Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call the Board of Selectmen meeting. This is a special Board of Selectmen meeting because it was rescheduled. It is July 27, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. And we have a few people in the audience. And at the table, we have Selectman John Misham, Selectman Jen Lampos, and for Selectwoman Martha Shoemaker. Okay. Information items, correspondence. I will... mentioned that we recently just finished a paving project while paving. We had some concerns about the flaggers. We did deal with B&W Construction saying that we were a little unhappy with them. They were a subcontractor for B&W, so they took note of our concerns. We also had some concerns from neighbors regarding whether there was a storm drain near their property. It may not have been done right away, and then they went back and did it then the next day. And there were some driveways that people thought just because they left it the first time through, they weren't coming back to connect it. But of course they did. So that was that. We do have some questions about our aquifer and our water and did ask Joe Kamian to come and put it on the agenda specially. We had one concern about the fireworks because of the smoke. The noise level and the toxic smoke, stressful for pets and wildlife. The resident is asking that we live on Library Lane and they're asking if we could move it to another location. One was Townwoods Park, but we can't go there because of high hopes in the horses. But they also asked if we could consider a laser light or drone show. So. I told her that I would bring it to the attention and it can be put into the record as communication. And then we did get a very nice letter from the Old Town of Old Saybrook to Eddie Dante. He just said, on behalf of the Old Saybrook Department of Public Police Services, I'd like to extend our sincere appreciation for your generosity in allowing us to borrow the Town of Old Lyme's light tower during our Celebrate Saybrook event. Your willingness to assist us helps to ensure a safe and successful event for our community. We are grateful for the continued spirit of cooperation and partnership between our towns and departments, and we truly appreciate your support. Thank you again for your kindness and assistance. We look forward to continuing to work together in the future. Sincerely, William C. Onofrio, Chief of Police for the Old Sabre Department. And that's all I have for information, items, communications, and correspondence.

Either of you?

I had the email from Bob Davis in regards to the road condition on Jericho. I'd say it's a pothole, but it's much bigger than a pothole, so I hope we can...

They were supposed to go out and do some...

Some patching?

Patching.

Good.

And I also had one woman, and I responded to her that it would be out. I know there were two Public Works people out today, and we may not be patching when it rains later this week, but they'll hopefully get to it soon. Do you have anything?

The two that you mentioned, Rocco Todaro, talking about the aquifer, which I think will fold into Joe Kamian's presentation because it amplifies it. And I had a little further discussion with Judith Archer on the fireworks, and I'd like to bring that up during general discussion.

Sure. Okay. So we will start with public comment. Joe, we're going to wait for you when we get to the aquifer situation. Mary or Dennis, are either of you interested in public comment tonight? Are you coming up here?

Sure.

Get your steps in.

Dennis Maluzzo, 7 Portland Avenue, 3 Prospects Room. Three things. My favorite subject, golf carts. I am under the impression that golf cart regulations have specific areas of the town that can have that allow golf carts on the street.

And usually it's the shoreline area.

Is there a special thing for Oh, Lime Country Club. Because they're parting people.

They do have an agreement. They have an agreement. Between the both sides of the road.

Okay.

I don't know. John, are you a member there?

Because it's not part of the regulation.

That's what I mean. It is a special agreement with their permit.

Okay. All right. That's fine. There's issues in Fox Nest. A lot of people don't have... The mandatory license plate.

Their private beach association.

It's the public streets that they're on.

It is their road. They let us use it.

No, it's not their road. Believe me. I've been a landowner here since 1999. And my father and mother were here since 1940. They were always town roads. The only private beach, technically, is Garvin's. The beach for Hawks Nest, the beach is private. The roads aren't.

In Hawks Nest?

In Hawks Nest.

No, I know.

All three.

I know in Hawks Nest. I thought you were talking about White Sand.

No, no. White Sand is at the other end of the world as far as I'm concerned. I thought you said White Sand. No, no.

Hawks Nest, they have their things, and we have sent out. I'm really not supposed to comment during that, but we have fulfilled our obligations, and the police know who has not registered.

