Water Resources Committee - Regular Meeting

Hello, this is Les Fox. This is October 21st at 7:36 p.m. and this is a going to be a meeting of the water resources committee. So, I'll do a roll call and then we can get going here. So, uh Steve Schmidt present. Brian Lynch present. Brian Clemens. He's muted. Brian, you're muted. You're muted, Brian. Present. [laughter] [snorts]

Here we go. You need to say you're here. I he he said present less. Did you say something? Oh, okay. I didn't hear it. Uh and John Marovich, I got you. John John.

Okay. So, we have a quorum and I'll call us to order at 7:37. So without if no one has any objection, I I'm going to take uh Emily's uh piece item number three on the agenda first. I once again stupidly put a review of the minutes ahead of uh our guest. So uh without further ado, why don't I turn the rest of this over to Emily. So I think what she's going to do is um uh we're going to have one final pass comments and a status of what has become of all the accumulated comments when there have been a lot if you've read uh the appendix on the comprehensive report a lot of comments from the committee over months and that are now reflected in the uh document Cindy Marco's coming in and Um, then I think Emily is going to go over a draft presentation to be given to the select board next Monday.

Yep. Yeah. Hi everybody. It's nice to see you all. Uh, yeah. Sorry if my voice is going in and out. I have a cold, so it's by the end of Should I make you a a co-host so you can put up something? Sure. Yeah, that's a good idea. Uh, let me do that. my co-host.

Okay, Emily, you are now a co-host. Okay, great. Um, so I'm not sure how much I mean I you want to go through the actual report because you all have seen it. Um, I do have um Lindsay just adding making that one uh typo error that uh Brian emailed me about today and then putting in a little disclaimer again about the recharge rates just to make sure that's a little bit more clear. So, my hope is to have that um packaged up. When do you need to have I'm assuming you're sending this out with the select board packages with their agenda. Is that uh it's a select board meeting. We're basically going to just going to be your presentation.

Okay. They won't they're not attaching the report to that. No. No. Uh what we're going to do I think you may have a few tweaks to do on the report. I saw some traffic between you and Ryan Clemens. Yeah. No, that's what I was saying. Just trying to decide because I can have Lindsay Adams is adding that today and so I just didn't know if you needed to have that. No, I don't need that tonight. I don't I should have it too by the end of the week. It's just I'm out of trainings for the next two days. So, I just want to make sure I look at it before final final final version goes back to you. So, but those two things, Brian, are um being addressed. Um right. Um

yeah, as far as I'm concerned, everything I had commented on, I think it's been addressed.

Um there was one there. There was one tiny thing that's wrong with me. Um it's my own fault for overlooking it. Early on in the uh comments, there was a statement about um dealing with uh resolving the somewhat different um takes on from the zoning uh from zoning very relative to the board of health regulations on how what protections to apply to water. Okay.

Um, and you guys are going to have to help me here, but what I remember is that initially that was Brian F. Clemens, I think you did initially and the statement that's in the appendix is that that it's going to be resolved and it's marked as we didn't deliver that yet. And I said, "Oh, that's because we decided we as a town decided the board of uh the planning board I think decided not to pursue that um to ch go for a change to the zoning bylaw and but I'm not sure officially how it's unresolved. In other words, I think right now um Brian Lynch and others you can help me. I think that we don't perceive there to be a big disconnect between the regula board of health regulations and the zoning bylaw with the expected say wellhead protection areas and and uh water resources but it may still be uh a work in progress. I'm not sure what should go in that part of the u appendix that talks about the comments. I'm sorry I didn't mark it. I can easily find it and send you a note on it but it's very early on. Okay,

this marked as outcome of ATM 2025 and I I realized when I said oh I never got back to you. Okay,

in fact you might remember um Cindy's on the call. She was on the planning board. I believe that our expectation at that time was that there was going to be an article brought to town meeting and was going to put a wrap on all that and uh actually that article was never came up or was passed over Karen or Witch. So I think that whole issue is kind of moved at this point. O'Brien is sending if you can shed some more light on that I'd appreciate it. Um well what I was [clears throat] under the impression of is that the uh aquifer protection district was going to be uh how do we put it mathematized more accurately and that the uh wellhead protections the IWPA for the public water supply wells were going to be carried separately because they don't necessarily reflect an aquifer they simply reflect a protective zone around a public water supply well

right um I don't think the planning board again this is something they would have to address they were not comfortable with just using an IWPA they wanted an actual mathematized boundary for the aquifer districts okay so yes so I don't what should be put in the document to reflect on status of how those things ended up there on this west yeah yeah please I want you to

yeah so this is Cindy Sorry. Um, so we were responding to letters that Littleton Electric had sent. Um, and I'm they sent one to the board of health and one I believe to the planning board. I'm just going to quick bring it up. So, apologies because I'm not totally up to speed. Um, do you need to be made a co-host to show something, Cindy? No, I'm just I'm just looking through the letter right now. Um,

okay. So, as a request of that, the Littleton Water Department is formally requesting, this was back in June of 24, Box Row to update its aquifer protection district bylaw to include all the current prohibitions required under 310 CMR 22.212, which were attached um to that letter. So, that's kind of what initiated our effort to try to update the APD bylaw to be consistent um with those regulations. And that's where that that was the genesis of our effort. Um Brian uh Clemens pointed out that there was some inconsistencies um because our award protection district wasn't necessarily overlapping in its entirety with the zone twos

