see even though 76 old natural road is on a national it's part of the high range for the project so. So these are all the eligible properties in the district. I would ask that for the list that I handed out to you, you know, it does have homeowner names on it, property owner names, which is public information, but also we don't need to be like putting it out there in the sense if somebody wants to request it, they're welcome to, but I want to make sure this doesn't end up in like easily end up in commercial hands. So for that, If we could also refrain from discussing individual names in public session, too. They didn't consent to be, you know, they didn't come forward to be discussed here. So I would ask that we have any of that discussion outside of quorums. Just go ahead. And I don't think it's a bad thing if three of us know somebody on this list and all three of us reach out to them. it's just gonna be harder to ignore us. I think it's okay if they get multiple connections. I don't think we need to coordinate or divide. The last thing is, We are not recommending going door to door. That's just not something that we're recommending at this time. I would rather take another two weeks on the petition and push it back to the next meeting if we need to and reach out to people and research phone numbers and use Facebook messages and let's try and get to people that way. To date, we have 35 cards in, which is just about 18% of the homeowners. We need to get to, I think, either 99 or 100 in terms of number of people signing. and 65% of the assessed value. Letters went out to I think 198 people, 198 properties. How long ago was it? About a week and a half. We got a couple trickling in. We're getting near where I think we're gonna get the critical mass. Some people are, it's definitely still in the mail because I've had some people tell me they're in the mail. So we should get more in tomorrow, more in Friday. But if you reach out to somebody and they say we already signed it, awesome. Did you talk to your neighbors yet? So this is like the five minutes of my job where my time in sales like actually applies. Like it never applies to anything I do here except for this. So yes and.

I got two quickies for you. I contact somebody to say thank you and I throw out my card. How can I get another card?

Ah, that's a great question. They if they throw out their card that came with a cell with a self-addressed stamped envelope, by the way, it was in there with a self-addressed stamped envelope. So there's extra cards in Public Works. We'd be happy to email them one that then they could drop off or they can just come in and fill it out up in Public Works during normal working hours. I'll go drop one off in their mailbox. That's cool. If they know I'm coming, I'll go to I'll go to the door. That's cool. Yeah, we can get them a new card. No problem.

Second question. What if they are multiple property owners? Can they vote card three times, two times, whatever they own?

Yes, they can fill out. So they can either put all the addresses on one card and you'll notice on this list there are some multiple property owners. They can put all the addresses on one card or they can fill out a separate card for each address, whatever is easier for them.

Okay.

um and it does have to be the owner not the resident for the most part we sent them to the mailing addresses that were in the database but some mailing addresses aren't some people who are like the property owner they still use that as the mailing address even though they live somewhere else so it's going to their tenant so there's there was a case of that i got a letter returned i was able to find the guy's address he lives in dairy he runs a house out in londonderry so i was able to turn it around but we've only gotten that one return to us so far So yeah, the check marks means we already have it.

Yeah, so we don't bother those people.

Yeah, you don't need to bother those people. You'll notice that there's some committee member, like you're going to recognize like, you know, former committee member on the Conservation Commission, a member of Beautify Londonderry. We already got those. The first card we opened up, I was like, oh, I used to work with their son. So, you know, it cuts into the people I know, but there's still a lot of people there I think we can get. So...

right i just wanted to mention that preliminarily excellent thank you very much

So on the Water Committee, we did not have a meeting last month. We're getting into summer mode, maybe a little early. Top of the list, obviously, is the Special Assessment District. Kirsten gave us a really nice update on it. Everybody's got a little bit of work on that. We're doing a little bit of data collecting. We're going to get some data. Ann's going to get some data on... uh state and national lawsuits that might impact londonderry and new hampshire and we're also getting some information on um the quality of water coming out of pennant chuck So that's that's incoming. We're looking at making friends with other water committees, dairy, Litchfield, other areas, other places around this area. And also probably since we have it, the southern New Hampshire state water committee. regional district just so we you know water is as evidenced by the old Dairy Road project waters of regional issue not in the local issue so we want to make make sure that we're aware of all the stuff that's going on regionally and always trying to work on our outreach capabilities. We talked a lot about that last year and we sort of bounced, this is getting off water, but this is, we bounced around ideas of outreach and doing discussions and putting stuff on public access. That's still available. I've had to-dos on that. basically every month for the last two years. But this month, I'll start reaching out to people individually. It's like, hey, you know, we talked a little bit about this. Is that something you want to do? And we'll try to get a list of people that want to commit and do maybe a public access thing if something that really speaks to them really is important. Maybe we can do some outreach that way. I'll start making those calls and emails tomorrow. So expect a call or an email from me. But I think that's it. The outreach for the Special Assessment District is obviously the number one most important thing we're doing in water as of right now.