Okay. I haven't seen any police officers there at all over the past month and a half. Easy month and a half. Okay. And the third one was paving. I addressed that to Michelle this morning, and Adidante immediately went over to Prospect and robbins avenue and inspected the paving that was done last year and according to michelle and ed it was done by tilcon or tilcon mix and it's peeling off when you turn your tires and he supposedly has a meeting with tilcon to discuss it they're talking about it's the heat down the beach and uh can't be the mixture coming out of the plant. Those are my three things.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment? Anyone online for public comment? Mike Miller, do you want to say anything today?

I guess not. Okay. Okay.

All right. Here are no other public comment. We'll close public comment and move on to the approval of minutes. Regular Board of Selectmen. I'm sorry. We just need to note to you on our agenda that that was an incorrect. It was actually a special Board of Selectmen meeting because it was rescheduled and it was July 13. So it does say special meeting minutes for that. So please make that aware. Are there any changes that anyone sees. And can I have a motion to accept them and then we can discuss them and changes.

I'll make a motion to accept the special board of selectmen meeting minutes of July 13. Second.

Thank you both.

Okay, any changes? I will say there's a spelling error.

Under public comment, Robert Archbold, there's no I.

So that is an incorrect spelling. Anyone else? Hearing none, call for a vote.

All those in favor of approving the special Board of Selectmen meeting minutes of July 13th, 2026, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstention? Motion passes. Okay, so we have, as you know, Lyme Senior Center and Rogers Lake Authority both appoint in the summer. because that's when Lime does their appointments. So we have four people. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Eric. I jumped right down to A, because A comes before E. Eric Olson is here to talk to us about the Emergency Operations Center closeout. Eric has been on the committee, building committee throughout, and

I'll give you a chance to make a look at that. You know, if you have any questions, I'll try to condense a year's project into one page for you.

do you want to walk us through this so what we know if um where we stand so if you start at the top there you see what the approved amount of the budget was plus we had included that second line um before the project was fully approved we were starting to put away money to replace the boiler there at uh mountain road and that little bit of money was what was left in the design budget for uh the project So all of that combined gets you to the total budget amount. New field payments of $1,290,481. Then the usage of the owner's contingency, which you see the fire alarm, security, you know, all those sort of things throughout the project, totaled to $44,000 and change. So leaving a balance of $31,143. Currently, there is one outstanding item, which is the shades, the motorized shades that have the printed maps on it that they use during drills and whatever. There's an issue, I guess, that Dave was going to dial in, but I don't see him on there. He's handling that, so they're probably going to be about 2,000, no more than that, I'm estimating, to come off of that 31,000. What do you think? Something that they don't raise lower, the shade material. Dave's handling it. It's not out of my handling. I can't speak exactly what it is. I just know they don't go up right now, so they're in the down position. I don't know if it's a problem with the material that was chosen, the motors that are in there. Knowing what everything totally costs, I'm just guesstimating it to be about that. That number will be reduced slightly, but still at the end of the day, returning to the town. Roughly, we'll just say $30,000, $29,000 in that ballpark area.

So I don't understand why we would be paying for the new shades. If they came to us and they're not working, it would seem to me there's got to be a problem.

Dave would have to answer that particular question. I just know that I don't want to say that this is the number that's coming back. I know there's just that one little holdout, and that's the final.

So I would just appreciate if you could get to us on a warranty, because I feel like something that new.

Yeah, I would agree with you on that.

Okay. but who's going to cover them is I don't think we should be buying brand new.