and then there was a third um what was the third area Brian? There were three sort of distinct um uh I don't know if it was the IW the interim well protection areas or there was a third area. So we were just, you know, it it became apparent that we couldn't just do this in sort of one fell swoop. So um because of the um potential overlap. So we just didn't address it and we didn't bring forward any article with the idea that maybe we would talk about this at a later date. So um yes um Brian, you have anything you want to say about this and what what if anything we should do going forward

about this issue which we spent a lot of time on. I'm talking Brian Clemens. remember you dug into this quite a bit. Yeah, I think your words a few minutes ago were this is a this is a work in progress and I think the report can simply state that I agree. We're not going to resolve the thing right now. No. And and to address that issue overall, there is a groundwater regulation promulgated by the board of health that is a copy of the state's regulation um with all of the substantives that they have in there.

It's actually expanded because it includes a little bit more than the state. Right. The issue was that the groundwater protection regs don't necessarily overlay on our aquifer protection district and therefore Littleton was asking us to update our APD but they're different segments I guess of the

the town. I mean there's there's actually two um known mapped um zone twos for public water supply wells in the town. Um the one is for Littleton uh water uh via the Beaverbrook Air Valley area for all of their wells and the other is for Actton on the east side of town for all of their wells. They go way up into uh up towards uh Sergeant Road and beyond. Right.

Right. The APD covers more land than those two areas. So, we just set this aside, I guess, uh, for now.

Yeah, I just didn't want to leave leave it hanging in the appendix. I'm just digging it up. No. So, note in the appendix, it's actually the third item on the uh, appendix F, I think it is. They act data request outcome. This was uh Wes Sansson asking for what was the outcome of the 2025 ATM that will quote rationalize the Aqua Protection ADP apa protection district and border health protections per note from me and that the status is not received. Well, the status should not be not received. I mean u it should be it should be put put aside for another day. I think that's more accurate.

Okay. Future task. Future task. Okay. Yeah. So, if you want to just put that in an email so that way make sure that we do it correctly and think about if it needs if anything else needs to and I'll if you can do that in the next like 24 hours. That [clears throat] was that was that I picked up. Right.

Okay. No worries. That's fine. Um okay. So in terms of the report, I think by Friday we'll have the final final with that, you know, the couple things from Brian and that, you know, comment from you less. But other than that, we've addressed, you'll see in appendix F, we've addressed every all the comments. Um, which were great. Um, it's good to have, you know, this is your document, so we want to make sure we're reflecting the things that you want reflected in them. So, I think it's a pretty useful document that we'll be able to be you'll be able to build off of, which is good. Um, but really, I think it's almost more I'm just going to share the presentation because what I want to do, I mean, I'm happy to talk more about the report and we can get into that as much as you want, but it felt to me, I mean, we shared a bit of this with you the other day when we emailed out the report, but you know, I'll be at the select board meeting. I'm happy to um I can walk through this now just to show like show you the slides, but if there's anything, you know, I have a few questions about like what else you might want us to relay to the select board or highlight. Um but this is kind of what came out to me as the more, you know, important pieces from this project. So that's really I just want to get your take on that. Um and does that sound like an okay plan just to sort of walk through the slides? Is that is that a good motion?

You can. Yeah, I think the only comment I sent you was [clears throat] Yeah, I got the additional recommendation I think less. Right. Yeah. It's it' be you speaking to the audience. If you audience have anything to relay, please send it to the water resources committee. Yeah, fair. No, that's fair. Um, so you know, this is just everything's going to be slow because I'm sharing, but agenda. Um, we can talk a little bit about less. I didn't know if this was just if this was something where you wanted to introduce the project at this since it's a water resources committee project or I'll say a few words to introduce you and what we've been up to and the status of all of that, but really then to turn it over to you. Okay.

Um what I don't know is um how long you'll actually take and how long we'll have to actually get through everything. Uh hopefully we'll have an interested audience. Um this will be live in the Graange room at town hall. Okay. and people people might want to do some Q&A afterwards if time permits. So, we'll have to play it by ear and see how that goes. I think well with that in mind, I was trying not to overwhelm because sometimes these presentations I mean there's a lot in this report. There's a lot the select board has allocated. Do you know less? What did you say?

How much time the select board has allocated for this? Uh we have about 40 minutes. Okay, that I think that should be enough because I wasn't planning on speaking for too too long. I mean I was going to

go through this but the the idea for me was to talk through you know the o the overall objectives which is looking at you know population and build out the inventory the water resources look at drinking water waste water and then look at the rags. So just talk through that and then we just pulled out some of the sort of like broader findings sort of starting with population just you know and I'll talk about how we come up with these numbers and then I have buildout separately so that we can see sort of where what buildout is. I'll explain that the buildout analysis what that means um for these you know where the buildings might be located um and you know talk about the total number of potential new dwelling units sort of setting the stage for the rest of it of like this is you're going to have an increasing number um and then move on to the drinking water resources so I could and I don't have this included here you know we created a lot of new maps like impervious cover land use things like that I don't really talk about any of that in this report. That's it's just and I can I could put a slide in there list the list the maps that were created looking at like land use, you know, giving sort of the background like that. But I felt which I'm happy to do, but I also felt like we wanted to sort of gear this more towards water demand and wastewater sort of in that area. Um, so just you can be thinking about that and let me know at some point if you think you want me to put some of that earlier stuff from the report in here as well. Um, so then starting to talk about drinking water resources. I'll talk about the groundwater basins and I'll explain from the

Sorry. Go ahead. Brian Clemens, are you trying to say say something? I don't think it's necessary to those. That's kind of was my thought. This is my poor internet connection.