Jeff, are we talking about our next water meeting on the 20th of June?

It would be... 10 o'clock? Let me look at the calendar. Good question. I always forget that. It is the third. Second, yeah. So this Saturday would be the sixth. Wait, is that right?

Yep. Yeah.

So the second Saturday would be the 13th. So that's not a holiday, is it?

Flag day.

Is it?

Sunday, flag day.

Well, that's the 14th, though.

There you go.

All right, so Saturday the 13th at 10 o'clock, no, 9 o'clock, because Ray doesn't have... Well, we were doing it at 10 because one of our members had early morning work, and we moved it back so everyone can get in, get the meeting over with, and have their time with their family for the weekend. So 9 o'clock on the 13th in the Sunnycrest room. And I'm going to try to start maybe on Fridays, Friday afternoons, sending out, like, this is what we're working on in water. So everybody sort of has an updated list of to-dos, or maybe not a list of to-dos, but a list of projects that we're working on so we can all make sure that we're tracking in the same direction. That way we can try to move these things forward a little bit. And I think that's it for water, unless anyone has a question. Ray had a question from, Kirsten, Ray had a question about having a permanent water commission. And I guess I'll reach out to you to sort of talk about that and understand what is involved in that. So we'll at least, I'll be smarter about it, and then we can give some feedback and some logic and reasoning, either pro or con, at the next water meeting. Is that okay, Ray? Have you reviewed it? I haven't looked at it. I will look at it. Oh, you were going to send something, Kirsten.

Yeah, I just gave Ray a back. I just got it scanned. So I will send that out. There's some stuff that needs to be looked into regarding when you're forming commissions, commissions are statutorily, are usually governed by statute. So yeah, laugh at me. That's fine. I deserve that. So let me take a look at that before we get too deep into that.

Yeah. It's fact finding for now.

Yeah.

So, you know, if it comes to more statutorily significant activities, we'll talk to the town council and move it up the ladder appropriately. But I'll be smarter for next week.

Does anybody have an opinion of that?

I don't have... Too early for me to say. It's too early for me to say. I need to do the research, right? I don't want to speculate and give you bad information just because I don't know. So...

Okay, anything else on water? Okay, then let's move on to sewer and solid waste.

Sewer and solid waste, that's me. About a week ago Saturday, four intrepid members of the Sewer and Solid Waste Committee sojourned up to Purpose Energy's facility up in St. Albans, Vermont. Joy Muller, Our chair, Lynn Wiles, and myself made that trip with a couple of purposes in mind. One was to learn more about this company's operation. They're proposing a facility here in Londonderry adjacent to, in conjunction with the second company, Recycle Works, that's somewhat innovative. They're going to take in various liquids, expired soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, perhaps product from Stonyfield's manufacturing facility on the north end of town and through a process convert that into methane gas that can then be fed into the Liberty Pipeline. So it's sort of a closed loop recycling operation that's fairly innovative. With all of that, I think there have been some concerns brought forward by citizens, some concerned citizens in Londonderry about this kind of a plant on the north end of town. So members of solid waste, sewer and solid waste committee decided it would be a good idea to go do eyes-on as citizens ourselves, non-experts, and take a look at what an operation like this looks like. And the recommendation was the facility up in St. Albans, Vermont, which if you don't know where that is, neither did I. It was about a 400-plus mile round trip, and the feeling is just returning to my backside in the last day or so. So what did we see? We got some pictures. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Joy, for the pictures. If you can see these up here, the material comes into this particular facility in, I would call them medium-sized vans, and it can be any kind of liquid that is a waste product from other manufacturing. They talked about dairies. They talked about yogurt producers. They talked about egg farms. There are all kinds of liquids, and then they're pumped into this building. Next slide, please.

But it's not hazardous waste.

Not hazardous. Materials. It's not toxic. This is not hazardous material. This is...

Solid waste. Yeah, it goes into a digester and no... No hazardous materials.

As a matter of fact, this particular part of the process filters out the little nasty things that get into these liquids, pieces of plastic, pieces of metal, things that they don't want to go into their digester further downstream.

And they take the waste from Ben and Jerry's, too.