Right. I just wanted to, you know, again, just hearing from him that he's handling and what they're, what they're having to do. I just didn't, uh, since I'm the one that's been tracking the finances, I just wanted to leave that as a, um, as a holder, but end of the day, still returning money still came in under budget, um, total on the construction side. The next, uh, sum of money there was, um, through the millstone grant, and you can see what was spent on furniture, fixtures, equipment, supplies, all those sorts of things with a small balance there. Dave had applied for an ARPA grant back when that was all going on for this project, and as you can see, he spent $49,971 of the $50,000 The next section are the 2 reimbursements from the state grant reimbursement so both those checks have been received and put back into the towns counts totaling 708. Oh 3525 cents. So down at the bottom is just a recap of total budget. But the reimbursements with the opera and the millstone grant reimbursements plus the unused construction funds brings the net cost of the town, approximately 627,000 total. There'll be slightly less if we have to, you know, but the whole blinds issue, but so well over 50%, you know, was given to us back in grants and whatnot for the project.

So, Eric, do you have, I don't have it at the top of my head. What was the number that the town approved for this project?

So at the town meeting, it was $1,552,170, I believe. I know it was $1,500, but that included the ARPA grant and included the millstone, which was supposed to be more than that, and that got reduced to $40,000. So that's why the $1,352,170 number is less than what was approved at the town meeting. because those other numbers, when you add it in, got to the 1522 for that.

So we will go to Board of Finance. Any questions on either of you?

No, I mean, this is really good. It's a fantastic job that the whole team did and you to keep the cost down. 627-098 is the final number. is pretty good for what we're getting. I think that's, you know, for what's in there, investment for what's in there. We did really well on that. And the 31 less the 2000 or so for the shades is, will that be carried over or will that just go back to the general fund?

What I'm going to do is, In case we have to pay for any of that, not knowing, I will put in a carryover request for the, just put that money in there. Pay any last bill if we have to. The committee at our last meeting, it was their desire to then, whatever the balance is, let's just call it the $31,000, to ask the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance, to reallocate that money. During the project, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the building enough, The non-brick area is an EFIS system, basically stucco. During the project, we had the whole building power washed and cleaned. It was discovered during that time that the EFIS on the existing parts of the building hadn't been touched probably in 30 years. It needs some work. We didn't want to use any of this construction money because that was outside of the scope of the project. So we do have a quote, which will be included in the carryover to do One or two ways, one being having a seven-year warranty, the other having a 15-year warranty to make the repairs and paint it correctly, and that's about $44,000. So their desire was to ask Board of Selectmen when we get to that point, then the Board of Finance, to carry that instead of putting it back in general and then having to ask for capital again next year. So that is the plan of where we're going to go, and that will be up to you guys and Board of Finance to decide how that take that extra money.

Thank you. I'm sorry, who's online? Somebody want to say something? I mean, it's not Anita, so. Okay. I think because that is an expense that we did not expect that would have to go to a town meeting, but there will be a town meeting for the carryovers and anything, anything, any expenses. I mean, they're still talking about it. Anita's still running numbers.

Mm-hmm.

But if we had to, there'll be a town meeting.

Yeah, so whatever works. It is something that will have to be done, you know, on the building. That's, you know, something maintenance-wise. So that's what the committee thought would be the best use of those funds. But, again, that's up to you guys and the Board of Finance.

Okay.

Any other questions?

No, I mean, it would be nice to have some kind of – presentation on what it is or some photos or something. So we have a better understanding of what the defense.

Yeah, okay. I have the estimate, which will be included in my request for the carryover. But I could also get some pictures or obviously can come speak to a meeting if needed, but we can certainly get that.

Anything else? Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

Okay, now we can move on to the appointments. So there are four appointments for the Lyme Senior Center Board of Directors. These are all three-year terms. They are all regular seats. These individuals currently sit on the board of the Lyme Senior Center Board, and it's Jane Folland, Christina Jenkins-Gataqua, Kathy Lockwood, and Diana Sekla. So could I have a motion to appoint those four people to the line senior center board for three-year terms ending in 2029.

I'll make a motion to reappoint them to the senior center board.

Second.

Any discussion?