Okay, we got the point though, so it's good. [laughter] I think that's that's kind of was my thought as I've gone through this and thought of it a couple different ways. I feel like that information is there, but it doesn't necessarily I always think of what rises up to the quick summary that you want to give someone, and that doesn't rise up to that level to me. Um, so that's my plan at least is to do it this way. I'll talk about the groundwater basins and how we use those sort of as our standard for, you know, how we're looking at this. And I'll explain even here about how these cross municipal boundaries and what that means. Um, so that that's kind of setting the stage for that, right?

And then I'll talk about current drinking water demand um and how we how we figured that out essentially what our estimates for that are. Um and then this is the you know current and then the future low and the future high. This is with the commercial. That's why we have the low and high for the future demand here. Um sorry about that. And to show sort of the projected percent increase and I'll just talk through that and then we have a slide on recharge and I know that it's this will be I will talk a lot about this and about the numbers.

You're right. Don't worry, I'll make sure that this is very clear. We're going to make sure it's clear in the report, but it's it's easier to be clear about this in a presentation to describe, you know, this is the full basin demand for everything that you see here in color, the groundwater demand within the town boundaries and our future projected groundwater demand. And there's just really no way to without I mean even modeling I mean when the ground when the water's in the ground it's not it doesn't care about those lines. So I think for me and from talking with Kevin when he sees a number like $979 for this full basin and this is sort of the rates that we have for recharge for the full area that is that's okay you know like that's an extensive amount of extra water available. Um, so I'll make sure that it's clear that this is not water that's only available to within your town boundaries, but um, so that'll be some of the focus here is to explain that in a way that's clear to the people that are listening because it is a confusing concept.

Yes. Uh, water moves around, people are live in their houses. So, we we can count them. Uh, we can't we can't count this. Yeah. There's no there's no line that extends deep down it far enough this way. So, um we can we can count water coming from pipes but not [clears throat] from the ground. So, um but that will be my you know I'll make sure that this is clear in the report as well as clear here in the description.

Yeah, that's great. I by the way so the select for presentation it'll be you know recorded will be on TV. Hopefully people will show up. Um, but but Cindy, what I'd like to do is schedule a uh a meeting with the uh planning board at some point and maybe go into a little deeper dive on this. Let allow the planning board to dialogue with us about this at some point when we can actually arrange that. Yeah, Emily.

Yes, John. Oh yeah on [laughter and snorts] this current charge current I think one things that's important because people will read this and say oh we have enough water um so there's sufficient water to supply box with drinking water but we don't really know the quality of it do we no and that'll be clear as well I don't have that on the slide but that is going to I'll make sure that and I'll actually add a note to myself here um and this is going to be sort of by theme throughout. Okay. The theme is water quantity only and also and I can talk about water quality if you want, but I don't that can be a little

Yeah. No, no, no. I want I want them to understand that there's a difference in that we've only talked about quantity in the study. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that some of the followon recommendations are to try to sample uh quality data across the town. Yeah. Exactly. So, I'll make sure every time I talk about drinking water, I'll be I'll make sure to note that it's quantity only. Um, I'll repeat it because I know what you mean. Yeah. That we might have this, but that doesn't Okay, great. Thanks.

Oh, yeah. No, thank you for making that point, John. Um, okay. From there, I'm going to talk about wastewater, and I essentially just pulled up the the figure from the environmental risk assessment. So, I wanted to talk through sort of what that looks like and how many of these properties fall into each category and what that means. So, I can I'll talk through this in terms of, you know, we know there's septic systems on this many we assume there's septic systems on this many properties and then go through what the tiers mean. And then I put this in here to talk about sort of how we looked at then the records from the Nohoba board of health. Um and mostly to point out that you know we have at le some you know a lot of the systems in that tier one are over 20 years old. So talking through that and what that could mean. Um and then I just was going to go right to recommendations and next steps because we have you know two slides filled with those. Um and I can do those sort of as a one at a time or you know like I can do animations to make them come in if that's helpful. So people are only looking at one at a time. Um and then that's really it and then I can take questions as needed.

Yeah, that's great. And I don't think we should get too hairy in the details at this time. Um the idea is to get the I message out there and to get people thinking about it and dialoguing with us about what would they like to see next? What don't they understand? What more information can we provide? That sort of thing. So this is the beginning of an educational process I think.