Oh, the biggest way. The waste from Ben and Jerry's comes in on a pipeline, direct pipeline. Right next door. So it's a little different. And I think there is a hope, being careful not to spill the beans too much here, that a certain yogurt plant located in Londonderry will pipe their waste into this facility too, although that certainly has not been finalized. So this is just a picture. I like this picture because, frankly, as we flip through these pictures, this is the dirtiest picture that you'll see. And it's not dirty at all. It's basically filtering out some of the stuff that has to actually end up going to the landfill. And in the grand scope of things, that's an insignificant amount of waste product that goes to the landfill. Next slide, please. The next few slides are technical. And if you know me at all, you'll know that I'm not a technical kind of guy. But in my previous life, I was in the cleaning business. I showed people how to clean everything, operating rooms, butcher shops, industrial plants. And one of the reasons I like this and a couple of the subsequent slides is you can see this is a clean facility. Considering what they're handling, This is a remarkably clean facility. Now, if anybody else that was on this tour has technical knowledge they want to throw in, that's great. Feel free. Next slide, please. Another picture. You know what? You can... eat off that floor, okay? I would love, as I said to the operator who met with us, I would have loved to have had the piping contract for this building because everything travels by pipe. Everything is computerized. He talked about the impact of AI and the fact that he can control his whole operation from his home. On his phone. And by the way, two employees in this whole facility. How big is it? Incredible. How big is it? I don't know the square footage, but a little bit of a campus with multiple buildings.

It looks probably about 2,000 square feet. The main building, maybe? No, probably like 5,000 square feet.

Are they looking for investors? Do they need investors? Next slide, please. Again, I have no idea what all these pipes are doing, but again, you can see a spotlessly clean facility. And I always feel a little bit better myself if a facility is well kept and clean. I think it speaks to the quality of the operation. Next slide, please. No idea. Okay, no idea. But it does give you a little taste of the complexity of this business in that they have to separate things into different streams. Next slide, please.

Going on to your theme here, Don, those are clean-out spots there, all those things coming up at an angle.

Yeah.

That's for making it clean, cleaning things out.

Thank you, sir.

So they're like traps then, right?

Yeah.

Traps? Lynn, do you remember what these were?

These are the digesters. Amen. Three of them.

And there are three of them, and you can get a sense of the size of these compared to the, I don't know if that's one of us that's walking down there. That's you?

Okay, wow.

And if I recall correctly too, these are open to the air on top, which I think is interesting and it speaks to one of the problems that we'll talk about. Did it smell? Next slide, please. Go ahead.

Did it smell? We'll get there.

We'll get there. Next slide, please. And, of course, you don't do anything unless you have a picture of the jaunty, intrepid adventurers there, including the guy with the jaunty hat on the far left there. All right. So let's talk about what were the – we were looking, in addition to learning a little bit about the operation and getting a feel for this, we wanted to kind of put a citizen's eye on five problems that we – felt that we had heard both in the presentation that was done by the DES here, and you were with me that night, Martha, and in general commentary, even in this group, in this meeting. There have been concerns brought up about five separate topics. Noise, odors, vermin, traffic, and safety. So putting our eyes on this thing, from a noise point of view, we drove up, this particular facility is in a small industrial park in St. Albans. It's set back a little bit from the road, but not tremendously from the road. And we really could not hear the noise of what they were doing until we were immediately parked. You can see where we're standing right there adjacent to the building. Noise, I don't think needs to be a concern and frankly, We even picked up a little bit more noise than normal because they had a pump that was malfunctioning that day and they had doors open to let in some fresh air. The noise was not significant. Where this is planned in Londonderry, in a wooded area, I sincerely believe from what we've seen in Vermont that it's far enough away from the residences that they're not gonna have an issue with noise.

Did they do any tests as to what the decibels were at different times of the day or different times of the week for this particular facility?

I didn't ask the question. But this is a 24 7365 operation. So I don't think you'd get a lot of variance in the noise because what's happening is happening, right? Okay, continued. Their money is produced constant production. That's how that's how they make money, both here and in the proposed plan and what to do.

And I know it's unscientific, Ann, but we were there with no ear protection. We were just talking in normal conversational tones with no issues whatsoever. Anywhere we walked.

It's just, I'm just thinking if that's an issue for people here in Londonderry, it's useful to have those numbers to say what the decibels actually is. You just don't want to go above 80 decibels.