Okay. Hearing none, call for a vote. All those in favor of appointing Jane Folland, Christina Gataqua, Kathy Lockwood, and Diana Sekla to the Lyme Senior Center Board for four years. Please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? None. Any abstentions? None. And motion carries. Okay. The next step is because Michael Foliano has stepped down from the Regional Housing River Cog term. We have two people that sit on that regional board. One is Sheila Riffle. And Bonnie Rehm-Snyder has offered to take Michael's spot. She once sat on the board before. I believe she also chaired the board at one time many years ago. So is there anyone who would like to make a motion to nominate Bonnie to the regional housing River Cog There's no term on this, but it's no term in our onboard system, but sometimes River Cog calls us and asks us to reappoint.

Just to clarify, is it one or the other, Sheila or Bonnie Ring?

No, Sheila's on, but Michael and Sheila were sitting on it, and now we need another one.

I'll make a motion to approve Bonnie Ring Snyder for the Regional Housing River Cog Board.

Can I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? Hearing none, call for a vote. All those in favor of appointing Bonnie Rehm-Snyder to the Regional Housing Committee at Rivercock signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Nay.

Any abstentions?

Motion passes.

Okay. Next up is our TRC Phase 1 evaluation. You both got the report that Ryan had sent to us. along with some of his recommendations. I do want you to know that I had a conversation today with Rob McCarthy because this is a field that Rob is in and he is one of our residents. He suggested that we don't move on with anything at this point in time as far as sampling because if sampling is completed, you could be entered into a state program if they found something. So instead he would suggest that we look at the Brownfield grant opportunities for cleanup opportunities and further testing. I did reach out to Binu Chandri, I think her name says Chandri at DECD. She has not returned my phone call from last week, but I will continue to reach out to her to see what opportunities might be available to us for this. I will forward her the report and ask her what we can look into. Any comments from either of you?

I think it would be prudent of us to look for grant opportunities to go to the next phase of testing. I mean, I think that's where we were pretty much in agreement to do when we started looking at this, and it's the responsible thing to do, and trying to do that with an available grant would be the fiscally prudent thing to do at this point.

Okay. I'll see what opportunities lie.

I agree with John.

Okay. So that is where we'll concentrate our efforts. Okay. Water resources. We received on July 4th weekend, we were asked by Connecticut Water to allow a sign to be put up at the police station regarding conserving water. There were some concerns. I believe there were some truckloads of water brought in. one point during the weekend and um joe camion a resident happened to notice this and joe reached out to all three of us to say um that he had some concerns and then i also heard from rocco tadaro from um the shoreline area and he also said they had to bring in tanker trucks he said The sewer project could cause a major impact on the aquifer that is our source of water. The sewers will pipe our much-needed water to New London and not be filtered back into our groundwater. Both Connecticut Water Company and our private wells will be impacted since we draw from the same aquifer. Without water, our beach community is history. That's Rocco's letter that will also go in. Jen, I'll scan all these and send them to you tomorrow. So Joe, I'm not going to read yours because I know that you'd like to come and talk about some of the things that you mentioned and you sent us some more materials today about the aquifer and sea rise, sea level rise, et cetera. So would you like to come up and John, can you see if I will go back on again?