Yes, absolutely. That's definitely the start of this. So okay, so this it feels then that this is at the right level, you know, with obviously more description for me than is in the slides. Um but if if it feels like you there's anything you want me to go into more detail on, I'm happy to do that for the presentation. Um I I I I think it's good the way it is. others who other folks may have other thoughts. Uh, anybody want to chime in on this? Looks good. Sorry, I can't hear who was that Stephen speaking. I just was mumbling. It looks good to me. Okay, thanks. [clears throat]

Emily, do you have any idea how long you might speak actually at this time? So, there's about 18 slides. I tend to generally go like a minute a slide. That's that's normally the number we go with, but some of these are quicker. So, you know, but assume with introductions and everything, 20-ish minutes of talking. Okay. Yeah. I'd say tops, you know, because it's it's a lot of information, but you there's only so much you can go into on each one without pulling up calculations and equations, which I don't want to do because I think that that turns people off. So,

I was just wondering if there was a packet we could leave for the select board. In other words, like the slide presentations in color so that they can go back and look at them. Yeah, we can. That was a question I had for you, Les. If you need to slides, yeah, thanks for circling back. So, when you are finished with the presentation and are ready to say publish it, I can distribute it to the select board ahead of time. Uh, you said you may have it done by Friday, for example, or even soon. Yeah, I mean, I think this is pretty much done. The report will definitely get back to you on Friday. There's not much I don't think we're going to change in the slides at this point unless there was anything you wanted me to add.

No, whenever you're comfortable, just send me what you will say is the production version of the presentation and I'll send it on to the administration and they'll include it in the select board packet. Okay. And then will they have it loaded on a computer when I come or should I bring that with me? Oh, it'll be on it'll be on the town hall's machine, but I'll double check make sure everyone's prepared for that. Okay. Okay. And I I'll generally and I will bring a flash drive with the title five documentation like I said I'll make I'll put the presentation on that as well just in case. Okay.

For some reason and I'll probably bring I generally have it like three ways whenever I come. I hope they have it. I'll bring my computer and I will also bring the flash drive. So we'll have ability to do it. Uh John question. Yeah. Les the question I have it's just a general question. the select board may ask what the impact is of the what we're doing with Littleton water on this and if that was factored into this study that's just a general question they may ask okay uh how would you answer that am I

I was like well um so we this the drinking water assessment was really done on current use based on where people live currently Um so we do have within the report the alternative drinking water sources that may come and that's included but in terms of what we calculated that includes that does not include we didn't take away for the little box connector but it is noted in the report as something that will be a source in the future. I think the more John's point, one of the things that we should speak about is that it's the water quality that we've changed by bringing the lens in. It's offering fire protection, drinking water quality through a treatment plant, and it's offering a long-term solution for storage in case we need it for fire issues.

Yep. Absolutely. And I'll note that is because of a water quality issue. Yep. That'd be that'd be great. Yep. Yeah. if it comes up and I can deal with some of that. For example, once I think actually the line in on the western side, I think it's charged at this point and the hydrants are active as far as I know. [clears throat] I was told that the hydrants are active. Yes. So, firefighting is enabled on the western side of town. That's great. That's great. Yeah. And I'll bring this back again to the water quality side of things as needed. It'll just sort of like again that ongoing theme. So, you know, talking about what's in the ground.

Yeah. So, just one other thing on the Littleton water. I was at a meeting the other day and talking to some people who live on that part of town. Yeah. And they were saying that even though the water will be available, I guess in 2026. Yeah. It the water won't be portable until 2027. Yeah, that's my understanding. So if if if that comes up, we should be able to explain that to the select. That's a good point. I got to I have to I have to get the word from uh Littleton Water on that. The statement is the con um construction of the pipeline will be complete by the end of 26.

It doesn't say when drinking water will be provided. I don't know that day. Actually, I need to find out if uh Yeah. So listen, this is this this Yeah. So some of the people that live in the condos were were told that they they won't have portable water until 2027 and therefore they have to do something. They have to keep their wells up to date or something to that effect. Well, that did come up, but the place that burned uh they they wanted to uh have an interim solution, but that was not allowed by D. So they had to go in and I think reactivate one of their spare walls, maybe. Yeah, that's that's the one. That's right. Yep, that's it. I'll get the word from uh

Yeah. Yeah. No, I'll get the word from Matt Silvermont on how he would like that to be put forward. Um Okay. I can I can tell you I jump ahead to an item on the update section. Little Water has actually talked to all the property owners who will have the ability or the option to connect. So, they've actually done all that work. So now they're going to go down and actually start talking turkey to who is going to pay and to what when. I don't have any details on that. Okay. Yeah, Les, you may need to jump in a couple times um for some of the details on the Littleton Boxboro piece and I could talk to Kevin as well. He is somewhat available even though he's in Costa Rica. [laughter]

All right. Uh folks have any more uh questions for Emily or suggestions? So you will um send uh the the version you intend to show at the slip meeting to me soon and I will then say you'll get everything by Friday, less just to make sure since I'm kind of in and out the next two days. So I'll make sure it's all good to go both the report and this by Friday and get those to you. Um, and then I will be in Boxboro.

Yeah. Right. I hope some of the others can go. I know Janet couldn't make it tonight, but she said she does plan to go to the uh select board presentation. Yeah, that's good. Good. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, Emmy, thanks very much. If anybody nobody has any more questions for Emily, we can let you go for the evening. All right. children will be happy to hear that. So, thank you guys. We'll see you next Monday. Yeah, I'll see you all and then Les just send that um email with that comment the word. Yes, I will. Um to me and Lindsay if you don't mind just to make sure. Okay, perfect. All right, I will see you all next week. Thank you. Okay, do thank you.