This plant is a little different than what they're proposing for our town in that they have the recycling along with this digester that's producing the methane. Gotcha. they they envision our plant is being more enclosed that trucks will come in and pull in and give them their stuff and so it won't be an open operation there won't be trucks pulling up like you saw the truck in the first slide that was putting um you know it's waste in there that's not going to happen at this one

You know, it's very interesting. In this plant, the methane that they create feeds an electric generator, which then feeds into the grid. And we walked, the building with the generator is to the rear of the campus here. And as we walked up to the building, you really couldn't hear a thing. But when you open that door, you could absolutely hear that that was a loud room. But the building was... set up sound-wise to trap that. And that's what we found throughout this facility. And from what we understand, what's being proposed for Londonderry is even more self-enclosed than, as Martha said, than what they had up in St. Albans, Vermont. Odors. They were absent outside of the buildings. You had to really get up. Maybe that area where they had the open... Where the trucks unload. Yeah, where the trucks unload. You know, from 10 foot away, you might pick that up. And on a hot summer's day, maybe something right there. but you're not picking up odors from this process. They talked about one instance where a truckload of their worst experience, because I remembered a question you, I think, asked, Ray, about what is the worst thing that could happen. And their worst experience is they had a truckload of, um, egg wash water that came in from Pete and Jerry's organic eggs that came in and they got a phone call from the Ben and Jerry's plant next door because I guess that's, I guess if you wash organic eggs, it's a very smelly process. So, so They had one call in all their time of operation from their next door neighbor. So homes in that surrounding area were further out than the Ben and Jerry's. Ben and Jerry's was one section of woods away from this plant. So odors were not an issue. I also used to be a pest control operator. You know, a man of many talents, none of any use. And so one of the things I noticed is there were no bait stations for rats or mice throughout this facility because they don't have any, okay? They talked about pests. The only pest they had on site was a possum that kind of broke in through an open door. So they don't have the issue. They had a summertime issue with a delayed pickup of one of those containers we saw where Casella was a little late coming in to pick it up, and they ended up with some critters, some maggots in the trash. But again, that was Casella's issue, and that was during construction of the facility. Traffic is not an issue. They get about five trucks a day on average for this smaller facility. The facility that's envisioned for Londonderry is, from the DES presentation, will get about 15 trucks per day. to that facility, which I don't believe will be a significant challenge for them. The other thing that's different, I think, in St. Albans is some of the trucks that come into this facility are owned by like Pete and Jerry's Eggs or some of the farmers that come in and bring their material in. The trucks that will be coming into Recycle Works are all Recycle Works vehicles. So they will control their traffic. And they've done a couple of things already. I don't know who initiated this, but Wentworth has now been posted as no parking or no overnight parking on that street so that, you know, eliminate those kinds of traffic problems. You know, we couldn't really make a total judgment on traffic based on the comparison, but it didn't look like it would be significant to us. And finally, from a point of view of safety, I don't think I've ever seen a place that had more systems in place to safeguard their operation between alarms, between the fact that they can access everything remotely. either themselves or if they're not on site for some reason, they can have their materials accessed from their headquarters, which I believe is in Salem, New Hampshire. So they have complete access to their systems. Alarms were everywhere. When you have a 24-7 automated system like this, they have a vested interest in keeping everything moving.

Have they had any history of any methane leaks from the facility?

This facility did not.

Okay.

Okay. I didn't ask worldwide, you know, has anybody anywhere had an issue? Because I don't know. And I don't think, frankly, that the operator that we were dealing with would have the answer to that question. So that's not something we asked.

Right. They could answer just from that particular facility.

facility that's being proposed here in london area we just want to for interest sake and right but but they still have to go through a ton of permitting oh to before this thing is you know finalized at all they've you know gone through the planning board in preliminary to get their you know permission to build on that site but the des and everybody else is all over them and well they shouldn't be methane is explosive

So, you know, if it gets out and leaks into somebody's house basement and somebody's standing there with a cigarette, kaboom. So they shouldn't be all over it.

As far as I've understand what's been explained and we we don't fully understand it. Yeah.

Well, that's why landfills because so many landfills do have methane. Yeah. So that's why you see the pipes all controlling it. Right.

Right. And this is this is all going to be pipes that will go.

It meets Liberty Gas' spec to go into their line to go down for use in homes that use natural gas to heat. So that's where this ends up.

Interesting.

On top of that, I have two questions. One technical, I'll save for later. So input, it's always liquid, or is it a mix of liquid and solids?