Select persons, thank you so much for paying attention to this citizen. I've been concerned about water for a while. And the reason is I live next to Armstrong Brook. It abuts my property. And in 41 years that I've lived in this town, only in the recent few years have I seen the Brook run dry. Last summer, the pond behind the cross lane fire and emergency station ran dry. I had never seen that before. So I started getting concerned about what's going on with our groundwater. And On July 4th, I'm driving home from celebrating the 4th of July, and I'm driving behind a Connecticut water truck that's labeled emergency water. I'm thinking, whose emergency is this? Well, when private wells dry up, it'll be my emergency. But I know I'm kind of of a mind that we need to worry about the community, the town at large. So I'm concerned not just selfishly for me, but for everybody. So I started looking into... The reality is that I've been opposed to sewering. I think DEEP has forced the mandate on us. It's an $85 million bill and it's going to dewater our aquifers. And I started looking at other communities and I was not surprised to find that wherever there's intensive sewering, the groundwater is depleted. So one of the things that I sent out today, this is NASA. Amazing, NASA maps the groundwater, which I'm expecting that there's a scientific reason for them, which is probably the gravitational pull on their spacecraft and satellites, but it also is telling, they've learned, that they can generate a map globally of groundwater. And if you look at Connecticut, you look at us, we're coming up in the five to 10% to 20% bracket of what was the groundwater on a basis, they're using as a datum, 1948 to 2012. So, you know, pretty clearly, and then more important, you know, I mean, nationally, all the heavy agriculture regions have wiped out their groundwater. And then obviously the high density cities, everything is sewered, has wiped out their groundwater. And then I started researching that, you know, where has this been impacted the worst? Cape May, New Jersey had to put in a desalination plant This is a big ticket item. And here's Deep mandating that we pump the wastewater 15 miles to New London. There's an environmental penalty to doing that. It doesn't get there without burning a lot of energy. And the water that's being discharged to the Sound is not drinkable. So we swim in that water. So why is this just being ignored? So then I started looking at what has Deep done in the way of studying this issue of what I'm worried about is what's called saltwater intrusion. You know, we're surrounded on two sides by saltwater. And I looked at Long Island at first, and what I sent out today, this is a graphic that shows our aquifers. You know, it's basically, it's showing Long Island Sound at the, if you will, the North Shore of Long Island. It's geologically, it's the same. You know, you go down 600 feet, there's not a whole lot of difference between us and Long Island. They have got saltwater intrusion. There's actually three aquifers. And I'm not a hydrologist. I'm a mechanical and marine engineer. But the aquifers are the surface aquifer, which is like the old dug wells around town. The second is sort of an intermediate aquifer. And the bottom is like a bedrock aquifer. Long Island is tapping the bedrock aquifer to large volumes and going west on Long Island to where sewer ring was embedded way earlier. So Long Island's 150 miles long. Brooklyn and Queens have wiped out their groundwater and the saltwater has intruded. Nassau County, that's starting to happen now. Now, at some point, we're getting a little too close for comfort, you know, and that's that's. There's three million people on Long Island. And maybe I'm not trying to call out Long Island. I'm just looking at this and saying, hey, so I looked, what has Connecticut done? Well, the state of Connecticut did a water resource inventory, and that was done in 1978 for the Quinnipiac River Basin. They did all the whole state, but I looked at just coastal for us. So, you know, they did the Quinnipiac River Basin, and they did the lower Connecticut Basin. River Basin, which is us. And I look at this and I see for New Haven, you know, they state over pumping has caused extensive saltwater intrusion in aquifers in the southern and eastern parts of New Haven. Well, if that was not being sewered and pumped into Long Island Sound, it wouldn't be happening. And I looked at us and here's, you know, Lower Connecticut River Basin, which is us. Streams, wetlands, and some aquifers along the south boundary of the basin contain salty water because of tidal movement or extensive groundwater withdrawals. So, I mean, this is reality. And this is DEEP. Before they told us this mandate that you've got to sewer everything, maybe they should have taken a harder look at the groundwater. And this one that I also sent kind of gives you a picture. there's always going to be a gradient for a coastal area. Fresh water is less dense than salt water. So fresh water tends to want to float on top of the salt water. But if you keep dewatering, that salt water boundary creeps its way. So I'm not professing to be a scientist, but my concern is the DEEP needs to be asked, hey, maybe you need to update your study That's number one. And selfishly, I'm looking at it for us, for old line, but they probably need to look at the whole state. And in particular, I went looking at the fact that Connecticut water is tanking water in. That tells me they're probably dried out. As an engineer, these are typically submersible pumps. If it's submersible and you run it out of water, you burn it up. So if they're bringing in truckloads of water, it's because they can't run their pumps anymore. And I don't know for sure. I'm just total hypothesis here that they've run a well dry. I went looking on websites for Connecticut Water and other, trying to find out how many wells, what kind of capacities, what kind of depths, and I'm finding nothing. What I could find is that there's numbers ranging up to 13 wells that they've got in Old Lyme. Some abandoned. Why are they abandoned? Another concern with abandoned wells that I've learned is if wells are drilled down deep enough and abandoned, you can have this intrusion problem contaminate the lower layers as well. So what procedure for well abandonment? They just walk away from it? Maybe it needs to be somehow sealed. So my question to the Board of Select Persons is, I'd like to know, You know, what has been the impact of the sewering of Point of Woods? Connecticut Water supplied water to Point of Woods before sewering, and now they're supplying water after sewering. Has the consumption gone up? I'm going to hypothesize that it has. There's a hell of a lot of motivation to conserve if you've got a septic system that won't accept an unlimited amount of water. Sewer system, open the faucets and let them run. So I'm very concerned that there has potentially been a significant increase because why only in recent years are they tanker trucking water in? I don't know if it's been going on before, but that's the first time I saw it. It kind of took me aback when I did see it.