Have a good night, everyone. Thank you. Thanks. [clears throat] Bye.

Now, thanks Emily. We're back to the uh original agenda which is now to actually review and approve the minutes of September 16th which Brian did distribute to everyone and hopefully all had a chance to look at them. If that's the case then I'll entertain a motion to approve those minutes. Nobody wants to move the minutes.

I'll move the minutes for approval on the September 16th agenda. I'll second it. Sorry. Oh, go ahead. Move moved by Brian Lynch, seconded by John Marowitz. Um, any more discussion on the minutes? In that case, let's take a vote. Um, Steve Schmidt doesn't show on screen here, but um, I'll come back to him. Brian Lynch, hi. Brian Clemens. Hi. [clears throat] John Marowitz. Marowitz. I Cindy Marowitz. Markitz. I And Steve Schmidt.

I.

Thank you. minutes are approved. [clears throat] Um, there's something that came our way uh kind of unexpectedly, but the towns of Actton, Littleton, and Conquered have invited Boxboro to join on their water management act grant application, which I distributed to everyone uh more than a week ago. Basically that will allow the town if it's successful it's a grant if it's successful then it'll enable the town to do some uh characterization of the water resources in their towns also to do some work characterizing infrastructure and do some planning and um actually Corey Godfrey who was now with actton water was uh approached me about this and thought this might help Foxboro with our planning activities for the future. So I said, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." So sign sign us on. So they did. They included us in it. And um now we need to wait and see what happens. Uh the expectation is that these grant applications are typically um heard from around January. So we may hear yay or nay along about the January time frame. I looked over the uh the uh application, the grant application, and there are several things that I thought were kind of interesting. Um, let me see if I can do this without getting screwed up. Um, share this.

Share. Let's see. I'm sharing it. Why does the sharing tool look different than it did last time? Oh my god. [groaning] Huh. There's something strange about this. Um, I think I uh I was using some Yeah, there's more AI stuff that's creeping in everywhere. That was some kind of AI sharing thing. I notice now all the documents I come across now have little AI generated summaries whether I want them or not.

Welcome to Windows 11 and your new office. It isn't just it isn't just that. It's everywhere. Gee.

Yeah. [laughter] Um, so I I looked through that water management act application and uh I hope you take a look at it and I noted these things that in that grant application that are uh listed as deliverables that seem relevant to things we may want to do. I just bulleted them here. Identify [clears throat] potential interconnection points between communities based on hydraulic feasibility, demand patterns, and system capacity. Develop preliminary sizing, layout, and cost estimates for required infrastructure improvements and conceptual level cost estimates and an implementation roadmap for interconnection improvements. My thinking here is that if we find down the road for whatever reason quantity or quality driven uh we need to think about whether it will be necessary or desirable to connect to either Actton or Littleton or both sort of along the lines that we've already done with Littleton to bring more water into town. So that's sort of far future planning. But my thinking is that this water management act water management grant application activity could be some preliminary useful preliminary uh [clears throat] planning work for us which I have not talked to any of the other towns about this. I'm just sharing my thoughts with you on this. That seems like something that we could get out of this without any investment of money that could help us uh think about this in the future. That's about as far as I've gone with it. There are lots of other details in that grant application, but these seem to me to be the most interesting pieces that I could find. So,

one of the things, and I think we've talked about this a little bit, is that so what do we have to bring to the party? Brian Lynch is saying, "What can we bring to the party?"

Well, we turns out we have a very big well, which we call the Hagar well. um [clears throat] we are using only about 2% or so of its capacity as measured back when it was uh pump tested back uh 2000 thereabouts I think and defrain Henry who did that uh were not able to complete a stronger lengthier pump test to find its true limitations. Um they guessed that it could be much produce much more than that they they gauged at the time. It's permitted at uh 100,000 gallons a day, but it could be more in reality. To actually find out would require an extended pump test and that is that does not come cheap. But if it was something that you need to do to bring something to the party in terms of call quantifying and a a source that we could provide as part of our quid proquo and a deal we need we can find out. So just and keep that in the back of your mind. And I mean to me that's a pretty u significant contribution I would think.

Mhm. And um it's ours. Are you thinking of um like tying that into the Littleton system or the Actton system? No idea yet. whether or not whether whether or not it would be um joined in an existing distribution or a new one or another line that comes in from act. I mean all this would have to be flushed out. So I have no idea. The biggest concern would be we would have to treat the water before we could put it into either system. Yes. But I'm thinking if if we allow some other town access to the raw water then that make make them take care of the treatment, you know. So,

uh, that that won't be possible because you otherwise you're going to be building double pipelines. Well, that's a costbenefit tradeoff, right? Let me tell you, uh, I think they're improving the technology for treatment a lot more rapidly than the other cost of blowing through ledge. Yeah. Is it feasible is it feasible to have um Littleton operate that well if it's connected to their system well that actually is in Oxboro that's what I was wondering about

yeah well that was kind of one of our earlier ideas about what we would do with the a well said to be found on Harvard Sports Club we would um allow I'll uh say little to water or somebody else to actually operate that well and use it as a source, right? A lot of unknown. Yeah. I mean, the distance though to act is much shorter than a well. So, it's not a lot of it's not a lot of piping really.