I think I got the impression that they could handle a certain level of solids but I think the plan in Londonderry is going to be a little bit more capable of doing that because one of the things they've talked to us about is allowing a drop off

for folks that want to have their food right waste composted but can't do it themselves they're going to set up a drop-off spot and that that will be solid so part two of that is the exploit is methane and any material that has to go through casella to the landfill or the furnace or whatever so some of it you said goes directly to houses others go to a tank

Casellas is basically hauling away stuff that can't be used for anything. That's what I thought, yes.

Yeah, they just get... The sludge.

The sludge. Well, no. I wouldn't even call it sludge. I would call it stuff that shouldn't be in that waste anyways. Okay. Okay, that kind of thing. Plastic, metal, that kind of stuff.

And the rest goes to the pipeline? Do they have storage tanks for methane?

I didn't see any methane. It all goes into the pipe.

So then the technical question, how do they monitor something coming in that might not be right? Say some guy sneaks in 100 gallons of waste oil in a tank. It's supposed to be all full of waste milk. Is there monitors for that?

Tremendous. Everything is tested. There was a lab on site that we actually got to tour a little bit too. And the spec going into the gas line here for Liberty Gas is very tight. If they don't meet the spec, they have to test everything that goes into that pipeline to meet that spec. Thank you. I'm sorry I interrupted you.

He said another byproduct was clean water.

They showed us some of that, and they actually had some plantings that they had done with some of that water. And frankly, those plants looked healthier than the ones they didn't do. I don't know if I'd eat those tomatoes.

It's compost. Right.

Other questions? So what we've done is basically this, not the pictures, but we've kind of boiled this down to a memo that I'll share copies now with you guys in terms of where we ended up. And I think where we've ended up on this is we think that these plants proposed for Wentworth Ave. are a win for our town and for our state and from the point of view of our committee we are supportive of these of these plants that are coming to our town so based on what we saw and our our better understanding now of what their process is and I'll give you all copies of this if that's okay just pass these down

That's all I've got for today, guys. John, just a couple of points of clarification. So you mentioned the wastewater. So the St. Albans plant pumps their wastewater into the town of St. Albans wastewater treatment plant.

Oh, okay.

And with this facility, it would go into Manchester wastewater treatment plant. Okay. And to do that, they have to have a certain set of chemical parameters. They have to be tested for that constantly. And if it's out of parameter, they can't let the water go downstream.

I'm just curious because methane is an issue. And two, it goes from five trucks a day to 15 trucks a day. Did you guys see the size of those trucks or the roads that those trucks would travel on here in London area? I mean, that's just... One sighting issue that people could have concern with is the trucks.

Is it more trucks the better? That's more methane gas, right? That's not your issue, right?

I don't think you want people breathing in of the truck diesel. It's mostly diesel, so people don't want to breathe that in. But they also may be concerned for safety issues as well as...

There won't be any methane on the trucks. No, no. But the trucks, the inbound trucks, as I understand it, the route will be to come in... on the highway there and they would not be allowed to turn back into, into Londonderry itself from the north. If you know where Stonyfield is? Yep. Okay.

In there, no more times.

That, that's, that's a, that's, and then there, what's the main drag out in front of Stonyfield?

Is that right near the airport?

Yeah, it's basically the airport roads.

Yeah, they come off the highway, Penn and Gill, and then they make that one turn there, which that road is.

Yeah, I'm blanking on the name, too.

Wentworth? Not Wentworth, but the road that Wentworth goes off of. Can you say something? Start.

I appreciate that you folks went up and saw this plant. Yep. And from what I see and what you said, it is a very well-run plant. It has all kinds of safety things. There's no smell. And it's clean. But the plant we're talking about here in Londonderry is somewhat different. I think they said that they're also going to bring in stuff that is solid that would be in packaging for instance from the grocery store, yeah, and that package is going to have to be removed which is that a part of their process. That is going to be sent to either a point to be burnt or it's going to a landfill. Correct.

Well, from what I understand, the cartons, if it's carton goods, will be recycled. And bottles? And bottles will be crushed, and cans, the canned goods, will be shredded. They will do that there? They'll do that all there. Okay. Contents of that product will then go through the anaerobic digester and become methane gas. Liquid, right? I think there's a fine line. I think you could have a can of chili. Right.

Slurry.

Yeah, that's a good word. Thank you.

Right. From what we saw. And then we're talking about methane gas, which it will produce. the digester will produce methane gas. Now the methane gas is kind of a solid gas. It has to be cleaned up before it's put into the pipes. Now I think you mentioned something about that it would be for residential. I don't believe, I may be wrong, that this will be fed to the power plant after it's been cleaned up and put in their line Was it Unitil? Liberty Gas. Liberty Gas. Liberty Gas. Because there's the supplier. Are they the supplier to the power plant?