It definitely happened the first year, first or second year that I was a select person because Matt Warren at the time was on duty and he was at Cross Lane. And it was also like a holiday. I think it was the same thing, 4th of July.

It's a high density weekend for the beach communities, I guess. So my concern is, how many wells do they have? What is the extraction rates? In particular, what was the extraction rate for Point of Woods before and after sewering? Because I think that's a pretty good litmus test of what might be happening if we continue with the sewering.

So do we know for sure that they're bringing water in as opposed to? bringing it out it's a good question um i was actually hoping they'd be bringing it out because they had contaminated water so that they bring yeah so yeah that's where i was going with that because they had the the e-coli yeah uh outbreak and they were saying that you know we were okay and then i saw your you know your email was right before that so were they filling up their trucks over here yeah yeah yeah like i it almost seemed like maybe they were

Yeah, I'm thinking... Moving water. Yeah, I'm thinking because there's already a history of them bringing water in, I'm guessing that's what they were doing.

They found out the reason for the E. coli.

They did?

Yes. One of the town buildings in Essex had had some work done on their pipes in the ground, and they didn't happen to tell anyone when this alarm went off that this had been done until like 24 hours later and go, Oh, maybe it was because we opened up the pipes and things happened and there could have been some seepage. And so once they got that information and once they realized where the testing had been done, it certainly had been done there and they made some corrections quickly.

And one other thing that I've noted is I have three adult daughters. I've got one that moved back to town. I'm trying to get a second one to move back to town because I like my grandchildren with me. But therefore, we've been looking at houses. I sent you a photograph of a brand new house. The well was drilled in 2023, maybe. I forget. Whatever's on the tag. I took a picture of a well tank. 645 foot deep. That's going to the bedrock layer of the aquifers. And the bedrock layer, again, from what I've been reading, not being a hydrogeologist, Some of that water is ancient water. It takes a long time to get down that deep. So if we are now, in an ordinary manner, tapping the deepest aquifer because you can't get enough GPM out of a shallower well, that's a real concern.

We're also developing areas that are on bedrock that we weren't able to develop before, but as real estate values go up, people don't mind paying for the kind of site work they need to do to develop to put a house on a ledge. So we're seeing them having to go, you know, trying to drill wells to find water striking out and going down, like you say, 600 feet into the bedrock.

And so my last question, I know you guys have a lot to do, and I do appreciate, you know, especially coming to meetings after hours. The last question I have is, is there any evidence of saltwater intrusion thus far? Because this is serious. You know, if Deep's going to insist on sewering, as I said in my comments, which I gave to zoning, then maybe they should start preparing to pay for putting in a whole water system, a public water system throughout town, inclusive of probably surface reservoirs and or desalinization. And that's like a doomsday. We shouldn't have to get to that. So I'd like to see some intelligent attention to what is happening right now.

Okay. Well, I know that the Our town, WPCA, I know has encouraged some people to have their wells checked. So I don't know if they have results yet, but I would certainly ask them to get back to us on that. And we can further discuss this as select people.