Yeah, I know. And I think Brian Clemens has detected this in our discussions with Matt Musler and Active Water. They're very keen on knowing what what's going on with our well. Well, they still have the uh original uh Yes, they already suggested building two pipelines. Sorry, Brian. What' you say? He said they already suggested building two pipelines. Actton has already thrown out the possibility of a dual of a dual pipeline [clears throat]

from Hagar well to to Actton and back to Boxboro. I didn't know they actually said just in a two-way. So this is all to be He brought he brought that up at one. Yeah, I didn't remember that. So thanks. Well, so there's stuff out there that we have to look into. We do have something to bring to the party though. Mhm.

So anyway, that's the only reason I'm putting this up here. I don't need to stop sharing it. Yeah. So um stay tuned is about all I can say on that one. I think is an interesting development. There has not yet been the kickoff meeting of the three towns, Actton, Littleton, Conquered, and Boxboro on getting this project underway. I don't know what the thinking is even when that might happen. Probably not until they hear on the grant application, which has said to be around about January. So, put this on the back burner for now. But think about what we might do if we get lucky and catch the gold ring. Unless when you ran this by Mike, what did he did he have anything to say?

He said, "Thanks for writing this application [laughter] up." Okay. Okay. [clears throat] All right. He He was very pleased at the opportunity. So, okay. Great. Thanks.

Yeah, there was no time to do it. It's one of those things that came in over the transom. No time to call a meeting or do anything. So, I sent a letter in as the chair of the water resource. I did not speak for you folks, but that's the way I did it. So, um, Brian Clemen said that he had told me he had found a cache of old maps and information on our firefighting infrastructure. And are you want to talk about that, Brian?

Yes, if you can put up with my poor internet connection. Shall I make I make you a co-host then? I did find the maps that um No, I I I don't have them in front of me to show. Should I make you a co-host? Randy White when he was the chief. No, no, I'm I'm not going to pull up the maps. Okay, we'll we'll bag that. Um, so you found the maps.

Randy White when he was the chief gave us Yes, I found he gave us a map and a list of all the sistns and uh ponds and what looked like a database maybe that generated the map. So I gave those to our current chief. I haven't heard back from him, but he they have the inventory. I mean, they they know what they the inventory isn't isn't going to help him that much, but the map would help him. They don't have a map of their own. The only difference is that since 2019, they have added Encore and Taylor Farm Road.

Yeah. So there are whatever there are fire ponds or sistns there that are not in the 2019 database. So their database is more up to date than what we were familiar with but they didn't they don't have a map. Okay. By the way you mentioned Taylor Farm Road. Um that's all private wells correct. Yeah, of course. That's what I thought. Well, I didn't remember anybody putting out a public water supply over there.

So, um, we should talk to the chief. So, but I think there's a sister in there. Yes. For a firefighter thing. Right. Right. I was just wondering about what did they do for the individual houses. It's all private wells. But what we should do is find out from the chief what can we do to help him address the issue of what does he need to do to be on top of the firefighting situation. Does he need better maps? Does he need any advice? Um I don't know. But I'm glad to see that we can at least document what we've got because at some point this is going to come up again in mad scramble to find out where do we put stuff.

Well, I think the big thing less that we have to look at is you know, how dependable are the fire ponds and the other systems that we have and how much water can that deliver u to a particular spot in town given we have three engines and pump tanks. Yeah, I know. Exactly. I mean, there's got to be some formalism for how you disperse firefighting ponds around a town so that it's not too far from any one pond to a place you want to fight a fire, so on and so on. I don't know whether there's any formalism around that and how we stand against that.

I think there's probably some issues or some how should we put it guidance issued by uh insurance service organization of their their new name u on how they do that. Well, it just strikes me as this is something we might talk to the chief about. Is there some way we can help him to try to address this very topic? You know, I think we could help them by hiring Weston and Samson to help do the planning. They have expertise in this aspect of water. I would assume so.

I, by the way, I have not talked to the chief about this. That's not like Brian Clemens has. So, um, yeah, but like I said, he didn't get back to me after I sent him the maps. So, Yeah, because there was a study done a long time ago trying to um determine the uh amount of water available after a 50-year drought in all the open sistns or the open ponds. And I think that that prompted a lot of this information being generated.

Yes. And that's something we probably have to repeat because I'm sure things in the n natural environment haven't stayed the same. Yeah. Pawns fill in for example. Yeah. And I mean I mean it would be like a question for a town meeting actually. I mean, should we evaluate the suitability and readiness of our various fire ponds in town and ascertain the condition thereof and how much would that cost and here's here's what we want. So, I have no idea what we should be doing. What should we do? Yep.

Well, the other problem, too, is we got to buy a ladder truck at some point in time because we we uh don't have the old one, right? So that's a topic too. Sorry. Are you going to like are you thinking about requesting money for some for study like that at the next town meeting maybe?

Yeah. Interestingly enough um John Grebin who is the finance committee is uh member of this committee um could not join us tonight but he sent me a note. He's saying he'd like to get together in over the next few days and find out what are my thoughts about what we might need. So I assume that's a prelude to talking about what is our wish list for requests for a 2026 town meeting. There's a lot we could put on the list at this point in time and I think I think times are going to be tight. So we have to think about that.