I'm not sure. I don't know.

Yeah, okay. So, and then the methane that is not acceptable maybe have to flare it off. Did they mention anything about that?

Yeah, they do have a flare off. Yeah, they can do that.

Because up at the power plant, There's also a flare that occasionally runs. Biodigester that I know of in Nashua for the wastewater treatment plant has a generator. So the gas that they have, they run like a diesel engine only runs on gas. And they use that to make electricity for their plant. Now, if there's an overabundance, they flare that off. My point is this. This plant that they're proposing sounds like a really good idea. Biodigester, really good idea. There were some concerns about traffic. It seems as though this comes in What's the what's it like like. I can't even pronounce it off comes off for 3. Like Kirstie drive or something was Eric was Eric was Eric that's it is your drive and then. Either goes to perimeter road or then would go to not. What is it? Drive. One more drive. Which is right next to the power plant, by the way. And it's also pretty close to the yogurt plant. So all of that makes sense. Your impression is that we, on the sewer committee, should give our approval for it. But there are some questions that none of us really know. So myself, I would be maybe hold back on my approval for this. Or maybe I could just go along the group and approve it or say we're approval. But I think this has been brought to the planning and they've got some approval to move forward with the plant and the property. But they still gotta work on making this financially make sense for them. And they're going to have to have investors to invest in this. A lot to it. But perhaps it's a good idea. Maybe it's a good idea for the economy. Maybe it's a good idea that it's probably not going to provide much workers because it's going to be somewhat automated.

Right.

And you also mentioned that the trucks are going to be owned by them. Is that the case? By recycle works. All all of the trucks are going to be owned by them That's what we were told by the end the da des meeting Okay, that's what I heard is if there was a problem and they turned right rather than left They're gonna monitor those trucks and they're gonna find out they're gonna say hey that guy's gone. I Think they meant he would be fired

Right. Because he'd be an employee of yours.

Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Okay, I got no more to say.

Is there an interest or a need to listen to more of the community folks? Does everybody hear? I mean, I don't feel that I've heard from those folks who have presented their issues maybe to the planning board.

Well, the real question is, does the town need something from this committee on this project? They may, but I guess are we prepared to do that? The question is, does the town need something from this committee as part of the approval process? No.

Not as part of the approval process.

We're not on the design review committee. No. No. No, and I personally, I don't think we should put a foot into it. I mean, we can have an opinion about it.

Yeah, but I mean, say our group resources would.

Yeah, I guess I agree with that. I think that we went because we were interested in what does this do. And we went to meetings where we heard the concerns and we thought that maybe it might be good to take a look and see. And I love a learning experience.

I do too. But in fact, it is somewhat different operation than what they are anticipating.

It is.

It is what they're anticipating here. I think it's a bigger project and it's a different project.

It's it's somewhat different and it still has to go through so much before it even comes to any kind of fruition. It's it's right now. You know, I would say it's all it's a way is off.

And you know what? I think one of the, perhaps, responsibilities of this committee is to educate where we can. And there aren't many people that are going to be in a position to do a round trip up to St. Albans, Vermont to get eyes on. And frankly, if I had gotten up to this plant and seen something that was less clean, that was noisy, that was smelly, that was perhaps something that looked like a potentially bad neighbor here on London area, we'd be talking about that. But I think, and I think because we've circulated this memo now a couple times, I think all four folks that went up there were pretty well convinced that this is an operation that we could support. And we had some positive feedback that we could give to people that were concerned. about some of the things that came up in the DES meeting and that they did hold a meeting here that was very long, actually. A couple of presentations on all the details on these plants. And there's also been not only planning board, but I think that these folks have been to town council, too. So it's not like there hasn't been some opportunity to voice concerns out there.

Yeah, it's just a question as to whether or not this group should actually step out and say yay or nay to this particular project in our town.

Maybe this might help. Ron, does the council need a report, a recommendation, or this is already too far down the road? What do you feel?

The council doesn't need a report, but we rely on this committee a lot for your advice and your opinion. So I think a lot of things this committee does is very vital to a decision that we may make. So it's not required. It may be appreciated or maybe welcomed, but it's not required. That answers your question.