I think, Joe, I was really happy to get your email because I think you've hit on something that I've been worried about for 20 years now. And I think it's going to be the biggest question we're going to have to face. and decades ahead is water. We see a structural deficit in water regionally and this attempt to regionalize water systems. Groton has one of the biggest reservoirs of water. The casinos, once they build out, and we know what the plans are from Mohegan at least, they are going to require a very large amount of water that will put this region into a structural deficit. Like you, I've been against the regionalization of our water resources here. I think we're this breath of fresh air. Natural environment's been preserved here. And the last thing we want to do is take what we have of our resources and have it be shipped out willy-nilly across the regional system, leaving us in a deficit, leaving us in a situation where we will have saltwater intrusion or be beholden to whatever company decides to serve us and what that price is going to be. And there is a lot of mystery as to what our resources even are. And I think one of the first things we need to do, and I I've just begun preliminary inquiries on this is to actually get an inventory of what our wells are, what, you know, because the town owns some of these wells, what condition they're in, what they produce. Some of this is sensitive material. It's classified. So it's not going, you know, it's not like I can just have Connecticut Water give me all this information or you have, you know, but we need to set up and I think we need to have a serious discussion on how we proceed to even begin to wrap our minds around what is our capacity? How do we serve the current population, never mind development? And how do we maintain an independent water supply in this town? Because that speaks to resilience. You know, we keep seeing over and over and over again, people talking about natural solutions, resiliency after the horse has left the barn, you know, and it's so much easier to do it in the beginning and say, well, we're not going to compromise our supply, and we're going to try and remain self-sufficient in terms of water, which will help our resiliency. And why squander it away for whatever developmental reasons or because of inaction? And 30 years from now, we say, oh, my God, we need to be more self-reliant in our water resources. Once we lose it, we lose it. So I think we're at that tipping point right now where We have to have this discussion and we have to preserve our natural resources, whether that will be land acquisition to have a possible protection of an aquifer that's currently not being used as an aquifer. That may be a very good investment for this town. But I don't know what the exact mechanism is for how we begin this process, what we're allowed to do, what the protocols are. But obviously, this is something that we need to involve public works. So we need to involve whoever is administering the town lands where the water is being pumped out of and Connecticut water. And some of it's going to be classified. So some of it will have to have security clearances. And I hope you have an interest in this, Joe, and you're leading on. I hope you can help us out on that, too. And a lot of people have been talking about it. So I think it's an issue I would like to keep on the agenda and not let it fall off and pursue this.

If it comes to an emergency situation, very, very costly to deal with also. Stanford, I forget how long ago, probably when I was still operating my engineering practice. I've been retired for seven years now. So probably 10 years ago, maybe. Stanford dried out their reservoirs to the point where the city was out of water. They ran a pipeline from Bridgeport along the Merritt Parkway on the surface. I don't know if any of you guys remember this, but there was like an 18-inch black pipe run along the shoulder of the Merritt Parkway between Bridgeport and Stanford. And the only reason that they got away without a nightmare, people not having water, Bridgeport, having been heavily industrialized, had massive reservoir capacity, and that provided enough water that they were able to supply Bridgeport and Stanford before it became cataclysmic. So we have been having seasonal droughts, and this year it's rained a little bit, but we've gone through maybe two or three summers where it just hasn't rained. And the drought monitor, the USDA drought monitor, that's an updated thing you can go on. And it still shows us as being drier than normal, basically. So that's all I've got. I don't want to take any more of your time. I thank you so much. And, yes, I am interested to help out in the case if I can.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further comments on that topic?

Yeah, I just think the first step is to contact Connecticut Water and ask what exactly – transpired with what Joe sign us. Are they taking water out? Are they bringing water in? What's their policy and what procedures are they following? So we can get, I mean, that's, I think we just need to get a handle on exactly what's going on.

I'm happy to give a phone call to CT water, to our rep and talk to him. And would you like him to come online at one of our meetings so that we could ask questions ourselves?

That'd be great.

All right. I'll see if I can get him to do that.

I know they've expanded their service over the last few years, which has led to situations on supply that they've run into. So I know that they're maxed out. And I think we need to have a discussion.

I believe there was a moratorium that they could not take any more customers at this time.