Yeah. I think understanding our fire protection system is not a frivolous thing. No, it's not. Well, let's get some input from the chief and see.

Yeah. So, um, we're going to have this meeting, uh, Emily will present at the board of select next Monday. So, that's kind of like, um, initial public outreach. We need to start thinking about what we're going to do to follow up on that. I mentioned what I think we should do is schedule a joint meeting with uh the planning board or at least a good showing of water resources folks at the planning board meeting and talk about the report and where we're going to go from here and get their thoughts on what they think should be done. Um and this is [clears throat] hard work actually doing public outreach. Um I don't know if you went to um special town meeting and heard uh Mary Brolins's lament. Um I watched it by streaming. I was not I was not in box world but uh the streaming actually that's my first experience watching a town meeting on streaming on my little computer and it worked really well. Can actually hear everything, see everything. You don't have to move around. great technology. Anyway, um it it it's I think we need to think about how we're going to do outreach and education and um it's not easy. Remember Mary said that and this is about getting people educated about the fire station needs. I think I forget she said she had made 20 or 30 different presentations around town over many months and had very poor showing actually. I think

maybe all told maybe less than two dozen distinct individuals over all those meetings showed up. So Mary's pitch at the special town meeting that we just had was that I've got you all in the room now. So I'm that's why I'm asking these questions. She was probing at the time about sensitivity to various cost factors and which way to proceed on a fire station. So and I I I know that it's hard to get people excited about coming up for presentations and briefings, but we're going to have to do something. Um, so I think the first and most obvious thing to do is to get together with the planning board and see what their questions and concerns are and especially get their input on where they think we should be heading for the next step and there's lots of different things that could be done. Mhm.

Um so as uh I said we are posted to uh attend the Western Samson presentation on this report which will be at the October 27th select board meeting. I plan to be there. It's in-person meeting. So it'll be on BXBTV. It'll be recorded and I hope that there'll be at least a little dialogue with Emily and those of us who get engaged. Oh, le did you post a meeting for us? Yes. Yes. I thought you did. Yep. Okay.

Yeah. So, that brings us to the reports section. Um, first thing is the Littleton waterline update. Um, it's been fairly quiet. Uh but uh I'm told by Tara Mcmanis that all the properties u that are um have been contacted who have the option to connect. I don't have a total for how many have committed to connecting but at least they've been contacted. Um that's all I have on the waterline. Uh although uh as I suspected the waterline is charged for firefighting and John or somebody's confirmed that's their understanding as well. Um Sam is not with us tonight so um we'll have to wait for another time to get an update on the select board. Cindy, do you have something that you'd like to say about the planning board?

Um nothing. Um specific to water, we did hear um we're still hearing application for um the 975 Massab property. Um and then across the street, we did open a hearing for site plan approval for the 984 property where the tree masters um uh yard is currently uh in operation and they're filing for site plan approval and a stormwater permit. Um, we are still engaged with Campanelli folks for the open space commercial uh I can never get the right name. Open space commercial development uh special permit and we'll be meeting with them on the 30th. Um those are sort of the I guess the three happening projects right now for us.

Okay, great. Uh, comscom up. Thanks, Steph. Uh, there's nothing water related there either. Um, just a normal schedule of uh hearings. Okay. Um, Mr. Lynch, any thing from the board of health? Yeah, we were we are currently have a draft set of regulations for uh testing of wells uh and private property for upon transfer of ownership.

Okay. on that right now. And I've requested uh Mike John's to see if he can't find some money to allow us to uh find someone to start translating from all the uh how should we say the paper documents is as built for the septic systems and wells in town to a GIS database uh on a map so we can find them quickly. Yeah, that reminds me. Uh, Cindy, I'll get to you in a second. That reminds me that, you know, Emily said that she had lots of data on septic systems around town. Well, it turns out those are all the SHA water elf files. I think she did not send them by email because it's too big. But she's going to bring a thumb drive with all those files on it to the select board presentation. And so I should get them either um probably into clerk's hands. Just put them up on our website so it can be accessed by anybody. I She says they're all on the show board of health stuff. So presumably we already know about it. But

yes, we do. But the the problem we have is we don't have it on a GIS map. Yeah. And what we're trying to do is get the information for the well and the septic systems on the GIS system so that we can look at it and we'll not only have a picture of what's on the lot, but where these things are on the lot. Yeah, I understand. But at least we should have the both. We should have maps and we should have the background, the backing up information. Yep. Theoretically, we're supposed to have it in our files. [laughter] All right. Uh Cindy,

um yeah, just to follow up on on what Brian just mentioned about new proposed regulations. This is something I think that should be made the town really needs to be alerted of. Um I'm not sure what your timeline is, whether you you're having a public hearing coming up, but I would recommend that, you know, this this is going to be of great importance or great interest to anybody who's, you know, contemplating selling their house. Um, I don't know again what publicity you're planning on doing, but I would suggest that the board of health do a lot of outreach around this issue. Um, because I do think people are going to be concerned about it and, uh, if they miss the opportunity to comment publicly. I think people may get frustrated that they didn't know about it. So, um, do you have a a date by which you're holding public hearings? And

we haven't had a meeting to discuss that yet. I was absent the last meeting because I was out of town. Okay. Well, I'm just suggesting that this could be a very hot button issue townwide and uh the board of health should go above and beyond its usual notice requirements to get the word out to folks in town about these proposed regulations. The realtors have already been contacting us, right? Who's been contacted? Prime the realtors. They were aware of it in other towns. They were kind of curious that we didn't have it. Well, when you start having your public hearings that you make make sure the word gets out people can come to those hearings and get involved. Be one hearing. That's it. Well, I think you ought to notify Boxboro News. I think there should be notification up on the town website. Um, sorry.