And if you want some opinion, you can talk to those who were on the road trip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

The DES meeting, were there discussions about the variety of different potential environmental impacts? Was there discussion about different scenarios with the trucks? with the piping of methane gas from the facility to the location, where it's going. I'm just wondering whether the same kind of comprehensive.

Ann, to cut you off, I'm sorry, but there didn't seem to be a lot of discussion or concern about piping of methane gas. I think gas is piped underground. throughout the region.

But there were explosions. You do hear about people's houses going up because of gas explosions. That's not

Unusual utilities is a regulated utility and they have a whole bunch of regulated safety measures, right? They need to follow to.

Transport gas, so you look to those regulations for all the safety factors and you hope I would follow those if I were you and you have an interest in this, the meeting that was held here was a meeting. It wasn't a town meeting. It was. des so if you go to their you know website where you call them they would tell you everything that happened at that meeting maybe i could watch it you that you might be able to watch it i'm not sure that they record it but yes it was you know that they were here for their purpose and the only thing that everything that happened beforehand was just as a kindness to the townspeople that if they wanted to ask questions they could ask questions of the applicant or the two applicants or DES and you know it wasn't I wouldn't say that that meeting was super crowded Would you?

It was not. No. But I'll tell you, the most interesting part of that meeting was the opportunity given to some of the folks that were there that had concerns. And again, I didn't hear anything about gas, but there were some traffic questions, which is where we learned about who owned the trucks, et cetera. But being able to ask directly the two principals.

Yeah.

from the two different businesses and putting them on the spot on some of these questions. And they were very direct in their answers.

Very direct.

And I thought most of the people, certainly at the DES meeting, left the room satisfied that their concerns had been addressed.

I did too. And they were very familiar with these kinds of operations. This wasn't something that was really that new to them.

I believe I was at that meeting but I don't recall. Did you get the impression that New Hampshire DES gave their approval?

What I got the impression was that that was just a very small piece of what these people have to go through, that that was like a preliminary piece, but it wasn't like, it seemed to me like it wasn't a full approval by any means, no.

I'm just suggesting it might be a little early since it seems like this whole process is at a preliminary level.

They have a long ways to go. The only thing that's happened here in town was the planning board. So they were presenting stuff to the planning board and the planning board is the only board that really has dug into this input from the town to to these applicants and they've gone through that that process with the planning board so we have plenty of time if if the utilities committee wanted to weigh in there's plenty of time for that I think the concern in the in in

We can do that. But I think the concern is that there are some folks that are worried. And now we've had four citizens go up and put eyes on this plan without, I don't think any of us had any preconceptions about one way or the other here. and then come back and give you an honest response on what we heard very clearly were the five big issues that folks seemed to put out there. And I think we, whether it's just the memo with the names of the four of us on it or whatever, we should make this available maybe via Ron to the town council so that they know that four people that saw this, even if we're not gonna do this as a committee, four individuals that saw this felt that we could support this going forward at this point.

I'm just wondering that if we all or few of us went out to visit, and I know you guys may not like this analogy, if we went out to visit St. Gobain's facility in Vermont, you know, 20 years ago, would we know exactly what we're looking at or know exactly what the potential environmental impacts of the facility were if it were to come down here and build its facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire, which it did. And I guess in which it's now gone because of the environmental impacts of that facility. And I guess I'm just thinking, do we really want to step into this that early? We don't know everything about this facility. And that's not to say that your observations weren't you know, right on terrific observations. I just think maybe we should be cautious in our approvals.

Right. I don't think that we I don't think that this committee and I think Paul brought it up exactly. We're not going to weigh in on this at all. This is just for sort of our curiosity and our information and anybody that wants to ask us anything that they can they can ask us. But we're not going to. Yeah, it's not our job. It's not our job. Yeah, we're not necessarily approving experts.

Yeah, we're not experts and we're not approving.

And we don't know. And we saw a one of their plants. They have plants all over the country. They have plants all over the country that you seem to be operating. They seem to be doing a good business. They seem to be expanding their business. We kind of like the idea of it because it is sort of renewable energy. And so that is our only position on this. I don't think that, and I don't think we have to belabor this point any longer tonight. I think that, you know, that's my opinion about it.

So what's the upshot that the four folks who went can give their opinions and thoughts? I'm just concerned about the... Is that the upshot, that you guys, the four who went visit the facility, would be glad to answer questions to people in the community about that particular facility?

If they wanted to, yes.