There's currently a moratorium. So they can't hook up one more house at this point. But I think that John is correct. I think it's a great first step. And if we can talk to them, that's an excellent first step to take. And I think our second step needs to be some kind of a rigorous analysis of what our water capacity is and what the current state of our wells are.

I would hope that we could get more updated information off of DEEP in 2018 or 2008, seeing that they should be doing it constantly, not just every 10 years or so. Any else on water resources? Okay, so we can move on to Selectmen's general discussion. I just want Jen to you to be aware that our August 3rd meeting will be canceled because of some travel itineraries that we have to fit in, but we will only have our August 17th meeting at that time for next month. And then on, I just want everyone to be aware of the mark, the buoys that have been stolen, not stolen, destroyed, vandalized and stolen. Mike Presti held a press conference with, I believe it was Channel 8 this afternoon, and informed them. But we've had three buoys stolen that we I just received, we had received grant money for them. They run about $750 to $800 per pop. Our hardware master had installed them. And the first one looked more like it had really been vandalized. It almost looked somebody had cut it off with a machete of some sort.

Saw. Saw. So they're no wake buoys.

Yeah. Lieutenant River, Connecticut River.

Where's the third? The back river.

And the back river. So- We've invested money into it. And I know that Hamburg Cove, I guess, also said that one of theirs was vandalized as well. And it told our harbor master as such. But if you know anyone who has cameras on the rivers, who can see the buoys or can go back and look at anything over the weekend, it happened on, we believe, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening. And so we're looking to see who would do this. and gain more information if necessary.

Anybody else? Channel 3. Sorry, it was Channel 3.

Katie's reminding me it was not Channel 8. It was Channel 3. I'm sorry. Any other further general discussion?

Yeah, I'd like to talk about fireworks. Okay. I think Judith Archer's letter was an interesting one. And a lot of people recently have been flagging concerns with traditional fireworks in terms of their impact on pets, in terms of their impact on people with PTSD, in terms of their environmental impact. And of course, up until recently, You don't want to spoil July 4th celebrations, and you don't want to spoil a tradition that's about as old as our country is selling off fireworks. So I've always been kind of a pro-fireworks sort of a guy. But here in town, we do have a fireworks show that's over land rather than over water. So I think it does have an impact on the neighborhood that's a little greater than some of the other traditional fireworks shows that happen over water. It is the second one that happens in town, and so our fire marshal has two of them to tend to, one the private show that he has to supervise, and this one.

And there's one this weekend. At Point of Woods, we have three this year.

So that's a burden, and I'm wondering if we can begin a discussion and look into drone show, light show type things, because that's proven to be very popular, very successful, if anyone saw footage of boston's uh america 250 celebration they had a pretty awesome drone show and i know saybrook just did one um i know it's cheaper and a lot less uh you know of an impact on on our resources in terms of the fire marshals so i know we like to to have it in the center of town and we like to have it at the end of the midsummer festivities that's a tradition so She had talked about moving the date or moving the location, and there's a lot of reasons that we're kind of locked into that. But I thought maybe we, since, you know, we're a year out now, we can at least start a discussion about considering a drone show for that particular event or something like that and price it out and get opinions and bring it to, you know, public discussion.

John?

I think it is very traditional. I think there might be some pushback from other people in the public about that. We can certainly have a discussion, but I wouldn't want to do anything without substantial public input.

Okay. Yeah, agreed. I think that's, you know, why we should probably start now instead of in April or May.

Yeah, just have that discussion. Initial cost that I heard was about $40,000 for the Saybrook show, but... I would think that it would be nice if we could do some type of whatever show. But if we maybe pooled our money, we could do something, whether it's yearly or every other year, and do something all together so that everyone could enjoy it and have less impact on the wherever you decide to do it. Anyway, I mean, I will say that the show on Saturday was very well done. We got everybody cleared out. I think within 20 to 30 minutes, the parking lot was empty. And I think it was a very nice evening. And the old Limetown band did a wonderful job.

Anyone else? Nothing? Anything else?

Okay. So can I have a motion to adjourn at 621?

Make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor. Okay, motion passes.