Yep. You know, so yeah, I just uh I'm encouraging you to do a lot of outreach. Sorry, I'm going to have to put you guys on pause. I got to take this call. Do you have any idea all things considered when that those regs might be adopted and ready for approval? I was hoping to have them out uh by the end of the year. Okay. And this will also give us a uh a better picture of water quality throughout the uh town as houses are sold. Yeah, I'd love to get that data. Yep. Yeah, we're modeling them on the Harvard regs right now.

Great. How many towns in the Commonwealth have such a regulation? Do you have any idea? I don't know, but I know Stow has it and Harvard both have it. Yeah. Manchester has it. Manchester, Mass. Yeah. And they can't find a lab to do PAS testing. They what? They can't rec there's they there's no lab near them that will do PAS testing. So they're they're trying to figure out what to do about that.

I know the lab that does it here is associated with Nishoba I'm sorry um the Analytics and they're up in New Hampshire that does it. They're looking, you said they're looking for a lab that will do PAS testing. That's what Brian said. Yeah. Yeah. So, the usual labs are listed on They don't know of one.

Does that mean they talk to the people who are listed on the D site and they don't respond or what? Well, there was one nearby in Gloucester, but they don't they no longer do be fast testing.

So, that that ruled out any lab near Manchester. Yeah, the lab doesn't it might not necessarily mean nearby which could pose an issue for I don't know what the transport requires are for chain of evidence for water that's being used for that kind of sensitive testing. You know, Brian, far as I know, you have to put it in a uh well, we're requiring that it's be sampled by authorized agent of the board of health,

right? Okay. Interesting. Um, so our sort of semi-regular conversation with Littleton and Act uh sorry uh yes, Actton and Littleton on water. Uh we didn't have one recently. Um, nothing comes to mind except to relay the fact that the towns that have been in this conversation are now participating in this water management act grant application that I told you about earlier. Brian, do you have anything you want to add to that?

No, because we haven't had another meeting with them. So,

Right. Well, the other thing uh that came in just this afternoon, I sent you all an email on it. Uh the town planner has sent around a request for an update on um master plan progress. um which for some reason um I don't know the distribution list from the planner uh only included a few that I could see. We were I think I was blind copied so I saw it. I don't know who else got it. So, I don't know who all was pulled on that mail, but um so they're asking us to do a update on our action items on the master plan that pertain to the water resources committee. [clears throat] They're due on the 20th of November. It turns out that we have a meeting scheduled. We will have it scheduled uh slated to be scheduled on the 18th. So, I'm hoping that I can get some help with um the usual suspects, which I'm looking Bri Brian Clemens because he already dug into this last time to help me put together a response to the planner's request on an update on this stuff. Um, and I haven't looked, it's just a simple form that uh the planner uh Alec Weight has provided on action. So I we'd have to go and look at what our actions were, what the updates were. Now Brian Clemens, I'm remembering that you had gone pretty far into this the last time we did this. Has it already been six months or a year?

Yeah, I can I can take a fresh crack at it.

Let me know. I can help you on that.

Okay. Um and there was a related and somewhat dormant issue on updates to the climate action plan. Um I recall the instruction from Alec or we'll contact you when we need something and I haven't heard from him. So that's that's where it stands. So anybody else have anything they want to relate to the group? uh just one thing that I saw in American Society of Civil Engineers that they're working on a or have promagated new regulations for climate uh reporting on how you design drainage systems and the amount of rainfall and the intensity. So that's out there currently being u promagated.

Is this fit a different model like the standard you know 100year storm incidents and that sort of thing? That's exactly what they're talking about. But is there a new approach to it or just applying that? I think it's a new approach. They're looking at the intensities and looking at the charts that's going to describe more more about the uh how should we say the compact timeline in which rain falls and the impact on drainage systems. Yeah. Distribution is everything.

Yeah. Yeah, I keep seeing things in the popular press that major downpours have become more frequent recently, but I haven't seen any real data or response of that. Well, if you're in Texas, you've seen the results. A lot of flooding.

Yeah. Yeah, they certainly have got hit by it. So, anyway, that brings us to the end of the agenda. Our next regular meeting will be on November 18th at 7:30 and I look forward to seeing you all then. So um time for me to ask for a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Moved by Brian Lynch. Seconded by John was it? Yep. Okay, let's do a vote. Uh Steven Smith, hi.

John Marowitz. Marowitz. I Brian [clears throat] Clemens. I Brian Lynch. I Cindy Marowitz. Cindy might be muted. Oh, she said she was taking a phone call. Oh. One more marker down there.