One possible middle way here would be, I could see, especially responding to Ron's opinion, that they want to know what we're thinking. provide this memorandum to the council and then delete the the judgment call in the very last paragraph where it says, in our opinion, this is a win for New Hampshire. It probably is, but in order to not complain or not claim any more expertise than we have, just say, look, we went, we looked, we saw, we reported, and this is what we saw. I realize that means, I don't know how far along you are in the coordination of the memo, but I would have no problem moving to have the full committee endorse your memorandum and recommend it to provide it to the council for their information, but I would just leave off that last judgmental sentence.

That that seems that seems reasonable to me and I think that we can work on this memo and we can get it Into shape that will would be fine.

Well, I think I think I heard a motion To basically strike the last paragraph And and submit the well, I said I said I'd be willing to make such a motive and if if there's support for it but i think the last sentence not the whole last paragraph there's there's you know good information in that in the summary okay the last sentence yeah okay to strike that and then submit the memo to the iran to the town council for their consideration right can i suggest also provide well i guess you have to vote on this motion first but i i would go with

Your suggestion, Martha, to table this, look at the memo in more detail, look at the language in here in more detail, and then maybe present it next month.

I think that's fair. There's no rush on this. I think that's fair. So that's what I think that we can work on this and get it into shape. And we'll do that and take it up at the next meeting.

okay um i want to get move on to uh cable and internet oops i'm real short so made some progress on fixing different things within the town made some regression so what i'm hoping to do is get a formal meeting between myself and the comcast network engineer We've got to have a better way. Also, I want to come up with a better way in the contract. Remember, right? If three people in the same street file a problem, they have to respond with a two hours, but I'd rather have them. I'm going to ask them for us a special number because there's a patent going on. Okay. It's still. 12.30, 1 o'clock in the morning, it's just not working. But it's different in different parts of the town. It is definitely different. So that's my next step. And what about the... I'm working on it. You're working on it. Okay. All right. So what I'm afraid of is... I'm afraid of posting something before we get these things fixed.

Yeah, I don't want to post anything until you bring it to us and we just look at it.

I'm saying you're going to look at it, but I don't want you to look at it until we get these other things fixed.

Okay.

Okay. I want to have a method so when we do post it and they understand how to get support quickly.

Okay.

But I also want them to track where the outages are in the town, because there seems to be a patent. And the patents, I'll tell you those right now. Old build, 1983, versus anything after 1996, approximately that time. They don't like that they do an overbuild. When they put stuff up, they leave it up. When they only replace them, they absolutely have to.

They still have stuff from 93 in the ground?

In the ground? Oh, I don't like the touch of the ground stuff, but yeah. Wow. Remember, to take and pull that stuff and replace it with fiber is quite expensive. Yeah, that's a really good point. But I don't care. Look, they're supposed to be giving a service. People are buying not cable TV packages. They're buying internet for streaming services. And then a lot of them just are not working.

So yeah, okay, that's pretty sure all right Okay, so now I'm gonna go to round table and see if anybody else has anything to add to what we've discussed tonight John Good on Ray Mike quick question James I

The there are two different clean diesel programs Grant programs that have been on offer For several years now. I know one of them is funded from the Volkswagen Settlement and I'm not sure the other one is a more traditional grant program but I'm just wondering is is the town looked at those opportunities and said no

Feel like I heard this once already. But I have not looked into it. Let me make a note to myself to look into what the opportunity might even be to begin with and and see. If it's even something that we didn't, we would entertain engaging in. I'm not aware of either, so I this is it's it's a new world for me in the municipal services and thanks.

Yeah, and I don't even know if it's, you know, your department or whatever, but I was thinking it must be close to that. We got a lot of diesels in DPW.

Yeah, I really feel like I heard this just recently, but I got a, before I could even begin to speak on it, I need to get educated on one of those at all. Would it be worth checking, do you think? Yeah, everything's worth checking for sure.

Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Then.

Nothing.

All set.

John.

All set.

Yeah.

All set. Paul.

Good.

Joy?

No.

Okay. All right. She's definitely all set.

Yeah, she's really quiet the last half of the meeting.

Yeah, she is. Okay, our next meeting is the first Tuesday of July. I've got to see what that is.

So I gather that the agenda's wrong, right?

Yeah, the agenda's wrong. Sorry.

I did the same thing that Kirsten did.

July 7th?

July 7th. Yep.

Yep.

Okay, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Okay, Mike. Can I have a second? Second. Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Chair votes in the affirmative.

Chair votes in the affirmative. This is a scary position.

Everyone's watching.

I'll get there. Okay, we're adjourned.